Europe scrambles for Ukraine influence after bracing Vance speech
The Trump administration may have given America's European allies mixed messages, but Vance’s speech gave them clarity as tensions between burst into the open.
The Trump administration may have given America's European allies mixed messages in recent weeks, but Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech in Germany on Friday provided them with crystal clarity in a week when tensions between the United States and its longstanding friends burst into the open.
With a blistering attack on Europe's culture, commitment to democracy, migration policies and the “danger from within,” Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference — which was supposed to focus on the war in Ukraine — tore up Washington's decadeslong alliances.
“Across Europe, free speech I fear is in retreat,” he said, before echoing the concerns of President Donald Trump and accusing leaders of letting in "millions of unvetted immigrants."
Vance's silence on the almost three-year-long war also sent a clear message to Kyiv, according to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending," he told the conference in Munich. "From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that.”
Vance’s dismissal of Ukraine spoke to the broader view that the U.S. no longer considers European involvement in negotiations with Russia as vital to peace talks.
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