‘He’s an enigma to us’: Foreign officials are unsure about what JD Vance actually believes

Diplomats reportedly see Vance as equal parts helpful conduit to Trump and long-term mystery

Foreign leaders and diplomats reportedly aren’t entirely sure what Vice President JD Vance believes, creating uncertainty about how to deal with him going forward, especially if he becomes the GOP standard-bearer or next president after Trump hits his two-term limit.

“He’s such an enigma to us,” an Asian diplomat told Politico of Vance.

Others reportedly see Vance, a military veteran, author, and former venture capitalist, as an intelligent big-picture thinker but one who lacks the practical experience and historical knowledge for the world stage.

“He’s an intellectual, so he’s got all the positives and negatives of intellectuals,” a European diplomat told the outlet. “He’s very smart and has a great deal of sort of abstract, theoretical depth, but he’s probably not much of a pragmatist and doesn’t really know a huge amount of the ins and outs of history and how the world works.”

The Independent has contacted Vance’s office for comment.

Global diplomats are reportedly puzzled by Vice President JD Vance, finding his views mysterious and at times contradictory (Getty Images)

Vance is a polished public speaker and is less prone to off-the-cuff riffs than his boss. He has often found himself selling the Trump administration’s more controversial moves on the world stage.

This position has meant Vance seeming to champion ideas he once lambasted.

As a senator, for instance, Vance was sharply critical of recent U.S. interventionism and vague foreign wars. He has sometimes continued that streak as vice president, promising in a 2025 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy the country would have, “No more undefined missions; no more open-ended conflicts.”

At the same time, Vance has been a vocal defender of the administration’s open-ended, vaguely defined military mission in Venezuela and the Caribbean, as well as its strike on Iran. He also visited Greenland, a territory the U.S. has floated taking by force even though it already cooperates with the U.S. military and is overseen by a NATO ally, Denmark.

Vance has been particularly pointed in his criticism of European allies, alleging the U.S.’s long-term Continental partners are backsliding on free speech and religious liberty, while singling out U.S. tech companies for excessive regulation and failing to protect “civilizational coherence” via their immigration policies.

Behind the scenes, Vance allegedly complained of the U.S. always “bailing out Europe” with its stronger military, according to a leaked Signal chat of top administration officials. At a February 2025 White House meeting, the supposedly milder Vance had a memorable public clash with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.

Here too, there appear to be contradictions.

The Trump administration is accused of free speech abuses of its own, including masked immigration agents often treating lawful First Amendment activity violently, as well as an increasingly politicized media regulatory sphere that’s seen the alleged intimidation of late-night comedians by administration officials, as well as the parent company of CBS News and the U.S. operations of TikTok falling into the hands of prominent Trump allies.

The White House has also pursued a very hands-on tech policy, even as it decries European regulations, taking U.S. government stakes in firms like Intel while demanding a cut of foreign sales of Nvidia chips.

And Vance, for all his criticism of Europe, still refers to allies there as “friends” who have a “special relationship” with the U.S.

Vance and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are considered front-runners to seek their parties’ respective nominations in the 2028 presidential race.