The Munich Security Conference in Germany this weekend was supposed to host the opening salvo of the Trump administration's peace initiative for Ukraine. But Vice President J.D. Vance dedicated only a few words of his Munich speech on Friday to the war there: "The Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine."
Instead, Vance's speech brought America's domestic culture war to the global stage. "The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor," he said. "What I worry about is the threat from within: the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America."
It's a strange mirror of the Biden administration, which tried to tie its foreign policy to its domestic agenda. Former President Joe Biden began his administration promising a "foreign policy for the middle class" and a global alliance of democracies, with Europe as the centerpiece. The Trump administration is similarly kicking off its foreign policy agenda with a lecture to Europe about democracy—but in favor of conservative rather than progressive values.
