(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. JD Vance had gelijk in München: kritiek op immigratie wordt weggezuiverd in Europa)

Republican leaders have a negative image of Europe, as emerged recently from the conversations during the military attack on the Houthis in Yemen. Unintentionally, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic witnessed it in the chat conversation. The opinions about Europe did not mince words, but in the meantime Europe is confirming those opinions itself. See the disqualification of Marine Le Pen in France.

The Americans have to protect free passage through the Red Sea, while only 4 percent of the transport is destined for America and 40 percent for Europe. America has to do battle again and again with the Iran-backed Houthis, while European countries would rather clear off.

Vice President JD Vance could no longer restrain himself during the air strike, which was followed from the White House. ‘I just hate bailing Europe out again.’ He pointed to the great importance of free passage through the Red Sea for Europe, and the small importance for America. ‘I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.’

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded in the same vein. ‘I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.’ Then Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff of the White House and responsible for policy planning, responded: ‘If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.’

The three are in the vanguard of the Republican party and were born in the 1980s. Vance in 1984, Hegseth in 1980 and Miller in 1985: during the years of President Ronald Reagan. For their parents the Second World War was a binding experience at home, and also with Europe. The veterans passed the story on, but that story has fallen silent and the cultural bond has faded.

Vance and Hegseth grew up in the Midwest, and Miller in California, where his Jewish forebears ended up after emigrating around 1903 from tsarist Russia, from an area that is now Belarus. Miller’s models were conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and David Horowitz. During Trump I, Miller was the architect of the immigration ban from certain Islamic countries. His uncle called him the ‘immigration hypocrite’.

The three see in Europe political weaklings, military softies, economic profiteers and cultural capitulation. As vice president, JD Vance is the most outspoken and addressed the annual security conference in Munich on 14 February. Vance’s vision, delivered before the complacent audience in the hall, which had the traits of a ‘mutual admiration society’, caused a crackling short circuit.

Vance’s thesis came down in short to this: Europe concedes too much to massive immigration, which leads to a strong curtailment of freedom of expression. The audience was shocked, the chairman of the conference in tears. Vance had broken a taboo, but is meanwhile being proved abundantly right.

In Europe, opposition leaders are literally being silenced, such as Marine Le Pen with 2 years of house arrest (ankle bracelet) and the loss of her political rights, which means she cannot take part in the presidential elections of 2027. The punishment has a political timing and is out of all proportion.

It has happened more often that money from the budget of a member of the European Parliament was used to pay staff at the party office. Former member of the European Parliament Sylvie Goulard put employees, paid with European money, to work on French elections. She became minister of defence, but the scandal came out and she had to resign. No prison sentence, but she was appointed vice president of the French central bank. She was, after all, a great supporter of President Macron.

President Trump called Le Pen’s conviction a ‘big deal’. Vance’s words have come true. Mass immigration dominates the political agenda in virtually all West European countries; the East European leaders were wiser. ‘Progressive’ rulers, both political and cultural, are going ever further in curtailing opposition and freedoms. Criticism of immigration is purged away or even criminalised.

In Germany the proposal to hit the AfD with a ‘Parteiverbot’ has been put back on the agenda of the newly elected Bundestag. The ban procedure was set in motion in the previous parliamentary term by Marco Wanderwitz, a Christian democrat from Saxony. He was not re-elected, but Carmen Wegge (SPD) has taken over the initiative. She wants the German Constitutional Court to rule that the AfD is ‘Verfassungswidrig’ (unconstitutional), after which the party ban would follow.

The AfD has meanwhile become almost the largest party in Germany in the polls, after prospective chancellor Merz promised voters a right-wing policy but is going into partnership with the SPD, taking on enormous national debts, and achieving little in the restriction of illegal immigration.

After his speech in the Bayrischer Hof hotel in Munich, Vance had a conversation with Alice Weidel, the AfD’s parliamentary leader in the Bundestag. In doing so he stuck up a middle finger at the German political elite.

Within the Republican party Vance, Hegseth and Miller will not receive a word of criticism. On the contrary. The political base has become culturally more conservative and sees Europe as ‘worse than the Democrats’. There is only one country that American conservatives stand squarely behind: Israel. For conservatives Israel is not abroad but at home: that is ‘us in the Middle East’.

The image of Europe held by the coming generation of Republicans contrasts even with that of President Trump. The moral aspect plays less of a role for him; as a moral preacher he lacks credit. Trump sees Europe through the lens of money. His father was a property dealer in Queens and sent his young son Donald on his first mission: collecting rent from defaulters. He is now doing that in NATO.

Trump is irritated by Europe, above all because it contributes too little to NATO. During a NATO session in Brussels he called European leaders on the carpet, among them Angela Merkel. In front of her European colleagues she got a political box on the ears: ‘Angela, 1.5%, not good Angela, not good’. The member states have to pay. Japan gets virtually no criticism, because the Japanese pay the largest part of the costs of the military presence of the United States. Only the Europeans are the notorious ‘free riders’, as Obama already put it.

Trump also experiences the differences within Europe. Great Britain is the historic ally, which contributes and has a professional army. Italy, with Prime Minister Meloni, has the right political credentials. Eastern Europe and the Baltic states are the biggest fans of Trump. French President Macron uses all his charm to please Trump; their meeting in the Oval Office ended better than Zelensky’s.

There is one large country with which it does not click: Germany, of all countries the land of Trump’s ancestors, who prefers to invoke his Scottish forebears on his mother’s side. Germany is unanimously anti-Trump; in politics, the media, cultural life and education. In Germany a carnival procession is one big anti-Trump parade. Public broadcasters such as ARD and ZDF are virulently anti-Trump. The Germans do not ask themselves the question: where would we be now, without America?

It is essential to keep America on the continent, because Germany and France are (again) beginning to go off the rails. The young guard of conservative Republicans could not care less.

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.