“Practice what you preach”, the saying goes, but is the US and its new administration doing so? As we enter a world of political weakening and fragility, the United States further reshapes its foreign policy, setting forward a transatlantic divide, disrupting the status quo of other countries, and turning against its closest allies. With Trump 2.0, we have entered a world in which the role of the United States at the international level is much more isolationist, redefining its role at the global stage towards unilateralism under the premise of “America First.” Yet, how far can The White House turn its back on its most essential and strategic alliances? How far can Trump take his disregard for international institutions, trade agreements, and military alliances before it starts to backfire on US global influence and economic stability? It is imminent that wounds are already forming in the trust and stability of the long-standing post-war diplomatic relations that the United States has had with Europe or neighbors such as Canada.
The weekend of February 14-16, world leaders met at the Munich Security Conference, held annually at the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the center of the Bavarian capital, to discuss the most pressing challenges to international security. Yet, Vice President Vances’s speech had little to do with security, instead the US Vice President devoted the entire speech to criticising the European order by “comparing conditions in some parts of Europe to those in authoritarian regimes.” (O. Scholz, Munich Security Conference 2025)
During his speech, Vance expressed that what he worries about “vis-à-vis Europe the most, is not Russia, is not China or any other external adversary.” Instead what he worries about the most is “the threat from within.” He then accused Britain, Sweden, and Germany of undermining “our shared values” by “censoring” dissent and excluding the far-right wing parties from governance. The interventionist approach of his speech reflects a new diplomatic hardline moving away from the liberal post-war order and causing strained relations between the United States and the European Union. A continuation of this policy could result in a massive backlash towards the United States, with China strengthening economic alliances with states affected by Trump’s new policies and forcing Ukraine into a humiliating peace agreement by ceding territory to the hands of Putin, hence further strengthening Russia’s influence and power towards the West.
There’s no doubt that the American foreign policy is in a state of cheap, miscalculated, self-destructive diplomacy characterised by unnecessary, self-inflicting harm. They are shooting themselves on their own foot; the exclusion of the German Chancellor from bilateral talks marked a severe rebuke to the leader of the host country and deteriorated trust of America’s closest ally in the European Union.
Time for the US to teach others what they fail to uphold: Democracy.
Lecturing European leaders about democracy and freedom of speech is a ridiculously hypocritical statement to make, especially when the United States finds itself in its worst democratic backsliding phase in the post-World War II era, downgrading for the first time from full democracy to flawed democracy during Trump’s first term in 2017. The United States is not even close anymore to Germany or Sweden in terms of quality of democracy; both countries, which were criticised by Vance, are positioned in the top 5 for quality of democracy after Denmark, Norway, and Finland.
Trump’s administration has no room to criticise democracy when it is failing to uphold democratic standards in its own territory. This is an administration led by a president who has been tried with impeachment twice for degrading democratic norms: once for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and another time for incitement of insurrection in the aftermath of the January 6th attack on the US Capitol to stop the certification of electoral votes. There’s no room to preach about democracy when Trump’s administration has undermined confidence in elections, constantly questioned the legitimacy of past administrations by falsely claiming electoral fraud, promoted voter ID laws, gerrymandering, and restricted mail-in voting in Republican-governed states during the 2024 elections, abused the use of executive orders to override Congress on issues like immigration and healthcare, de-legitimized institutions and international organisations, harmed equal participation and representation through an anti-DEI stance, and discredited the world’s most important media outlets, dismissing them as “fake biased news” while suppressing dissent.
EU Commissars Threaten Freedom of Speech
Both enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, freedom of speech and freedom of press are fundamental pillars to the governance and American democracy. If you get rid of the media, civil discourse weakens, and one of the most critical democratic checks disappears. Freedom of press and speech challenges administrations and ensures accountability. A press that holds leaders accountable is essential to a functioning democracy—yet, the current US administration’s hostility toward journalists, threats of censorship, and attempts to discredit dissenting voices raise serious concerns about its commitment to these freedoms.
Ironically, the same day JD Vance accused the EU of suppressing dissent and right-wing populism, the White House indefinitely banned the Associated Press (AP) for using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America.” AP is a media outlet that holds a major audience share outside US territory and has simply decided to use the name most of its audience would recognise.
You can’t claim to champion free speech when your administration has intensified media restriction, increased hostility towards journalists, and de-legitimized media outlets. Neither can Europe be lectured when laws restricting media are built upon very different historical experiences, especially regarding the rise of fascism, Nazism, and extremist ideologies. If anything, EU commissioners are safeguarding freedom of speech by passing laws that prevent the spread of hate speech and protect the democratic system from the rise of extremist ideologies that could destabilise the European order and degrade democracy from within.
“We would never kick out a press agency from the office of our chancellor.”
Friedrich Merz, CDU party leader
“There’s No Room for Firewalls”
In the attempt to teach Europeans how to uphold democratic values, JD Vance criticised Germany for a common and legal practice among mainstream parties which consists of the formation of coalitions to block the parliamentary power of extremist parties as a commitment to democratic values and a rejection of authoritarianism. Vance criticised this system, saying that there is, quote “no room for firewalls.” Germany’s Federal Minister for Defence responded by stating, “democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists who want to destroy it.” Chancellor Scholz also posted on social media, “Out of the experiences of Nazism, the democratic parties in Germany have a joint consensus – that is the firewall against extreme right-wing parties,” furthermore, Bavarian Governor Markus Söder told reporters,“We take every opinion seriously, but we decide ourselves with whom we form a coalition.”
The concept of the Brandmauer (firewall) is rooted in the post-war era as a mechanism to uphold democratic integrity by committing not to cooperate or form coalitions with extremist parties. In this case, the firewall applies to the AfdD a party scrutinised by German intelligence for its strong ties with extremist movements.
Challenging further the European and German status-quo, Vance met with Alice Weidel, the leader of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), intervening in the domestic affairs of Germany one week ahead of the German elections in which polls showed 21.3 % of support for the AfD, 8 points bellow CDU/CSU. The meeting with the party leader has been perceived by media sources and politicians as an implicit endorsement of the AfD, legitimising the extremist European right-wing that is on the rise, threatening German political stability by normalising the support of extremist right-wing parties. With the help of Elon Musk, the tech oligarch, Vance tried shifting the public opinion, who also interacted with Weidel in a live discussion on his platform X and expressed support by calling the AfD “Germany’s last spark of hope” for a country in “teetering on the brink of economic and cultural collapse.”
“This time Washington is not warning us from a comeback of the Nazis, but pushing mainstream German parties to work together with AFD”
Nikolas Busse, Responsible Editor for Foreign Policy at Frankfurter Allgemeine
Entering a new era: Transatlantic divides.
What is the new mission of the United States? It seems that promoting democracy is no longer one of the top priorities, especially when US officials can’t even uphold it to the optimal standard. The US political landscape internationally points towards interference in the domestic affairs of other countries to promote like-minded leaders, especially in Europe, where far-right populist leaders are on the rise. Trump has developed an aggressive foreign policy where pinpointing others’ weaknesses, even if this implies spreading misinformation, seems to have become a priority on his agenda, yet he still fails to identify his own flaws. The US Vice President missed a valuable opportunity to discuss real and pressing international issues, such as the war in Ukraine and other crucial international security matters, and devoted his speech and public discourse to EU skepticism and populist politics.
The European Union needs to be stronger than ever, not only in the fight to contain the influence of ideological adversaries like Russia, but also to fight and resist the threats of America’s interventionist, so-called “politicians” with little to no diplomatic background, whose only purpose is to promote their ambitions by normalising the government of extremist right-wings.
You can’t teach others a lesson when your own house is not in order. If the USA’s concerns are truly about upholding democratic values, then the focus should be on the erosion of freedoms within America’s own borders.
Featured image provided by The Picture Alliance.
