Opinion
By Yannis Palaiologos
The ever-incisive Yaroslav Trofimov, in his dispatch-analysis from the Munich Security Conference, described the transatlantic relationship as a “marriage of convenience, without love and with a fundamental deficit of trust.” After 13 months of Trump 2.0, after Greenland, the suffocating pressure on Kyiv and the flirtations with Putin, the tariffs and sanctions against Europeans defending the EU’s digital sovereignty, the verdict could be even harsher. One could plausibly cast Europe as the abused partner struggling to break free from dependency. Marco Rubio’s rhetorically polished speech in Munich was not enough to obscure the painful truth. Europe, at least, despite the difficult choices before it, now seems finally to recognize it.
AWKWARD IN MUNICH. Donald Trump’s decision to send Rubio to Munich this year instead of J.D. Vance could, by his standards, be described as conciliatory. Vance’s speech last year marked the latest rupture in the transatlantic alliance, which has since drifted dangerously close to an open break. Rubio struck a softer tone than Vance, emphasizing the shared mistakes Americans and Europeans made after the Cold War, highlighting America’s European roots, and insisting that “the United States and Europe belong together.”
Still, it was clear that beneath the smoother delivery, the message hadn’t changed: Europe must become more Trumpian, or pay the price. Or, as the anti-Trump site The Bulwark put it: “Rubio to Europe: we’re beating you because we love you.” Europeans, still shaken by the Greenland crisis, do not appear to have been persuaded by the tonal shift (though publicly Ursula von der Leyen said she felt “very reassured”).
The U.S. secretary of state, once among Ukraine’s most ardent backers in the Senate, underscored his alignment with the MAGA worldview by canceling at the last minute his participation in a Munich meeting with America’s European “allies” on the trajectory of peace talks. After his speech, he traveled to Budapest and Bratislava, the two EU member states with the most openly Russophile governments.
On Monday, with Viktor Orbán beaming beside him, Rubio spoke of a “golden age” in U.S.-Hungary relations and said President Trump is “deeply committed” to the success of the Hungarian leader’s government. Orbán faces the toughest election of his sixteen years in power this April, and Washington appears willing to help where it can (Trump formally endorsed him on Truth Social earlier this month).
PRESSURING THE VICTIM INSTEAD OF THE AGGRESSOR. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was among the high-profile attendees in Munich. In his conference remarks, Zelensky called Putin a “slave of war,” highlighted Russia’s massive recent losses, and underscored the heavy toll of relentless Russian bombardments on Ukrainian cities. Asked afterward by Christiane Amanpour about the possibility of holding elections (something the White House, as we noted last week, has been pressing him on), Zelensky said it would be feasible if Trump could secure a two-month ceasefire. On Saturday, he met with European allies in the Bavarian capital—without the Americans present.
All this as Trump has returned to a familiar refrain, pressing Ukraine for further concessions to reach a peace deal. On Saturday, the U.S. president said his Ukrainian counterpart “has to start moving,” or else “he will lose a big opportunity.”
In an interview with Axios, Zelensky called it “unfair” that Washington is pressuring Kyiv rather than Moscow. In a post on X, he also voiced frustration at U.S. insistence on territorial concessions before Congress formally approves security guarantees.
On Monday, Zelensky hosted two Democratic senators in Kyiv, with Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal stressing the need to pass the bipartisan sanctions package against Russia, of which he is one of the two principal sponsors. The bill has been stalled for months because of Trump’s reluctance to support it. Republican Senator Roger Wicker said in Munich that sanctions would come to a vote in the “next two weeks.” We’ll see.
Meanwhile, as expected, Monday’s Russia-Ukraine meeting in Geneva produced nothing of substance.
THE CLOUDS KEEP DARKENING. On Iran, it was another week of drawn-out suspense, with fresh talks but also new threats from both sides. On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran and Washington had reached a mutual understanding on the “guiding principles” for a potential nuclear deal and spoke of “good progress” in the indirect talks held in Geneva. But he offered no specifics about the substance of the discussions, or whether they extended beyond the nuclear file to Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and its network of regional proxy forces. No date has been set for the next round.
On Monday, Iran’s armed forces conducted live-fire drills in the Strait of Hormuz under the Revolutionary Guard navy. On Tuesday, Russian and Chinese vessels joined Iranian ships in exercises in the strait, while today joint Iran-Russia drills will take place in the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean.
Trump, for his part, said bluntly on Friday that regime change would be “the best thing” for Iran. On Sunday, Reuters reported that U.S. forces are preparing for the possibility of large-scale, prolonged operations against Iran if negotiations fail. American air power already assembled in the region is the largest since the Iraq invasion, with CNN reporting the U.S. could strike as soon as this weekend.
THE END OF THE OCCUPATION. The end of the ICE operation in Minnesota, which, among other consequences, led to the killing of two American citizens by agency agents, was announced last Thursday by Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan. By Sunday, according to Homan, more than 1,000 agents had withdrawn from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul), with hundreds more set to leave in the coming days, leaving behind a “small” security presence.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has remained partially shut down since last Saturday, as Democrats and the White House have failed to reach agreement on the terms under which ICE will operate. Immigration—once a political strong suit for Trump both during the campaign and after the early-term success in sealing the border—now threatens to become a “Waterloo” for the president because of the excesses of the mass-deportation policy he so aggressively pursued.
IN BRIEF. Mark Carney is not stopping at rhetoric. After his landmark Davos speech on the need for middle powers to cooperate more closely to withstand pressure from the great powers, the Canadian prime minister appears to have taken on a coordinating role in talks between the CPTPP trade bloc (12 countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Vietnam, and Japan) and the EU aimed at tightening commercial ties. Together, the two blocs represent a population of 1.5 billion.
U.S. forces bombed three more vessels Monday night that the Pentagon claims were carrying drugs from South America to the United States, killing 11 people. The death toll from such strikes has reached 144 since early September. Legal experts and Democratic lawmakers accuse the administration of unlawful civilian killings, noting that no state of war exists with the cartels.
The White House appeared unfazed by revelations that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, despite past claims he cut all contact with Jeffrey Epstein after 2005, visited Epstein with his family on the financier’s notorious private island in 2012. Records show the relationship continued later, including Lutnick inviting Epstein to a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in 2015 and Epstein donating $50,000 at a dinner in Lutnick’s honor in 2017.
$20 million. That is the amount Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, plans to funnel into a political action committee ahead of the November midterms, primarily to counter policies favored by its chief rival, OpenAI. Anthropic emphasizes the need for strict regulation of the powerful new technology, in contrast to OpenAI’s focus on rapid, largely unconstrained development. At the same time, Anthropic, whose software was used in the operation to abduct Nicolás Maduro, is clashing with the Pentagon over terms governing use of its technology, with Defense Department leadership rejecting the company’s proposed restrictions.
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“The three big powers of Europe said all the right things in Munich. The leaders of Germany, France and Britain want to turn Europe into a geopolitical force, given the threat from Russia and the fact that they can no longer rely on the United States. Now they must move from words to deeds.
The key will be for Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz to set aside their difficult personal relationship and work for the common good. The French president must realize he will achieve nothing in the final year of his term if he cannot work well with the German chancellor. For his part, Merz must understand that all his European plans will be obstructed without Macron’s help.
Britain’s role is also critical. Together with France, it is Europe’s leading military power. But Brexit has disconnected it from the heart of Europe. Keir Starmer says he wants closer ties with the EU. The British prime minister must now be bold. If Europe’s big three act decisively, I dare even to hope that Britain will return to the EU within a decade.”
-Hugo Dixon, commentator-at-large, Reuters Breakingviews
The saying that misfortunes come in clusters seems to apply neatly to CBS, which was acquired in summer 2024 by David Ellison’s Skydance, the son of Trump mega-billionaire backer Larry Ellison. Popular comedian Stephen Colbert, whose satire frequently targets the president, posted on YouTube Monday night an interview with James Talarico, the charismatic Democratic Senate hopeful in Texas. Colbert told viewers the interview would appear online because network lawyers, bowing to pressure from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), barred it from the broadcast. (On YouTube, the interview hit 1 million views in 11 hours and surpassed 6 million in under 48.)
It is the latest in a string of CBS concessions to Trump, from the $16 million settlement over Kamala Harris’s campaign interview to the decision not to air the report on Venezuelans deported to CECOT. Colbert’s show, it bears noting, is in its final season after being canceled by the network. It is also worth noting that Skydance-Paramount continues to pursue Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of CNN, a frequent Trump target, with which it has reopened talks.
- Watch James Talarico’s interview with Stephen Colbert, which CBS tried to block
- Sarah Longwell writes about the disillusionment of young Trump voters and how Democrats might exploit it
- Professor Stephen Walt speaks with the FT’s Gideon Rachman about Trump and “predatory hegemony”
- Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, speaks to The New Yorker’s Political Scene about what happens when a megalomaniac leader begins to fail
- The major European Council on Foreign Relations public-opinion survey across 13 European countries is worth your attention (when asked whether they view the U.S. as an ally, Poles were most positive at 31%, the Swiss most disillusioned at just 8%)
- Danish newspaper Berlingske reports on Senator Lindsey Graham’s disgraceful outburst in Munich at Denmark’s prime minister, whom he called a “little lady.”
