It’s not nice to hear what’s said about any of us in private. People sometimes express very blunt opinions. 

So it was with Vice President JD Vance’s comments on the old continent in private Signal app messages accidentally given to the Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief and published on March 24, where terms such as allied “free loading” were bandied around. This very much fits with Vice President Vance’s critique of Europe. However, he and like-minded Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nonetheless privately recognized the continuing importance of protecting US and other trade through aggressive action in the Bab-al-Mandeb strait into the Red Sea. 

The administration has few vocal transatlanticists, and the major foreign policy debates between Trump’s confidants and policy planners range from Asia First strategists, Western Hemisphere retrenchment advocates, and conservative isolationists.  

All of which underlines that Europe must not only consider what the continent’s security looks like without a US commitment to resisting Russian aggression, but also think about its own role in protecting the global commons.