James Ball
Political editor at The New World
Until very recently, there was a long-established norm that Western democracies largely stayed out of one another’s domestic politics. The leaders of the US need to do business with whichever party is currently running the UK, or France, or Germany, and so keep out of their business – and expect the same in return.
Donald Trump’s administration, though, ripped up that rulebook as soon as it came into power. In February 2025, Vice President JD Vance used his first speech in Europe to launch a blistering attack on the continent’s leaders – saying they were allowing unchecked migration, cracking down on free speech, and acting against their own voters.
The US followed this up with a national security strategy explicitly aimed at “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”. Trump and Vance have made it clear, repeatedly, that they are no friends of moderate politicians in Europe.
