US Vice President JD Vance launched a withering attack on Friday against European policies on immigration, populist parties, and free speech, echoing President Donald Trump whom he called Washington’s “new sheriff in town”. Vance’s speech — which focussed on key themes of Trump’s election campaign — was a combative broadside at the Munich Security Conference at a time of transatlantic discord over Ukraine, defence, and trade.
Vance stressed that Europe must “step up” in managing its own security, a key bone of contention. But he mostly lambasted the EU’s members on culture war issues.
“There is a new sheriff in town under Donald Trump’s leadership,” said Vance in a speech that stunned the room, and was later condemned as “unacceptable” by German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
Vance slammed EU “commissars” for stifling free expression and charged that “across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat”.
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Trump, speaking in Washington, doubled down on Vance’s attack on traditional US allies.
“I heard his speech. He talked about freedom of speech. And I think it’s true in Europe,” the President told reporters at the White House. “They’re losing their wonderful right of freedom of speech.”
“And he talked about immigration, and Europe has a big immigration problem.”
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had earlier made clear that Berlin’s relationship with Washington had sharply deteriorated since Trump’s return.
“The new American administration has a very different worldview to ours,” Steinmeier said. “One that has no regard for established rules, partnership, and established trust.”
Immigration
The German head of state urged European leaders to keep calm in the face of a blizzard of disruptive policy announcements from Washington. “We must not freeze in fear, or as the English saying goes: Let’s not be a deer caught in the headlights.”
Vance, undeterred, in a later speech urged European countries, including conference host Germany, which faces elections on February 23, to “change course” on immigration.
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His remarks came a day after a 24-year-old Afghan man was arrested in Munich over a car-ramming attack that wounded 36 people. “How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilisation in a new direction?” he said.
“Why did this happen in the first place? It’s a terrible story but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe and unfortunately too many times in the United States as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community.”
Defending political parties that oppose immigration and their supporters, Vance added: “No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.”
‘Meddling’
Germany warned Friday against foreign “meddling” in its politics after Vance also called for a bigger role for Europe’s anti-immigration parties, nine days before the German general election.
Vance told the Wall Street Journal: “Unfortunately, the will of voters has been ignored by a lot of our European friends.”
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) looks set for its best-ever result of around 20 percent in the election and has received enthusiastic backing from tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk.
Vance met on the sidelines of the conference with AfD leader Alice Weidel, according to German press.
Vance additionally warned Germany to get used to Musk weighing in, just as the United States tolerated criticism by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
“If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” he said.
Pistorius blasted Vance, saying “democracy was called into question by the US vice president for the whole of Europe”. “He is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes… that is not acceptable.”