JD Vance met with leaders of Germany’s far-right alternative Für Deutschland party and broke the taboos of German politics as the Trump administration continues to pursue and promote far-right populist parties across Europe to court.
At a meeting in Munich on Friday, US Vice President and AFD leader Alice Weidel reportedly discussed wars in Ukraine, German domestic politics, the so-called brand Mauer, or “firewalls against rights.” Parties like the AFD will join the German ruling coalition.
Vance met Weidel a few weeks before the German election, which appears to be poised to be second in a wave of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim parties, on the rise.
The meeting was not the first contact between the party and someone close to Donald Trump. Billionaire Elon Musk, who is currently leading the US federal government purging, repeatedly claims that “Only AFD can save Germany,” and last month in a live 75-minute conversation on his social media platform. Weedel hosted.
Vance did not meet with German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, who should be a major US partner in negotiations with Russia on the future of the war in Ukraine. “We don’t need to meet him. He’s not the prime minister,” one former US official told Politico about Vance Team’s approach.
Attending a security conference in Munich on Friday, Vance warned European leaders for refusing to work with far-right parties.
“If you’re running for fear of your voters, there’s nothing America can do for you,” Vance said. “We need democratic obligations to achieve something valuable in the next few years.”
The move shocks German political circles as the Trump administration appears to be taking a big bet on some of the continent’s most toxic parties opposed to incumbent governments of Britain, Germany and other major allies. I’ve sent it.
“I explicitly reject what Vice President Vance said at the security conference in Munich,” German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz said in a post in X. It’s a firewall against extreme right-wing parties. ”
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German courts have determined that the AFD can be classified as a suspected threat to democracy, paving the way for the country’s domestic intelligence agency to spy on the opposition.
In May, the AFD was expelled from the Pan-European Parliamentary Group of populist far-right parties after a series of controversies, including comments by the figure of the senior AFD that the Nazi SS is “not all criminals.”
In a speech that is likely to drive further wedges between the US and Europe as they struggle to find a single policy on war in Ukraine, Vance said that European leaders “misinformation” He accused him of hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like “disinformation.” ‘”.
“Listen to that speech, they should choose to fight us. We don’t want to fight our friends,” said Kaja Karas, head of foreign policy for the EU at the event in Munich. I said that.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he could not make a speech without comment.
“If I understand him correctly, he compares some situations in Europe with the conditions of the authoritarian regime. That’s not acceptable. It’s not Europe, I live in and currently campaigning. It’s not even a democracy that’s been done,” he said.
