The ‘Signal Scandal’: Trump’s Cabinet Drops Truth Bombs on Europe

The Trump administration’s leaked—if you can call it that—discussions of war plans made headlines across the globe after a staffer working for National Security Adviser Mike Waltz (inadvertently) added a magazine editor to the senior officials’ group chat. 

While American media questioned how on earth this major faux pas could occur, European commenters have been scandalized by the brutality of Team Trump’s behind-the-scenes talk regarding Europe. 

In the group chat, Vice President JD Vance cautioned his colleagues that a unilateral U.S. attack on the Houthi rebels of Yemen—this, to re-open the Red Sea trade route—would undermine President Trump’s get-tough approach to Europe. Vance pointed out that only 3% of U.S. trade travels through the Suez Canal, while 40% of European trade does.

Said Vance in the group chat:

I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.

Mike Waltz then points out how weak Europe’s navies are, making a case that the United States is the only nation capable of carrying out this vital military mission to protect an economic lifeline to Europe.

Vance acquiesces, but remarks, “I just hate bailing Europe out again.” 

Now, Europeans should not be prissy about what gets said in private among top government leaders about other nations. Can anybody doubt that some conversations about the United States in the august chambers of Whitehall or the Quai d’Orsay are quite spicy? Besides, none of this is remotely on the level of Obama senior diplomat Victoria Nuland’s infamous 2014 telephone discussion (intercepted and leaked by the Russians) with the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, in which she dismissed potential European opposition to American plans to engineer a transfer of power there. 

“F**k the EU,” the diplomat said. 

This latest flap is a continuation of European agita over Vance’s brusque truth-telling about Europe’s weakness. The continental ruling class bristled vigorously over Vance’s Munich speech in which he told the gathered natsec worthies that it’s time for Europe to wean itself from the Pentagon’s teat, deal with their domestic challenges, and figure out how to shoulder more of their own defense. Trump signaled in his first administration that he was dissatisfied with Europe’s sponging on American defense capabilities, but most Europeans didn’t take him seriously. Well, in Trump 2.0, the reckoning is here. 

What European elites hate about Vance and the administration he represents is that he reveals their own poverty. Why shouldn’t the great and rich nations of Europe be doing more to stand on their own two feet? Why should American taxpayers, over thirty years since the close of the Cold War, continue to subsidize Europe’s defense so European politicians can build generous welfare states while at the same time refusing to deal with the mass migration crisis, which is a clear and present danger to European stability and security?

Rather than blame the messenger—Vance and his colleagues—Europe’s leadership class should swallow hard and have a sober discussion about what they should do to address their real problems. 

That said, it is troubling that Team Trump is so tone-deaf over how it treats its allies. Vance’s Munich speech was important and necessary. But Trump’s bizarre bullying of Denmark over Greenland makes no sense. Yes, it’s obvious that Greenland is becoming ever more strategically important as the Arctic sea lanes open, and the U.S. has a clear interest in acquiring that territory, if possible. But the idea that Washington can or should bully the Danes and the Greenlanders into surrendering to America is ugly and foolish.

Similarly, Trump’s weird provocations of Canada, America’s neighbor and staunch ally, are impossible to understand or support. The American president keeps saying that Canada should be the 51st state. It was funny, maybe, when he was trolling the smug twit Justin Trudeau, but Trudeau is gone now. Trump’s continued aggression towards Canada, both rhetorically and on trade policy, has had the effect of saving Trudeau’s despised Liberal Party from an election rout. 

Before Trump’s anti-Canada campaign, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre stood to win the prime minister post in a landslide. Because of Trump, Poilievre is running even with Mark Carney, Trudeau’s successor. If Carney holds on to government for his party, the MAGA Khan will have done more than anybody else to condemn Canadians to more years of woke tyranny.

Trump does not seem to grasp that Americans aren’t the only people who have a right to be nationalist. The core aspect of Canadian national identity is, “We Are Not Americans.” What Canadian patriot, however conservative, could stomach being humiliated and punished by blustery Americans? 

Similarly, as much as the European ruling class needs to sort itself out and reform, it is hard to understand how bullying, à la the Greenland gambit, will accomplish much more than making Europeans resent America. 

Fat and comfortable European leaders cannot make reality go away simply because Team Trump is at times ill-mannered. On the other hand, if Trump really wants to put America First, he must understand that U.S. nationalism inevitably calls up nationalism in other nations. The surest way to catalyze anti-American nationalism abroad is to pick unnecessary fights for the sake of demonstrating your own dominance. It is confounding, and more than a little distressing, to watch electoral prospects for nationalist-conservative parties in Europe decline because Trump uses a hatchet when a stiletto is more useful.

For all that, the fact remains: the U.S. military attacked Houthi pirates on behalf of Europe because Europe is too feeble to defend its own vital economic interests. That—and not Team Trump’s Signal screwup, including its undiplomatic words about Europe—remains the real scandal here.