LONDON — The revelation that senior intelligence and defense officials in the Trump administration discussed details of a military operation in Yemen on a Signal app group chat has prompted a variety of reactions across Europe, including an acknowledgment that the scornful tone about Europe that administration officials employed will simply cement a continuing deterioration of trans-Atlantic ties.
The Signal messages recorded U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz saying that only U.S. — rather than European — naval forces would be able to take military action against the Houthis to safeguard shipping in the Red Sea near Yemen. Vice President Vance then described such action as "bailing Europe out again," before Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled Europe's reliance on U.S. military might as "freeloading" that was "pathetic."
Europe has historically leaned heavily on the United States for the support of its military capabilities, including its intelligence gathering, nuclear umbrella and aerial defense weapons systems. The decades-long presence of tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Europe, since the end of World War II, has also played an important deterrent role against possible adversaries that might seek to attack Europe, including Russia.
Yet the criticism in the Signal group chat — which inadvertently included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg — provided a window into normally private policy discussions and political posturing in the Trump administration, which in recent months has also publicly criticized European governments for not just military spending that is lower than in the U.S., but also policymaking decisions linked to culture that are fundamentally different in character from the vision of the current White House.
"I think what might be a shock," says Olivia O'Sullivan, director of the U.K. in the World Programme at the Chatham House think tank in London, "is this sense of a deeper anti-Europe feeling — not just frustration that Europe isn't shouldering practical burdens, which, after all, still betrays this sense that we are part of an alliance together, that we share values; this sense that voices very close to the president making these momentous decisions are kind of fundamentally opposed to the way Europe organizes itself or its values."
But this should come as no surprise, say other commentators, including Pierre Haski, a longtime French newspaper editorialist and president of the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders.
For Europeans, there's a sense of a "broken relationship" in discovering "the extent of American hostility," Haski told French public radio. "But like in love, there is life after a breakup — and it's important to make the most of your new life."
But as European governments race to increase their defense spending in preparation for a future where U.S. security support may continue to falter, the dismissive tone of the Signal messages has helped underline the speed at which the historical trans-Atlantic alliance that underpins NATO is flailing.
"Aside from the laxity with which the world's most powerful politicians share top secret military strikes in an unsecured chat group," blared a comment piece in Germany's most read newspaper, Bild, "the unfriendly words toward Europe from the Americans are further proof that the U.S. no longer considers us a vital ally."
This breakdown in ties is troubling to many in Europe, including Americans based there.
"It's really unprecedented, and these are not challenges the European institutions are well set up to deal with," according to Ian Lesser, a Brussels-based distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund who previously served in the State Department. "Brussels itself, the European Union itself, NATO, certainly with the U.S. as part of it, is simply not well set up to address this multifaceted challenge."
One uncomfortable coincidence that highlighted the dichotomy facing European leaders this week, as they seek to navigate the Trump administration's conflation of military spending and trade policy, was the arrival in Washington on Tuesday of the European Union's trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, hoping to prevent further tariffs on EU products of the kind the U.S. introduced this month on steel and aluminum.
In the U.K., Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Prime Minister Keir Starmer have worked hard to separate themselves from Europe in the eyes of President Trump and his Cabinet.
"There are things the Brits can try because they're clearly seeking to sort of differentiate themselves to some degree and stay relatively close to the Trump administration," according to Chatham House's O'Sullivan. "But it's becoming very challenging because it feels like there's a values difference here, rather than just a difference in terms of strategy or who's picking up the tab."
Britain is the United States' closest ally when it comes to intelligence sharing, and over the past year or so, British naval and airborne forces have played a small but significant role in operations against Houthi forces in Yemen that were at the center of the recent Signal group chat revelations.
As a consequence, British political leaders have been forced to field thorny inquiries about the security lapse, including from lawmakers in a parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday, when the U.K. minister for the armed forces, Luke Pollard, faced a series of questions about it.
"My general rule would be that if there's operational decisions that are being taken, we should all, regardless of our role within defense, take our information sharing seriously," Pollard said in response to one lawmaker who had asked what would happen to British officials if they were to share sensitive military details in a similar fashion. "There would be a clear consequence and disciplinary process for anyone that wouldn't be following those procedures."
U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was at pains to avoid undiplomatic language when she was repeatedly pressed on the topic in a BBC interview.
"We've been sharing intelligence and information for many decades, and we continue to do that through our secure networks," Rayner said. "It is for the U.S. and the U.S. president and the government to explain and decide what they're doing in regards to their security and that Signal messaging group."
Some apparent satisfaction was derived from the lapse among some in Europe, as underlined in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
"We can't have someone in the Oval Office who doesn't understand the meaning of the word classified," the newspaper quoted Trump as saying during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Then it showcased his opponent in that race, Hillary Clinton, responding to the Signal revelations on social media: "state scherzando," in Italian — "You have got to be kidding."
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