‘We care about Europe being self-sufficient’, says Vance
Trump would like to see 5% spending on defense in Nato, Vance says.
European countries have “some catching up to do” as it hasn’t kept up with that, Vance says.
We really want and we really care about Europe being self-sufficient.
He says he regrets US foreign policy in the Middle East in 2003: “I frankly wish we had listened to our European friends.”
But on the need for Europe to play a bigger role in continental defense, he says “we are fundamentally right and it’s gratifying to see so many of European friends recognise that”.
I think we’re all aligned on it. It’s just a question of getting there and getting there quickly.
Key events
The US and China have not had a conversation about a strategic deal on Taiwan, Vance says.
He says the Trump administration is working to rebalance global trade in the interest of US workers and manufacturers, and that means China would have to take steps to boost domestic demand.
He says the rebalancing would also require cutting more trade deals with “some of our friends in Europe but also with some of our more adversarial nations”, adding that the goal was to do this while maintaining “at least an open dialog with [the People’s Republic of China].”
Vance says ‘so far so good’ with Iran nuclear talks
Vance describes US talks with Iran as “so far so good” and says there is a deal to be made that would “reintegrate Iran into the global economy” while preventing it from getting a nuclear weapon.
Iran getting a nuclear weapon is completely off the table for the American administration – no ifs, ands or butts.
Vance says he and Trump hate nuclear proliferation, so much so that Trump would be open to sitting down with Russia and China in the coming years to discuss reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world at large, Vance says.
But there is no way you get to that conversation if you allow multiple regimes all over the world to enter the sprint for a nuclear weapon.
And we really think that if the Iran domino falls, you’re going to see nuclear proliferation all over the Middle East – that’s very bad for us and for our friends.
Vance says the US has been “very happy with the Iranian response to some of the points that we’ve made”.
So far we’re on the right pathway.
He says the US doesn’t mind Iran having civil nuclear power, but they can’t also have an enrichment program that allows it to get to a nuclear weapon.
Vance presses EU to lower tariffs and regulatory barriers, and open door to US weapons
Vance says discussions between the United States and Europe were ongoing, saying Washington was pressing the European Union to lower its tariffs and regulatory barriers to improve the trading relationship.
In the same way that American markets have been open to European goods, we’d like a lot of European markets to be open to American goods.
He says there are agricultural and value-added manufacturing components to that, as well as opportunities for “American military software and hardware”.
He welcomes moves by Europe to expand its own defenses, but says US arms manufacturers should have an opportunity to participate more fully in those efforts.
Russia ‘asking for too much’, says JD Vance, as he says both sides need to talk to each other directly to end war in Ukraine
Vance says the Trump administration wants Russia and Ukraine to agree on some guidelines for talking to each other directly, which he says would be necessary to end the war.
Vance says the US views the concessions that Russia had sought as too much.
Certainly the first peace offer the Russians put on the table, our reaction to it was: ‘You’re asking for too much.’
The Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions, to end the conflict. We think they’re asking for too much.
But he says he is not that pessimistic about the chances for ending the conflict and direct talks between Russia and Ukraine is the next step the US wants to see.
Right now we would like the Russians and Ukrainians to agree to some basic guidelines for sitting down and talking to one another … We think that is the next big step we would like to take … We think it’s probably impossible for us to mediate this entirely without at least some direct negotiation between the two.
‘We are very much real friends’: JD Vance says he believes US and Europe ‘are on the same team’
In marked contrast to his remarks back in February, Vance says he believes the US and Europe “are on the same team” and it was “ridiculous” to think a wedge could be driven between them.
He says he has a tendency to think of foreign policy purely in terms of “transactional values” – in terms of “what does American get out of it?” at the expense of the moral and humanitarian side of issues.
Vance says he believes that “fundamentally we have to be – and we are – on the same civilizational team”.
He and Trump believe this means “a little bit more European burden-sharing on the defense side” and “all of us” rethinking the “security posture of the last 20 years” which is “not adequate for the next 20 years”.
I do think we’re in one of these phases where we’re going to have to rethink a lot of big questions, but I do think we should rethink those big questions together. That’s a fundamental belief of both me and the president.
He adds:
I still think that this European alliance is very important but I think that for it to be important and for us to be real friends with each other – and I think we are very much real friends – we’ve got to talk about the big questions.
JD Vance to deliver remarks at Munich Leaders Meeting in Washington DC
The vice-president JD Vance is due on stage at the Munich Leaders Meeting on global security taking place in Washington DC shortly for a Q&A led by Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German diplomat who chairs the annual Munich Security Conference.
Vance’s appearance earlier this year at that conference was nothing short of stunning and one of the most significant moments in the second Trump administration so far. As my colleague Patrick Wintour reported at the time, European leaders were left stunned as Vance “launched a brutal ideological assault on the continent, accusing its leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs”.
In a hostile, chastising speech that openly questioned whether current European values warranted defence by the US, Vance painted a picture of European politics infected by media censorship, cancelled elections and political correctness. He said:
If you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people … If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter is there anything you can do for the American people.
His disdain for Europe was also further revealed in leaked messages during the Signalgate scandal in which he told defense secretary Pete Hegseth: “I just hate bailing out Europe again.”
I’ll bring you any key lines from Vance this morning.
Trump plans to announce US will call Persian Gulf ‘Arabian Gulf’ or ‘Gulf of Arabia’, officials say
A fan of renaming gulfs, Donald Trump plans to announce while on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week that the United States will now refer to the Persian Gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” or the “Gulf of Arabia”, the Associated Press reports, citing two US officials.
The move has prompted a push back from Iranian leaders who called it “politically motivated”. On Wednesday, Iran’s current foreign minister weighed in, saying that names of Middle East waterways do “not imply ownership by any particular nation, but rather reflects a shared respect for the collective heritage of humanity”. Abbas Araghchi continued on X:
Politically motivated attempts to alter the historically established name of the Persian Gulf are indicative of hostile intent toward Iran and its people, and are firmly condemned.
Any short-sighted step in this connection will have no validity or legal or geographical effect, it will only bring the wrath of all Iranians from all walks of life and political persuasion in Iran, the US and across the world.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century and it has become an emotive issues for Iranians, although usage of “Gulf of Arabia” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The US military for years has also unilaterally referred to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf in statements and images it releases.
Trump can change the name for official US purposes, but he can’t dictate what the rest of the world calls it, as he has found several months after he declared that the US would refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.
Trump administration to stop US research on space pollution, in boon to Elon Musk
Tom Perkins
The Trump administration is poised to kill federal research into pollution from satellites and rockets, including some caused by Elon Musk’s space companies, raising new conflict-of-interest questions about the billionaire SpaceX and Starlink owner.
The pollution appears to be accumulating in the stratosphere at alarming levels. Some fear it could destroy the ozone layer, potentially expose some people to higher levels of ultraviolet radiation or help further destabilize the earth’s climate during the climate crisis.
The two research projects would’ve had the potential to eventually lead to new regulations, costs or logistical challenges for Musk’s companies and the commercial space industry, experts say.
They were part of the office of atmospheric research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which the Trump administration is now proposing to kill. The administration says it is “eliminating the federal government’s support of woke ideology”, but critics say it’s protecting a prolific donor and political ally.
“Obviously there’s political motivation, and Elon Musk’s business interests are tied up in Noaa’s work,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit, which has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for emails around the projects.
These are programs the government wanted to build up, that had bipartisan support, and suddenly they’re being gutted with no rhyme, reason or adequate explanation.
‘Maduro did not close our bureau – Trump did’: Voice of America journalists speak out
Lauren Gambino
Carolina Valladares Pérez, a Washington-based correspondent for the government-funded international news service Voice of America, has reported from places where press freedom is severely restricted – war zones and autocratic states – in the Middle East and across Latin America. Intimidation and threats from state officials were not unusual – but she always managed to get the story out.
Now for the first time in her career, Valladares Pérez says she has been silenced – not by a faraway regime, but by the government of the United States.
“Nicolás Maduro did not close our bureau,” she said, of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader. “Donald Trump closed it. I find this astonishing.”
Valladares Pérez is one of hundreds of VOA journalists who remain shut out of their newsroom nearly two months after Trump signed a late-night executive order aimed at dismantling their parent company, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). The journalists had been hopeful they might be able to return to their broadcasts this week – VOA was even included in the rotation of news outlets assigned to cover the president as part of the White House press pool – but whiplashing court orders have clouded their path forward.
“We have 3,500 affiliates around the world – these are television stations, radio stations, digital affiliates, who depend on our content,” said Patsy Widakuswara, VOA’s White House bureau chief, who is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the president’s authority to gut an agency chartered by Congress.
The void is going to be filled by our adversaries – it already is.
