The only people applauding JD Vance’s blathering are the far right – and Russia

By taking aim at America’s closest allies in his keynote Munich address, Donald Trump’s vice-president has made clear his country’s global security priorities – and that Europe should no longer consider the US to be a staunch ally, writes World Affairs Editor Sam Kiley

The vice-president of the United States fired a broadside of half-truths and conspiracy theories about his allies in Europe – a continent already close to war with Russia – in a rallying cry that will be roared out and multiplied by the far right everywhere.

In his keynote address at the Munich Security Conference, delivered to an auditorium packed with ministers of defence, generals and leaders from across Europe and beyond, JD Vance said: “The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor.”

“What I worry about is the threat from within,” he announced to the assembled securocrats.

They would have walked into the hall pretty sure that it’s Russia’s open military and violent designs on Ukraine, the Baltic nations, Poland, and much of the rest of eastern Europe, that’s been keeping them up at night.

Nope. It was that a “European commissioner” had “sounded delighted” that the Romanian [presidential] elections were annulled last year by the country’s constitutional court after a hard-right, anti-Nato, pro-Russian candidate of notable obscurity won the first round amid a surge in mysterious backing on social media.

The EU is investigating funding for his TikTok campaign, and Călin Georgescu's appeal against the decision was rejected by the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, in Moldova, Russia has been exposed for spending – unsuccessfully – €100m on a campaign to get a pro-Russian candidate elected there.

“Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbours,” the US vice-president told Washington allies.

He was also concerned about the prosecution of a British anti-abortion campaigner for violating an exclusion zone around a clinic, which he saw as an example of democracy being under attack.

As he went on, it became clear that JD was no longer a friend, and certainly not an ally, of the kind of democracy Europe has enjoyed for 80 years.

“I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs,” Vance said.

“In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”

He didn’t say so, but his main target seemed to be the EU’s Digital Services Act, which can ban and fine internet companies for violating laws within Europe – which include restrictions on hate speech.

This legislation, introduced last year, will affect Elon Musk’s X platform, and the Meta companies Facebook, Instagram and Threads, led by Mark Zuckerberg, who, like Musk, backs the Trump administration.

Musk, meanwhile, has been a vocal advocate of hard-right causes in Europe, backing Germany’s far-right AfD party and amplifying and circulating conspiracy theories along with outright lies on the social media platform, X.

“If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk. But what German democracy, what no democracy, American, German or European, will survive is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.”

Federal employees are currently being made to take loyalty tests to ensure that their personal views are consistent with the aims of the Trump administration at all levels of government, or face the sack. JD didn’t mention that.

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, had already driven a wedge between the US and Europe when he arrived for the Nato gathering earlier this week and promptly gave up some of Ukraine’s most important negotiating cards ahead of a promised meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Hegseth said that Nato membership was off the cards for Ukraine, as was the presence of any US troops to ensure Ukraine’s security, as part of any peace agreement. On top of that, he said Ukraine could forget about getting back all the land Russia has taken by force.

Keir Starmer’s office said that he had promised Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine is on an “irreversible path to Nato” membership.

His stance was echoed by several other European officials who agreed with the US position that Europe needed to spend more on its own defence.

That imperative becomes starker still, now that the US vice-president has revealed that he’s not much of a friend. Now, Europe must consider the US an unreliable ally – at best.