Europe fumes at Trump team’s insults in leaked Signal chat

 

Europe fumes at Trump team’s insults in leaked Signal chat

 

British forces already took part in strikes against Houthis, so don’t call us “freeloaders,” former defense secretary says.

 

March 25, 2025 6:27 pm CET

By Tim Ross, Esther Webber, Jacopo Barigazzi and Nicholas Vinocur

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-fume-donald-trump-team-insult-leak-signal-chat/

 

LONDON — Sometimes it’s better not to know what your so-called friends say behind your back. Case in point: When your closest ally calls you “PATHETIC,” accuses you of “free-loading” and says you should be made to pay for something you never knew they were going to do.

 

British and European officials and diplomats reacted with a mix of hurt and anger to the leak of private messages between top figures in Donald Trump’s U.S. government about plans for air strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

 

According to The Atlantic, whose editor-in-chief was mistakenly added to the high-level group chat, Vice President JD Vance said he hated “bailing out Europe again” by launching the military action to protect shipping, mainly to benefit European trade. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth replied to Vance: "I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."

 

A U.K. diplomat said they had watched aghast as the spectacular leak emerged on Monday night, describing it as "wild." The diplomat noted that it underlined the impression that Vance was the driver of U.S. hostility towards Europe. This, the person said, forced others including Trump into a tougher position because he "doesn't want to look weaker than Vance."

 

In public, U.K. ministers and officials tried to minimize the damage from the revelations, insisting the alliance with the U.S. was strong and communications remained secure.

 

But Britain’s former Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said some in the Trump administration clearly need re-educating about their allies. It was wrong of them to say European militaries had done nothing to address the problem of Iran-backed Houthis targeting commercial shipping, he said.

 

The leaked messages even included a conversation about how to make Europe “remunerate” the U.S. for the cost of the military action. In fact, the planned air strikes detailed in the private Signal app group were supported by British refueling aircraft, according to reports.

 

“I agree Europe must do more on security,” Shapps posted on X. “But [Prime Minister] Sir Keir [Starmer] should remind USA the UK led from the front. I authorised 4 RAF strikes on the Houthis & the Royal Navy defended Red Sea shipping. Our forces risked their lives to protect trade. Some in DC need reminding.”

 

Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, a British opposition party, said: “JD Vance and his mates clearly aren’t fit to run a group chat, let alone the world’s strongest military force. It has to make our security services nervous about the intelligence we’re sharing with them.”

 

Elsewhere in Europe, the tone among diplomats was more of grief and resignation.

 

Any hope they may have held that Vance and his colleagues were putting on a public show of aggression toward Europe while being more sympathetic in private vanished.

 

"It's sobering to see the way they speak about Europe when they think no one is listening," one EU diplomat said, granted anonymity, like others, to give a candid view. "But at the same time this isn't surprising ... It's just that now we see their reasoning in all its undiplomatic glory."

 

An EU official said Vance "happens to be the ideologue this time around but he is bound to make mistakes and eventually drop the ball.” After that, at some point the U.S. will return to being a reliable partner, the official said.

 

A second EU diplomat agreed that history suggested America would one day return to its role as a solid ally for Europe. “For the time being, and despite the sometimes nice diplomatic words, trust is broken,” the diplomat said. “There is no alliance without trust. So I think that Europe has to do much more because it has no other choice.”

 

As for charging Europeans for the operation, a senior EU official added: "We haven't received the bill yet."

 

Noah Keate and Matt Honeycombe-Foster contributed reporting from London. Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting from Paris.