Europe

Postcard From Brussels: My Day in the Capital of Declining Europe

Last week at an event at the European Parliament, an MEP asked me a question that I hear often: “Does JD Vance hate Europe?”

My guess is that he does not hate the Europe of tête de veau in a Rive Gauche brasserie in Paris, of Sunday mass at the Duomo in Milan, of Alpine lakes in Switzerland, or of paintings at the Alte Pinothek in Munich. What he hates is Brussels, or rather, “Brussels”—the symbol of official, bureaucratic Europe, and the dictatorship of managerial liberalism administered from there. He hates the Europe of decrees from the European Commission, of the Digital Services Act circumscribing the access of EU citizens to knowledge and information, and of the EU ruling class refusing to face the overwhelming problem of mass migration, and act to stop it.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, European Union

‘Tyranny in Disguise’: Will Democracy Survive in Europe?

February 14, 2025. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance delivers remarks in Germany, at the Munich Security Conference. The audience expects him to talk about foreign policy, geopolitics, and threats facing the world.

Instead, he says that the most worrying threat today is “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” He adds that European countries and institutions are undermining democracy and freedom of speech — and gives examples.

“A former European commissioner,” Vance states, “went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEU, Europe, European Union

Trump threatens 50% tariffs on EU and 25% on iPhones

US President Donald Trump has said he is recommending a 50% tariff on all goods from the European Union being imported to the United States.

“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!” he wrote in a post on social media on Friday. He said the new tariffs would kick in on 1 June.

The announcement marks an escalation of Trump’s trade war with the EU. He initially proposed a 20% tariff on most EU goods, but halved it to 10% until 8 July to allow time for talks.

The president also threatened to impose a 25% import tax “at least” on iPhones not manufactured in America.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, USA

Why are Europeans so untroubled by their ignorance of America?

Americans are infamous on the eastern side of the Atlantic for knowing little or nothing about European culture, history and politics – and for being proud of the fact, as Richard Hofstadter, the late Columbia historian, described in them in Anti-intellectualism in American Life, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1964.

Much less widely recognized is how little Europeans know about America, Americans and their own civilization – an ignorance that troubles them not at all, perhaps because they seem to be unaware of the fact.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, USA

EU offers Trump removal of all industrial tariffs

BRUSSELS — The EU has offered the United States a “zero-for-zero” tariff scheme, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday, seeking to avoid a tit-for-tat trade war.

“We have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods as we have successfully done with many other trading partners. Because Europe is always ready for a good deal. So we keep it on the table,” she told a press conference alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Liberation Day", EU, Europe, USA

Disentangle from Europe

Marine Le Pen was just banned from running for president of France for five years. That’s more like forever. Le Pen is deemed a criminal and sentenced to wear an electronic tag for a couple years. A French court claims she embezzled. But why would we believe a French court any more than we believe a Manhattan or D.C. district court? Trump’s been through those wringers.

Macron and his mates did to Le Pen what Romanian elites did to Calin Georgescu, the populist candidate for president there. Reportedly, he was the frontrunner. If you smell a rat, you’re right.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, USA

After Trump’s broad tariffs, Europe reels from the loss of an old ally

ROME — In announcing plans to rebuild post-World War II Europe, then-U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall linked security with economics. Without the United States doing whatever it could to promote “normal economic health in the world,” he said, “there can be no political stability and no assured peace.”

Nearly 80 years later, America’s closest allies in Europe see President Donald Trump’s tariffs as another blow to a fast-fracturing Western alliance that had stood as the most successful peace project of modern times — one whose pillars included shared democratic values, a strategic goal to contain Moscow as well as flourishing flows of trade and investment.

I don’t think anyone expected the Marshall Plan to be a permanent US financial obligation.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, European Union, USA

Lies, The Spirit of Munich, and JD Vance

In Washington this week, Vice President JD Vance introduced the documentary series based on my 2020 bestseller Live Not By Lies, which is about the lessons anti-communist dissidents of the Soviet bloc have for us today. In the book (which has been translated into most European languages), I talk about the “soft totalitarianism” of wokeness and left-wing illiberalism, and feature interviews with former dissidents who warn that we are facing a new form of oppression in the West—one with striking similarities to what they endured under the Soviets.

Some of these people—Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, and others—appear in the four-part documentary, telling their stories and warning contemporary people to wake up while there is still time.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope

Europe Is No Longer Worth Defending

Since we no longer share the same ideals of freedom and democracy, we should no long shoulder their burdens.

Monday morning’s edition of the RealClear Politics news aggregator contained a very interesting manifestation of their usual juxtaposition of left vs. right thought pieces. It looked like this…

The articles themselves were no less notable in their approach to the dissipating relationship between a MAGA Revivalist America and a globalist declining Europe.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, USA

Germany leads defiance to Trump car tariffs, saying it ‘will not give in’

Germany has said it “will not give in” and that Europe must “respond firmly” as US President Donald Trump targets imported cars and car parts with a 25% tax in his latest tariffs.

Other major world economies have vowed to retaliate, with France’s president branding the move “a waste of time” and “incoherent”, Canada calling it a “direct attack”, and China accusing Washington of violating international trade rules.

Carmaker stocks from Japan to Germany dipped. In the US, General Motors dropped 7%, while Ford fell more than 2%.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Europe, USA

Euros for Russia’s next invasion – From Paris to Berlin, actions don’t match the grandiose verbiage.

Europe’s hypocrisy is on full display today.

As leaders meet in Paris to plan the continent’s defence, several European countries are sending wads of cash to the belligerent Kremlin in exchange for convenient oil and gas.

Think-tank Ember has found that the EU put €21.9 billion into Russian coffers in 2024, with gas imports up 18% on the previous year. EU support for Ukraine in 2024 was €18.7 billion.

Hungary and Slovakia, the usual suspects, bear heavy responsibility for the stark figures. But also unable to turn off the Russian gas tap is France – who today hosts 31 European leaders to develop plans to counter the Russian security threat.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Europe, European Union

Europe Confronts Reality That Vance’s Hostility Is More Than Just a Show

European leaders had hoped that Vice President JD Vance’s antagonism was a political show to build domestic support. Now, after Vance expressed disdain for Europe in a private text chat about Yemen attack details, officials are coming to terms with a vocal vice president whose antipathy for Europe appears to run deep.

“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” he said regarding planned U.S. strikes against Houthi rebels, in an exchange published by the Atlantic magazine. He told fellow administration officials that the U.S. was “making a mistake” by hitting the Houthis, whose attacks on Red Sea shipping have scrambled global shipping routes.

He noted that only “3 percent of US trade runs through the Suez. 40 percent of European trade does.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replied to Vance’s comments: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, European Union, USA

The ‘Signal Scandal’: Trump’s Cabinet Drops Truth Bombs on Europe

The Trump administration’s leaked—if you can call it that—discussions of war plans made headlines across the globe after a staffer working for National Security Adviser Mike Waltz (inadvertently) added a magazine editor to the senior officials’ group chat.

While American media questioned how on earth this major faux pas could occur, European commenters have been scandalized by the brutality of Team Trump’s behind-the-scenes talk regarding Europe.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, European Union, USA

Why the Trump White House hates Europe

Donald Trump’s cabinet inviting a journalist to a group chat to discuss bombing Yemen’s Houthi rebels must have given American security officials a collective heart attack.

But, for European and British officials, the most alarming aspect of the extraordinary affair was the single dissenting voice in the conversation that played out on Signal.

“I think we are making a mistake,” JD Vance, the vice president, texted from an economics event in Michigan as defence secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA director John Ratcliffe, among others, weighed up striking the Iran-backed Houthis.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEurope, European Union, USA