Rory Stewart

One of the interesting things I feel with European colleagues when I've been talking to them both in meetings and outside meetings and late at night is

Their take on Metz's speech is he needs to buy time.

He needs to get an EU-US trade deal across the line.

So he doesn't want to unnecessarily offend Trump until that's done.

But they are in absolutely no doubt that the world changed with Greenland.

And you get that sense with Stob 2, the point at which the United States signaled in the lead up to Davos that it was prepared to annex somebody else's sovereign territory.

It was a game changer.

That is the new normal.

No, no, no, no.

Can I interrupt and be mean to him?

Yeah.

You've just told us what actually is interesting about the U.S.

National Security Strategy.

Not that it's saying that Europe needs to take responsibility for its defense.

That was a line from the first Trump administration.

That was a line from Biden.

That was a line from Obama.

And that's what Elbridge Colby was selling yesterday in his speech.

As you pointed out, the key point of the US national security strategy is it's talking about civilizational erasure in Europe.

It's talking about putting its energy behind the populist far right in Europe.