Getty Images“Horrific to see in black and white. But hardly surprising,” is how a top European diplomat reacted to what comes across as deep, heartfelt disdain for European allies, revealed late on Monday, European time, in an online group chat between top US security officials.
Seemingly by accident, Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was also invited to the chat, which discussed planned strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen aimed at unblocking trade routes on the Suez Canal. He subsequently made the frank exchange public.
In the chat, Vice-President JD Vance notes that only 3% of US trade runs through the canal, as opposed to 40% of European trade, after which he and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth complain of European “free-loading”.
The monumental security breach is causing a ruckus at home, with Democrats calling for Hegseth’s resignation as a result.
Across the pond – aka the Atlantic – Europe’s leaders and policy-makers felt “sick to their stomach”, as an EU official put it to me.
Officials quoted here are speaking on condition of anonymity in order to comment freely on what are volatile times in US-European relations. You won’t see comments in the public domain, so as not to rock the transatlantic boat any further.
Vance first stunned European officials with his speech at last month’s Security Conference in Munich condemning the continent for having misplaced values such as protecting abortion clinics and censoring speech in the media and online. “The enemy from within,” he called it.
Monday’s Signal chat strikes at the heart of a slew of tensions, discomfort and plain old fear in Europe right now, that the Trump administration can no longer be relied on as the continent’s greatest ally. At a time when Europe is facing off against a resurgent Russia.
Western Europe has looked to the US to have its back in terms of security and defence since World War Two.
But it is precisely that fact that so riles the Trump administration and has cemented Europe in its mind as “freeloaders”.
While the US commits 3.7% of its colossal GDP to defence, it’s taken the majority of European partners in the transatlantic defence alliance Nato until recently to cough up even 2% of GDP. Some, like big economies Spain and Italy, aren’t even there yet, though they say they plan to be soon.
Europe relies heavily on the US, amongst other things, for intelligence, for aerial defence capabilities and for its nuclear umbrella.
With the phasing out of conscription in most European countries, the continent also relies on the around 100,000 battle-ready US troops stationed in Europe to help act as a deterrent against potential aggressors.
Europeans have focused more on investing in welfare and social services than defence – collective or otherwise – since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Why on earth should the US pick up the slack, asks the Trump administration.
On the leaked group chat, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz laments the state of Europe’s naval forces. “It will have to be the United States that reopens these [Suez] shipping lanes.”
The chat then debates how to ensure that Europe remunerates the US for its actions.
“If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return,” states Waltz.
Europe is now loudly and publicly discussing spending a lot more on its own defence – hoping to keep Donald Trump onside and an aggressive Russia at bay after Ukraine.
But Trump’s irritation with Europe is nothing new.
He displayed his displeasure during his first term in office: furious about Europe’s low defence spending; incandescent over the EU’s trade surplus with the US.
The United States had been long been taken for a ride and that must stop, seemed to be his sentiment.
Imposing trade tariffs was one of Trump’s first responses. Then as now.
Earlier this month, when Trump threatened eye-watering 200% tariffs on European alcohol in an ongoing trade tit-for-tat, he lambasted the EU as “abusive” and “hostile” for allegedly taking advantage of the US at any opportunity.
EPACoinciding uncomfortably with the leaked Signal chat and its Euro-bashing, the EU’s trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic, along with the head of cabinet of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, arrived in Washington on Tuesday hoping to launch a charm offensive to try to stave off a new tariff onslaught.
On defence, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened that the US wouldn’t protect countries that “didn’t pay”.
His candidate to be the next US ambassador to Nato says that means Europeans spending 5% of GDP.
The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, aiming for 2.6% by 2027. France scrapes 2.1% of GDP on military spending annually.
During the Cold War, the common enemy was the Soviet Union, which included swathes of Eastern Europe.
The US wanted to keep western Europe close, and for it to stay militarily dependent.
Since then, there has been growing apathy towards Nato and Europe. Particularly after the 9/11 twin tower attacks in the US.
Attention in Washington turned to Iraq and Afghanistan. To China.
President Obama was clear he wanted Asia to be his top foreign policy priority.
Trump is far from the first US president to harrumph at Europe’s reluctance to do more for, as well as spend more on, its own defence.
But with Trump, there is also a deep ideological split.
On social values, as JD Vance alluded to in Munich.
But also – and this is key – Trump demonstrates not only an antipathy for Europe and an impatience to get the war in Ukraine “done and over”, he also displays an affinity for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, at a time when Europe considers him an immediate threat to the security and well-being of the whole continent.
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