MUNICH — JD Vance made his vice-presidential debut on the global security stage Friday in a scolding speech here, pressing Europe’s centrist leaders to move over to accommodate the rising anti-migration, nationalist voices they have at times sought to block from power.
Vance meets with leader of far-right German party, exports MAGA message
The vice president made his mark on the global stage with a scolding speech advocating that Europe’s centrist old-guard politicians move over to accommodate the rising anti-migration, nationalist voices they have at times sought to block from power.
Updated
February 14, 2025
The meeting with Alice Weidel, head of the anti-immigration, nationalist Alternative for Germany party, was a major step for her movement, which major parties have sought to bar from coalitions.
Vance is the most senior U.S. official ever to meet with a leader from the party. He also met in recent days with the leaders of Germany’s two other major parties, which are locked in competition ahead of Feb. 23 elections, in which the Alternative for Germany party might break through a post-World War II taboo and join a ruling coalition for the first time.
In his speech, Vance fully waded into nationalist politics, blasting an audience of European prime ministers and presidents for failing to listen to their own voters.
President Donald Trump and his allies have tangled with Europeans for years. But in an auditorium filled with Europe’s security policymaking elite, Vance surprised the crowd by saying little about the rapidly-developing efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine. Instead, he called out allies by name for what he said were efforts to subvert the will of the people in the name of protecting migrants and fighting back Russian influence efforts.
“No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants,” Vance said. “But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more all over Europe, they’re voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration.”
Vance’s speech amounted to an attempt to export MAGA to Europe — and a declaration of common cause with rising anti-migrant parties in Europe, who, like Trump, are skeptical of international alliances and many of the hallmarks of the global system that developed in the aftermath of World War II and expanded after the fall of Communism.
“In America, you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail,” Vance told the gathered elite at the Munich Security Conference, in remarks that some European leaders interpreted as a slam that they were not truly democratic. “Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society and of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face. I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration today.”
He blasted Romania’s Constitutional Court for annulling the first round of its presidential elections in December after allegations that a Russian influence campaign had delivered a boost to a little-known ultranationalist candidate days ahead of the vote. He attacked British leaders for prosecuting a 51-year-old man for conducting silent prayer near an abortion clinic in what authorities said was a violation of protests within a buffer zone outside those facilities.
And he linked Germany’s past migration-friendly policies to an incident in Munich on Thursday in which a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker drove a car into a crowd of labor protesters, injuring 30, in what authorities said they believe was an intentional attack.
In Munich, “I’ve heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from,” Vance said. “What has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly, I think to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you’re defending yourselves for. What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important? … If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”
Vance’s speech received a chilly reception in the gilded Bayerischer Hof hotel auditorium, which was standing-room-only as politicians and dignitaries from around the world packed a grand staircase and balconies that surrounded the stage. When the speech ended, most remained in their seats as a handful of Republicans on a lower balcony gave muted applause.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, a member of the center-left Social Democrats, blasted Vance soon afterward.
“This democracy was called into question by the U.S. vice president,” Pistorius told the gathering. “He compares the condition of Europe with what is happening in autocracies. This is not acceptable.”
The morning began with Vance’s motorcade winding through snowy Munich, where schoolchildren waved to the passing black vehicles on their way to meetings near the gathering.
Vance huddled in with leaders from NATO, Britain and Germany in back-to-back bilateral meetings. In brief public remarks amid each sit-down, he appeared to strike a largely positive tone and did not bring up the divisive issues that animated his speech on the main stage later in the day. He smiled as British Foreign Secretary David Lammy described the “covenant” between the United States and Britain. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Vance had a collegial exchange and handshake, as Rutte told him he agreed that Europe needed to step up spending on its defense.
He offered condolences to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier about those injured in the Munich car incident a day earlier. But rather than tying it to the heated debate over migration, he talked about how much he and his wife have enjoyed vacationing in Munich.
One participant in some of Vance’s meetings, Richard Grenell, Trump’s presidential envoy for special missions, said no one raised Trump ally Elon Musk’s support for the Alternative for Germany party in the sessions he attended with Vance.
A year ago, Vance visited the Munich gathering as the junior senator from Ohio, crowded into the margins as former vice president Kamala Harris sought to assure allies that Washington was an unwavering partner that would protect the existing global order, not overthrow it.
This time, Vance is the center of attention, a measure of the degree to which Trump’s election victory has energized forces that advocate nationalist agendas, higher trade barriers and tighter borders. The vice president embraced the spotlight — and on the main stage, seemed often to treat Ukraine as an afterthought, even though for many in the crowd, it was a life-and-death subject for which they had hoped to get answers.
“The Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense,” Vance said.
Vance’s visit to Munich came amid an opening flurry of diplomacy after Trump spoke Wednesday for nearly 90 minutes to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The vice president met later Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio to convey Trump’s ideas in person.
Trump has alarmed Europe by appearing to make significant concessions to Putin even before formal negotiations start. Putin has long sought to block Ukraine from entering the NATO defense alliance, and Trump said Thursday he doesn’t see any way Russia “could allow them to join,” appearing to grant Putin the point. Worried Europeans said Trump was handing Russia their strongest bargaining chip before it could be used.
Ahead of a Friday meeting with Rutte, Vance said Washington would remain Europe’s ally, but that the continent needed to do more to improve its own military capabilities as the Trump administration reorients its attention toward dealing with China.
“NATO is a very important military alliance, of course, that we’re the most significant part of,” Vance said alongside Rutte. “But we want to make sure that NATO is actually built for the future, and we think a big part of that is ensuring that NATO does a little bit more burden-sharing in Europe, so the United States can focus on some of our challenges in East Asia.”
Rutte said Vance was “absolutely right” about Europe’s needing to step up within NATO.
Opening talks to halt the Ukraine war are set to begin next week, Trump said Thursday, a rapid effort after years in which relations between Russia and the United States have been all but frozen. “Top officials” from Washington and Moscow — but not Trump or Putin — will meet in Saudi Arabia, the president said.
“Ukraine will be a part of it, too. And we’re going to see if we can end that war. That was a horrible war,” he said Thursday.
Zelensky on Friday expressed frustration with Trump’s attitude about the origins of the war, which he has blamed on Ukraine’s inclusion of its desire to join NATO in its constitution. Kyiv added that desire to its constitution in 2019, five years after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and backed a separatist war in the eastern part of the country.
Trump and the United States “believe that Ukraine cannot be in NATO because it would mean escalation with the ‘Russians,’ ” Zelensky told a roundtable of Ukrainian journalists in Munich, according to Ukrinform, a newswire.
Zelensky said Ukraine would need to double the size of its military to rival Russia’s military might unless it gained entrance to the defense alliance.
Trump’s approach to the talks has been an energy boost to Putin, who has long sought to sit down with a U.S. leader to remake the post-Cold War security architecture — and now appears to have a chance to do so, consigning Europe to a back-seat role in the conversation. Generations of U.S. leaders before Trump have said that Russia has neither the power nor the right to veto how Europe protects itself. Even Trump’s decision to speak to Putin before consulting with Zelensky was a victory for the Kremlin.
Many Europeans are worried about the strategy.
“If you want to start a process of negotiations toward peace, then you don’t start by concessions to your opponents,” Kajsa Ollongren, who was the Dutch defense minister until last year, said at an event in Munich on Thursday. “Normally that’s not what you do, because you know you’re starting on a back foot. You’re starting your game and you’re two-nil or three-nil behind.”
A year ago, Vance came to Munich to try to deliver the message that the tide was turning in the United States. He said Washington needed to prioritize other conflicts and global challenges and let Europe take more of the burden in handling Ukraine.
“The fact that [Putin]’s a bad guy does not mean we can’t engage in basic diplomacy and prioritizing America’s interests,” Vance said a year ago. “There are a lot of bad guys all over the world, and I’m much more interested in some of the problems in East Asia right now than I am in Europe.”
Vance unsettled some Europeans and some of his fellow senators last year when he declined to join a meeting between Zelensky and the U.S. congressional delegation that had traveled to the conference. Vance at the time said he had other commitments, he was familiar with Zelensky’s views and a meeting wouldn’t have changed it.