Offer to join Trump’s new era is met with growing sense of European steeliness

2026-02-15 - 16:15

Talk of a stronger, independent Europe was the dominant mood in Munich amid bitter disagreement on Ukraine If JD Vance’s thuggish speech last year to the Munich Security Conference directed at the solar plexus of Europe marked the moment when a transatlantic break up started, this weekend’s subsequent event, in a rainy and cold Bavaria, was where the debate about the terms of the divorce settlement got under way. Marco Rubio, the chosen Washington representative this year, is a diplomat, so he softened the Trumpian tone with references to German beer, the Beatles, Dante and the Mayflower. But his speech remained a stern warning that if Europe wanted to continue on its path of civilisational decline, as this US administration sees it, America will not be interested and has different hemispheres on which to focus. Continue reading...