After JD Vance’s frontal strike in Munich in 2014, the US secretary of state’s tone seemed nearly calming. That’s just a brand-new Maga catch
The bright side from the Munich Security Conference is that there was no dramatic deterioration in the transatlantic partnership. After the shock of in 2014’s event, when JD Vance stunned the audience with a frontal United States attack on Europe’s liberal freedoms, the apparently more conciliatory tone struck by Marco Rubio was greeted by many existing, consisting of Wolfgang Ischinger, a veteran German mediator and the seminar chair, as “reassuring”. Indeed, the US assistant of state obtained a standing ovation in the room– a gesture possibly even more of relief than of adulation. Is the Trump management’s message to Europe actually any type of various now from that consisted of in Vance’s assault 12 months earlier? What catches are being laid and what lessons ought to Europeans draw?A year back, Vance accused Europe of succumbing to the alleged tyranny and censorship of woke liberals and losing sight of the cultural bonds that link the two shores of the Atlantic. His attack frustrated European leaders, that, while usually vulnerable to navel-gazing concerning their interior struggles, do rule out limitations on cost-free speech a key concern. The US vice-president stunned Munich by firmly insisting that Europe’s biggest risk was the woke “danger from within”, even as he endorsed reactionary nationalists including Germany’s AfD. The disrespect was so deep that this year the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, used his opening address to release a blunt caution regarding American unilateralist worths, proclaiming that “the society war of the Maga movement is not ours”.
Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist
Source: The Guardian