BRUSSELS — The European Union faces a critical week as it seeks to shield Ukraine from a humiliating peace deal carved out by the U.S. and Russia while attempting to salvage an agreement to fund a multi-billion euro loan to keep Kyiv afloat. After a series of stinging attacks from Washington ― including Donald Trump telling POLITICO that European leaders are “weak” ― the coming days will be a real test of their mettle. On Monday leaders will attempt to build bridges and use their powers of persuasion over the peace agreement when they meet Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. officials in Berlin. At the same time in Brussels, EU foreign ministers and diplomats will battle to win over a growing number of European governments that oppose the loan plan. By Thursday, when all 27 leaders gather in the Belgian capital for what promises to be one of the most pivotal summits in years, they’ll hope to have more clarity on whether the intense diplomacy has paid off. With Trump’s stinging put-downs ― Europe’s leaders “talk, but they don’t produce” ― and NATO chief Mark Rutte’s stark warnings about the the threat from Russia ringing in their ears, they’re taking nothing for granted. “We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way,” Rutte said last week. “Russia has brought war back to Europe and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured.” Little wonder then that European officials are casting the next few days as existential. The latest shot of 11th-hour diplomacy will see the leaders of the U.K., Germany and possibly France, potentially with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special envoy Steve Witkoff, meeting with Zelenskyy in Berlin. As if to underscore the significance of the meeting, “numerous European heads of state and government, as well as the leaders of the EU and NATO, will join the talks” after the initial discussion, said Stefan Kornelius, spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. French President Emmanuel Macron hasn’t confirmed his attendance but spoke to Zelenskyy by telephone on Sunday. The discussion will represent Europe’s attempt to influence the final settlement, weeks after a 28-point peace plan drafted by Witkoff  — reportedly with the aid of several Kremlin officials — provoked a furious backlash in both Kyiv and European capitals. They’ve since scrambled to put together an alternative. Further European disunity this week would send a “disastrous signal to Ukraine,” said one EU official. That outcome wouldn’t just be a hammer blow to the war-struck nation, the official added: “It’s also fair to say that Europe will then fail as well.” EMPTYING TERRITORIES This time the focus will be on a 20-point amendment to the plan drafted by Kyiv and its European allies and submitted to Washington for review last week. The contents remain unclear, and nothing is decided, but the fate of the Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation is particularly thorny. Trump has pitched emptying out the territories of Ukrainian and Russian troops and establishing a demilitarized “free economic zone” where U.S. business interests could operate. Ukraine has rejected that proposal, according to a French official, who was granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. The U.S. has insisted on territorial concessions despite fierce European objections, the official added, creating friction with the Trump administration. Leaders will attempt to build bridges and use their powers of persuasion over the peace agreement when they meet Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. officials in Berlin. | Antonio Masiello/Getty Images Europe’s leaders insist there can be no progress on territory before Ukraine is offered security guarantees. In a sign of movement toward some kind of deal, Zelenskyy said over the weekend he was willing to “compromise” and not demand NATO membership for Ukraine. Instead, the country should be afforded an ad-hoc collective defense arrangement, he told journalists in a WhatsApp conversation. “The bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States … and the security guarantees from our European colleagues for us, as well as from other countries such as Canada and Japan ― these security guarantees for us provide an opportunity to prevent another outbreak of Russian aggression,” he said. REPEATED SETBACKS Europe will have further opportunities to discuss the way forward after Monday. EU affairs ministers will continue on Tuesday in Brussels to thrash out plans for Thursday’s summit. In between, Wednesday will see the leaders of Europe’s “Eastern flank” ― with countries including the Baltics and Poland represented ― huddle in Helsinki. The EU has been trying for months to convince Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever to consent to a plan to use the cash value of the €185 billion in Russian state assets held in Brussels-based depository Euroclear to fund and arm Ukraine. (The remainder of the total €210 billion financial package would include €25 billion in frozen Russian assets held across the bloc.) In a sign the chances of a deal at Thursday’s summit are worsening rather than improving, Italy — the EU’s third-largest country — sided with Belgium’s demands to look for alternative options to finance Ukraine in a letter on Friday that was also signed by Malta and Bulgaria. Czechia’s new Prime Minister Andrej Babiš also rejected the plan on Sunday. “The more such cases we have the more likely it is that we will have to find other solutions,” an EU diplomat said. The five countries — even if joined by pro-Kremlin Hungary and Slovakia — would not be able to build a blocking minority, but their public criticism erodes the Commission’s hopes of striking a political deal this week. A meeting of EU ambassadors originally planned for Sunday evening was postponed until Monday. While the last-minute diplomatic effort has left many concerned the money might not be approved before the end of the year, with Ukraine in desperate need of the cash, three diplomats insisted they were sticking to the plan and that no alternatives were yet being considered. Belgium is engaging constructively with the draft measures, actively making suggestions and changes in the document to be considered when ambassadors meet on Monday, one of the diplomats and an EU official said. The decision on the Russian assets is “a decision on the future of Europe and will determine whether the EU is still a relevant actor,” a German official said. “There is no option B.” Bjarke Smith-Meyer, Nick Vinocur, Victor Jack and Zoya Sheftalovich in Brussels, Veronika Melkozerova in Kyiv, Clea Caulcutt and Laura Kayali in Paris and Nette Nöstlinger in Berlin contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump’s pursuit of an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine is increasingly being driven by his own impatience — with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders who Trump believes are standing in the way of both peace and future economic cooperation between Washington and Moscow. Trump, who has called for Russia’s return to the G7 and spoken repeatedly about his eagerness to bring Russia back into the economic fold, laid bare his frustrations Monday at the White House with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of “The Conversation.” He derided European leaders as talkers who “don’t produce” and declared that Zelenskyy has “to play ball” given that, in his view, “Russia has the upper hand.” Zelenskyy, who Trump grumbled hadn’t read the latest peace proposal, spent Monday working with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain on a revision of the Americans’ 28-point proposal that he said has been shaved down to 20 points. “We took out openly anti-Ukrainian points,” Zelenskyy told a group of reporters in Kyiv, emphasizing that Ukraine still needs stronger security guarantees and that he isn’t ready to give Russia more land in the Donbas than its military currently holds. With Russia unlikely to budge from its demands, the White House-driven peace talks appear stalled. And as Trump’s irritation deepens, pressure is mounting on the Europeans backing Zelenskyy to prove Trump wrong. “He says we don’t produce, and I hate to say it, but there’s been some truth to that,” said a European official, one of three interviewed for this report who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “We are doing it now, but we have been slow to realize we are the solution to our problem.” The official pointed to NATO’s increased defense spending commitments and the PURL initiative, through which NATO allies are buying U.S. weapons to send to Ukraine, as evidence that things have started to shift. But in the near term, the European Union is struggling to convince Belgium to support a nearly $200 billion loan to Ukraine funded with seized Russian assets. “If we fail on this one, we’re in trouble,” said a second European official. Trump’s mounting pressure on Ukraine makes clear that months of careful management of the president through private texts, public flattery and general deference has gotten Europe very little. But Liana Fix, a senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the leaders on the other side of the Atlantic “know very well that they can’t just stand up to Trump and tell him courageously that, you know, this is not how you treat Europe, because [of] the existential dependence that is still there between Europe and the United States.” Still, some in Europe continue to express shock and revulsion over Trump’s lopsided diplomacy in favor of Russia, disputing the president’s assessment during his POLITICO interview that Putin’s army has the upper hand despite its slow advance across the Donbas, more than half of which is now in Russian control. “Our view is not that Ukraine is losing. If Russia was so powerful they would have been able to finish the war within 24 hours,” a third European diplomat said. “If you think that Russia is winning, what does that mean — you give them everything? That’s not a sustainable peace. You’ll reward the Russians for their aggression and they will look for more – not only in Ukraine but also in Europe.” Trump has refused to approve additional defense aid to Ukraine, while blasting his predecessor for sending billions in aid — approved by Democrats and many Republicans in Congress — to help the country defend itself following Russia’s Feb. 2022 invasion. Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said Trump’s brief that Russia is prevailing on the battlefield doesn’t match the reality. “Russia has not achieved its strategic objectives in Ukraine. It has completely failed in its initial objective to take Kyiv and subjugate the country, and it has even failed in its more limited objective in taking all of the Donbas and neutering Ukraine from a security perspective,” Sullivan said, adding that he thinks Ukraine could prevail militarily with stronger U.S. support. “But if the United States throws Ukraine under the bus and essentially takes Russia’s side functionally, then things, of course, are much more difficult for Ukraine, and that seems to be the direction of travel this administration is taking.” The White House did not respond to a request for additional comment. Clearly eager to normalize relations with Moscow, Trump appears to be motivated more by the prospect of cutting deals with Putin than maintaining a transatlantic alliance built on shared democratic principles. Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who served on Trump’s national security council in his first term, noted that the U.S.-Russia diplomacy involves three people with business backgrounds and investment portfolios: special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner on the U.S. side and Russia’s Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign investment fund. “Putin’s always thinking about what’s the angle here? How do I approach somebody? He’s got the number of President Trump,” Hill said Monday on a Brookings Institution podcast. “He knows he wants to make a deal, and he’s emphasizing this, and all the context is business, not really as diplomacy.” Additionally, Trump is eager to end Europe’s decades-long dependence on the U.S., which he believes has been saddled with the burden of its continental security for far too long. Ending the war with a deal that largely favors Putin would not only burnish Trump’s own self-conception as a global peacemaker — it would serve final notice to Europe that many of America’s oldest and most steadfast allies are truly on their own. Trump’s new national security strategy, released last week, made that point explicit, devoting more words to the threat of Europe’s civilizational decline — castigating the entire continent over its immigration and economic policies — than to threats posed by China, Russia or North Korea. Asked by POLITICO if European countries would continue to be U.S. allies, Trump demurred: “It depends,” he said, harshly criticizing immigration policies. “They want to be politically correct, and it makes them weak.” Europe, despite years of warnings from Trump and their own growing awareness about the need for what French President Emanuel Macron has called “strategic autonomy,” has been slow to mobilize its defenses to be able to defend the continent — and Ukraine — on its own. At Trump’s behest, NATO members agreed in June to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP over the coming decade. And NATO is now purchasing U.S. weapons to send to Ukraine through a new NATO initiative. But it may be too little, too late as the war grinds into a fourth winter with Ukraine’s military low on ammunition, weapons and morale. “That is why they will continue to engage this administration despite the strategy,” Fix said. And while Trump sees Ukraine and European stubbornness as the primary impediment to peace, many longtime diplomats believe that it’s his own unwillingness to ratchet up pressure on Moscow — Trump imposed new sanctions on Russian oil last month, only to pull some of them back — that is rendering his peacemaking efforts so fruitless. “It’s not enough to want peace. You’ve got to create a context in which the protagonists are willing to compromise either enthusiastically or reluctantly,” said Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a senior adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration. “The president has totally failed to do that, so it’s not a question of wordsmithing. In order to succeed at the table, you have to succeed away from the table. And they have failed to do that.” Veronika Melkozerova, Ari Hawkins and Daniella Cheslow contributed to this report.

LONDON — The British government pushed back on Tuesday against Donald Trump’s assertion that European nations spend too much time discussing the war in Ukraine without reaching a resolution. The U.S. president told POLITICO’s Dasha Burns in a Monday interview for a special episode of The Conversation that European leaders “talk too much” about the conflict and have failed to help end the war.   “They’re not producing,” Trump said. “We’re talking about Ukraine. They talk but they don’t produce. And the war just keeps going on and on.” POLITICO on Tuesday named Trump the most influential figure shaping European politics in the year ahead, a recognition previously conferred on leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.  Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson challenged Trump’s framing of the Ukraine peace negotiations, which have entered a pivotal moment almost four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. “I would reject that,” the spokesperson said. “You’ve seen the number of countries involved in the Coalition of the Willing discussions. You would also see the work that the U.K. has done in terms of leading the response on sanctions, including against the shadow fleet [carrying embargoed Russian goods].” However, they confirmed that British support for the U.S.-led peace plan for Ukraine remained strong, and welcomed “the significant U.S. efforts to bring about peace to Ukraine, which no one wants more than President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy.” Washington has held separate talks with both Moscow and Kyiv, neither of which has yielded an outcome that satisfies both sides. The spokesperson also pushed back against the U.S. president’s desciption of the continent as a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people. “You’ve seen the strong relationship between the prime minister and the president,” they said, noting that the U.S.-U.K. trade deal signed earlier this year was about “securing and protecting and creating jobs.” The spokesperson also referenced the unity of the E3 nations (Britain, Germany and France) in speaking with Zelenskyy at Downing Street on Monday: “We will continue to put our shoulder to the wheel in order to strengthen Ukraine’s position, in order to bring this barbaric war to an end.” Starmer will meet U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Warren Stephens at Downing Street on Tuesday afternoon for a previously scheduled appointment. MIDDLE GROUND Trump also hit out against left-wing London Mayor Sadiq Khan, claiming the city’s first Muslim mayor had only been elected “because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.” Downing Street did not challenge that assertion: “The prime minister has a strong relationship with the U.S. president and a strong relationship with the mayor of London and on both is committed to working together in order to deliver stronger outcomes for the British people.” But the U.S. president’s comments drew some criticism from Labour MPs. “Strength is the ability to work with others and bring them along with you, to listen and to make friends,” argued Emily Thornberry, who chairs Britain’s Foreign Affairs Committee. “It’s not strong to try to push other people around.” A backbench Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak candidly, admitted it was “hard to remain calm when you read Trump when he’s in full flow.” The MP added that the U.K. government should “be absolutely unapologetic and fearless when making our views known.” “It’s clear Trump sees [Russian President Vladimir] Putin as an ally in subduing Europe and we can’t allow that to happen.” A third Labour MP was dismissive of Trump’s stance on European politics: “So he’s allowed to interfere with our politics, but God forbid I do a bit of door-knocking for Kamala Harris.” Esther Webber contributed to this report.

This article is also available in French and German. President Donald Trump denounced Europe as a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people in an interview with POLITICO, belittling the traditional U.S. allies for failing to control migration and end the Russia-Ukraine war, and signaling that he would endorse European political candidates aligned with his own vision for the continent. The broadside attack against European political leadership represents the president’s most virulent denunciation to date of these Western democracies, threatening a decisive rupture with countries like France and Germany that already have deeply strained relations with the Trump administration. “I think they’re weak,” Trump said of Europe’s political leaders. “But I also think that they want to be so politically correct.” “I think they don’t know what to do,” he added. “Europe doesn’t know what to do.” Trump matched that blunt, even abrasive, candor on European affairs with a sequence of stark pronouncements on matters closer to home: He said he would make support for immediately slashing interest rates a litmus test in his choice of a new Federal Reserve chair. He said he could extend anti-drug military operations to Mexico and Colombia. And Trump urged conservative Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both in their 70s, to stay on the bench. Trump’s comments about Europe come at an especially precarious moment in the negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as European leaders express intensifying alarm that Trump may abandon Ukraine and its continental allies to Russian aggression. In the interview, Trump offered no reassurance to Europeans on that score and declared that Russia was obviously in a stronger position than Ukraine. Trump spoke on Monday at the White House with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of The Conversation. POLITICO on Tuesday named Trump the most influential figure shaping European politics in the year ahead, a recognition previously conferred on leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Trump’s confident commentary on Europe presented a sharp contrast with some of his remarks on domestic matters in the interview. The president and his party have faced a series of electoral setbacks and spiraling dysfunction in Congress this fall as voters rebel against the high cost of living. Trump has struggled to deliver a message to meet that new reality: In the interview, he graded the economy’s performance as an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” insisted that prices were falling across the board and declined to outline a specific remedy for imminent spikes in health care premiums. Even amid growing turbulence at home, however, Trump remains a singular figure in international politics. In recent days, European capitals have shuddered with dismay at the release of Trump’s new National Security Strategy document, a highly provocative manifesto that cast the Trump administration in opposition to the mainstream European political establishment and vowed to “cultivate resistance” to the European status quo on immigration and other politically volatile issues. In the interview, Trump amplified that worldview, describing cities like London and Paris as creaking under the burden of migration from the Middle East and Africa. Without a change in border policy, Trump said, some European states “will not be viable countries any longer.” Using highly incendiary language, Trump singled out London’s left-wing mayor, Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants and the city’s first Muslim mayor, as a “disaster” and blamed his election on immigration: “He gets elected because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.” The president of the European Council, António Costa, on Monday rebuked the Trump administration for the national security document and urged the White House to respect Europe’s sovereignty and right to self-government. “Allies do not threaten to interfere in the democratic life or the domestic political choices of these allies,” Costa said. “They respect them.” Speaking with POLITICO, Trump flouted those boundaries and said he would continue to back favorite candidates in European elections, even at the risk of offending local sensitivities. “I’d endorse,” Trump said. “I’ve endorsed people, but I’ve endorsed people that a lot of Europeans don’t like. I’ve endorsed Viktor Orbán,” the hard-right Hungarian prime minister Trump said he admired for his border-control policies. It was the Russia-Ukraine war, rather than electoral politics, that Trump appeared most immediately focused on. He claimed on Monday that he had offered a new draft of a peace plan that some Ukrainian officials liked, but that Zelenskyy himself had not reviewed yet. “It would be nice if he would read it,” Trump said. Zelenskyy met with leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Monday and continued to voice opposition to ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of a peace deal. The president said he put little stock in the role of European leaders in seeking to end the war: “They talk, but they don’t produce, and the war just keeps going on and on.” In a fresh challenge to Zelenskyy, who appears politically weakened in Ukraine due to a corruption scandal, Trump renewed his call for Ukraine to hold new elections. “They haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.” Latin America Even as he said he is pursuing a peace agenda overseas, Trump said he might further broaden the military actions his administration has taken in Latin America against targets it claims are linked to the drug trade. Trump has deployed a massive military force to the Caribbean to strike alleged drug runners and pressure the authoritarian regime in Venezuela. In the interview, Trump repeatedly declined to rule out putting American troops into Venezuela as part of an effort to bring down the strongman ruler Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump blames for exporting drugs and dangerous people to the United States. Some leaders on the American right have warned Trump that a ground invasion of Venezuela would be a red line for conservatives who voted for him in part to end foreign wars. “I don’t want to rule in or out. I don’t talk about it,” Trump said of deploying ground troops, adding: “I don’t want to talk to you about military strategy.” But the president said he would consider using force against targets in other countries where the drug trade is highly active, including Mexico and Colombia. “Sure, I would,” he said. Trump scarcely defended some of his most controversial actions in Latin America, including his recent pardon of the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a decades-long sentence in an American prison after being convicted in a massive drug-trafficking conspiracy. Trump said he knew “very little” about Hernández except that he’d been told by “very good people” that the former Honduran president had been targeted unfairly by political opponents. “They asked me to do it and I said, I’ll do it,” Trump acknowledged, without naming the people who sought the pardon for Hernández. HEALTH CARE AND THE ECONOMY Asked to grade the economy under his watch, Trump rated it an overwhelming success: “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.” To the extent voters are frustrated about prices, Trump said the Biden administration was at fault: “I inherited a mess. I inherited a total mess.” The president is facing a forbidding political environment because of voters’ struggles with affordability, with about half of voters overall and nearly 4 in 10 people who voted for Trump in 2024 saying in a recent POLITICO Poll that the cost of living was as bad as it had ever been in their lives. Trump said he could make additional changes to tariff policy to help lower the price of some goods, as he has already done, but he insisted overall that the trend on costs was in the right direction. “Prices are all coming down,” Trump said, adding: “Everything is coming down.” Prices rose 3 percent over the 12 months ending in September, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index. Trump’s political struggles are shadowing his upcoming decision on a nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, a post that will shape the economic environment for the balance of Trump’s term. Asked if he was making support for slashing interest rates a litmus test for his Fed nominee, Trump answered with a quick “yes.” The most immediate threat to the cost of living for many Americans is the expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies for Obamacare exchange plans that were enacted by Democrats under former President Joe Biden and are set to expire at the end of this year. Health insurance premiums are expected to spike in 2026, and medical charities are already experiencing a marked rise in requests for aid even before subsidies expire. Trump has been largely absent from health policy negotiations in Washington, while Democrats and some Republicans supportive of a compromise on subsidies have run into a wall of opposition on the right. Reaching a deal — and marshaling support from enough Republicans to pass it — would likely require direct intervention from the president. Yet asked if he would support a temporary extension of Obamacare subsidies while he works out a large-scale plan with lawmakers, Trump was noncommittal. “I don’t know. I’m gonna have to see,” he said, pivoting to an attack on Democrats for being too generous with insurance companies in the Affordable Care Act. A cloud of uncertainty surrounds the administration’s intentions on health care policy. In late November, the White House planned to unveil a proposal to temporarily extend Obamacare subsidies only to postpone the announcement. Trump has promised on and off for years to unveil a comprehensive plan for replacing Obamacare but has never done so. That did not change in the interview. “I want to give the people better health insurance for less money,” Trump said. “The people will get the money, and they’re going to buy the health insurance that they want.” Reminded that Americans are currently buying holiday gifts and drawing up household budgets for 2026 amid uncertainty around premiums, Trump shot back: “Don’t be dramatic. Don’t be dramatic.” SUPREME COURT Large swaths of Trump’s domestic agenda currently sit before the Supreme Court, with a generally sympathetic 6-3 conservative majority that has nevertheless thrown up some obstacles to the most brazen versions of executive power Trump has attempted to wield. Trump spoke with POLITICO several days after the high court agreed to hear arguments concerning the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, the automatic conferral of citizenship on people born in the United States. Trump is attempting to roll back that right and said it would be “devastating” if the court blocked him from doing so. If the court rules in his favor, Trump said, he had not yet considered whether he would try to strip citizenship from people who were born as citizens under current law. Trump broke with some members of his party who have been hoping that the court’s two oldest conservatives, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, might consider retiring before the midterm elections so that Trump can nominate another conservative while Republicans are guaranteed to control the Senate. The president said he’d rather Alito, 75, and Thomas, 77, the court’s most reliable conservative jurists, remain in place: “I hope they stay,” he said, “’cause I think they’re fantastic.”

Europe’s security does not depend solely on our physical borders and their defense. It rests on something far less visible, and far more sensitive: the digital networks that keep our societies, economies and democracies functioning every second of the day. > Without resilient networks, the daily workings of Europe would grind to a > halt, and so too would any attempt to build meaningful defense readiness. A recent study by Copenhagen Economics confirms that telecom operators have become the first line of defense in Europe’s security architecture. Their networks power essential services ranging from emergency communications and cross-border healthcare to energy systems, financial markets, transport and, increasingly, Europe’s defense capabilities. Without resilient networks, the daily workings of Europe would grind to a halt, and so too would any attempt to build meaningful defense readiness. This reality forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: Europe cannot build credible defense capabilities on top of an economically strained, structurally fragmented telecom sector. Yet this is precisely the risk today. A threat landscape outpacing Europe’s defenses The challenges facing Europe are evolving faster than our political and regulatory systems can respond. In 2023 alone, ENISA recorded 188 major incidents, causing 1.7 billion lost user-hours, the equivalent of taking entire cities offline. While operators have strengthened their systems and outage times fell by more than half in 2024 compared with the previous year, despite a growing number of incidents, the direction of travel remains clear: cyberattacks are more sophisticated, supply chains more vulnerable and climate-related physical disruptions more frequent. Hybrid threats increasingly target civilian digital infrastructure as a way to weaken states. Telecom networks, once considered as technical utilities, have become a strategic asset essential to Europe’s stability. > Europe cannot deploy cross-border defense capabilities without resilient, > pan-European digital infrastructure. Nor can it guarantee NATO > interoperability with 27 national markets, divergent rules and dozens of > sub-scale operators unable to invest at continental scale. Our allies recognize this. NATO recently encouraged members to spend up to 1.5 percent of their GDP on protecting critical infrastructure. Secretary General Mark Rutte also urged investment in cyber defense, AI, and cloud technologies, highlighting the military benefits of cloud scalability and edge computing – all of which rely on high-quality, resilient networks. This is a clear political signal that telecom security is not merely an operational matter but a geopolitical priority. The link between telecoms and defense is deeper than many realize. As also explained in the recent Arel report, Much More than a Network, modern defense capabilities rely largely on civilian telecom networks. Strong fiber backbones, advanced 5G and future 6G systems, resilient cloud and edge computing, satellite connectivity, and data centers form the nervous system of military logistics, intelligence and surveillance. Europe cannot deploy cross-border defense capabilities without resilient, pan-European digital infrastructure. Nor can it guarantee NATO interoperability with 27 national markets, divergent rules and dozens of sub-scale operators unable to invest at continental scale. Fragmentation has become one of Europe’s greatest strategic vulnerabilities. The reform Europe needs: An investment boost for digital networks At the same time, Europe expects networks to become more resilient, more redundant, less dependent on foreign technology and more capable of supporting defense-grade applications. Security and resilience are not side tasks for telecom operators, they are baked into everything they do. From procurement and infrastructure design to daily operations, operators treat these efforts as core principles shaping how networks are built, run and protected. Therefore, as the Copenhagen Economics study shows, the level of protection Europe now requires will demand substantial additional capital. > It is unrealistic to expect world-class, defense-ready infrastructure to > emerge from a model that has become structurally unsustainable. This is the right ambition, but the economic model underpinning the sector does not match these expectations. Due to fragmentation and over-regulation, Europe’s telecom market invests less per capita than global peers, generates roughly half the return on capital of operators in the United States and faces rising costs linked to expanding security obligations. It is unrealistic to expect world-class, defense-ready infrastructure to emerge from a model that has become structurally unsustainable. A shift in policy priorities is therefore essential. Europe must place investment in security and resilience at the center of its political agenda. Policy must allow this reality to be reflected in merger assessments, reduce overlapping security rules and provide public support where the public interest exceeds commercial considerations. This is not state aid; it is strategic social responsibility. Completing the single market for telecommunications is central to this agenda. A fragmented market cannot produce the secure, interoperable, large-scale solutions required for modern defense. The Digital Networks Act must simplify and harmonize rules across the EU, supported by a streamlined governance that distinguishes between domestic matters and cross-border strategic issues. Spectrum policy must also move beyond national silos, allowing Europe to avoid conflicts with NATO over key bands and enabling coherent next-generation deployments. Telecom policy nowadays is also defense policy. When we measure investment gaps in digital network deployment, we still tend to measure simple access to 5G and fiber. However, we should start considering that — if security, resilience and defense-readiness are to be taken into account — the investment gap is much higher that the €200 billion already estimated by the European Commission. Europe’s strategic choice The momentum for stronger European defense is real — but momentum fades if it is not seized. If Europe fails to modernize and secure its telecom infrastructure now, it risks entering the next decade with a weakened industrial base, chronic underinvestment, dependence on non-EU technologies and networks unable to support advanced defense applications. In that scenario, Europe’s democratic resilience would erode in parallel with its economic competitiveness, leaving the continent more exposed to geopolitical pressure and technological dependency. > If Europe fails to modernize and secure its telecom infrastructure now, it > risks entering the next decade with a weakened industrial base, chronic > underinvestment, dependence on non-EU technologies and networks unable to > support advanced defense applications. Europe still has time to change course and put telecoms at the center of its agenda — not as a technical afterthought, but as a core pillar of its defense strategy. The time for incremental steps has passed. Europe must choose to build the network foundations of its security now or accept that its strategic ambitions will remain permanently out of reach. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Connect Europe AISBL * The ultimate controlling entity is Connect Europe AISBL * The political advertisement is linked to advocacy on EU digital, telecom and industrial policy, including initiatives such as the Digital Networks Act, Digital Omnibus, and connectivity, cybersecurity, and defence frameworks aimed at strengthening Europe’s digital competitiveness. More information here.

BRUSSELS — A jolt of optimism that Brussels and the Latin American countries of Mercosur can finally seal their mammoth trade deal this year has given way to trepidation that everything could fall apart just before the finish line. The biggest hurdle that remains is approving a workaround to protect European farm markets in the event of a sudden influx of produce from the Mercosur bloc, which groups Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The safeguards, calibrated in consultation with Paris and presented in early October, seemed enough at first to reassure skeptical politicians and farmers in France and Poland. But the mood in the European Parliament and in some capitals has turned volatile. And with the clock ticking down to a tentative Dec. 20 date for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Brazil for a formal signing ceremony, the path to that successful outcome is narrowing. Brazil’s ambassador to the EU, Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva, is bullish that the agreement, which has been 25 years in the making and would create a free-trade area spanning nearly 800 million people, can still be done. “What will happen will be exactly what happened with other agreements that the EU negotiated with other countries: In the beginning there was a lot of backlash, but then suddenly people discovered that it was a mutual benefit equation,” da Costa e Silva said at an event in Brussels last week. To close the deal in time, everything needs to go right. European lawmakers must first approve the additional safeguards, after which the Council, the intergovernmental branch of the EU, then needs to sign off on the broader deal. Finally, the Commission must sign it. PARLIAMENT UNCHAINED The Parliament has witnessed chaotic scenes in recent days as pro-Mercosur lawmakers tried, and failed, to fast-track a vote to approve the safeguards. Although seemingly only a technical measure, the safeguard text is a crucial political condition for President Emmanuel Macron of France — the EU’s second-largest country — to back the overall agreement.  The Council has concluded its work on the safeguards, and is waiting for the Parliament to move forward.  The text will now tentatively be put to a committee vote in the Parliament on Dec. 8, followed by a Dec. 16 vote in the plenary — just four days before the planned signing ceremony.   Although seemingly only a technical measure, the safeguard text is a crucial political condition for President Emmanuel Macron of France. | Thierry Nectoux/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images “We have been negotiating this agreement for 25 years and now we are being told that we must act quickly,” said Céline Imart, a French MEP from the European People’s Party group and a farmer herself.  Adding to the headaches, over 140 lawmakers have called for a resolution seeking a legal opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union on whether the overall deal is compatible with the European treaties.  That would paralyze the Parliament’s approval of the safeguards until the court — known for its lengthy procedures — rules on the issue. Parliament President Roberta Metsola rejected the request on the grounds that the Council had not yet weighed in on the agreement. Those lawmakers have criticized the decision and are now pushing for further explanations from the Parliament’s own legal service on whether Metsola overstepped her powers.  THE HOME STRETCH With U.S. President Donald Trump breathing down Europe’s neck, fence-sitters like the Netherlands and Italy have come to terms with the fact that the deal would offer a welcome boost for the bloc’s struggling exporters. Even Macron struck a conciliatory tone after meeting Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in early November.  Still, in the Council, where a qualified majority of EU countries is needed to approve the deal, the battle is not yet won. Poland — one of the countries Brussels had hoped to soothe with the new safeguard rules — this week restated its opposition. “Our position is clearly defined: We will vote against, despite the agreement on safeguards that has been reached,” Michal Baranowski, Poland’s undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Economic Development, said Monday.  Confusion at the highest level hasn’t helped either.  At the last European leaders’ summit in October, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz prematurely announced that EU leaders had unanimously backed the contentious deal.  That forced European Council President António Costa to clarify that he had merely sought to assess next steps with European leaders. France followed up by seeking fresh reassurances that the European market would be protected from agricultural products that don’t meet the bloc’s standards. If the approval process hasn’t already gone off track by then, the EU leaders’ summit on Dec. 18-19 in Brussels could still deliver some last-minute drama before von der Leyen can catch that flight to Brazil. “Ursula von der Leyen already has her tickets to Brazil. It is up to us to ensure that she only goes there for a holiday,” added Imart, the French MEP. 

Businesses from Wall Street to main street are struggling to comply with President Donald Trump’s byzantine tariff regime, driving up costs and counteracting, for some, the benefits of the corporate tax cuts Republicans passed earlier this year. Trump has ripped up the U.S. tariff code over the past year, replacing a decades-old system that imposed the same tariffs on imports from all but a few countries with a vastly more complicated system of many different tariff rates depending on the origin of imported goods. To give an example, an industrial product that faced a mostly uniform 5 percent tariff rate in the past could now be taxed at 15 percent if it comes from the EU or Japan, 20 percent from Norway and many African countries, 24 to 25 percent from countries in Southeast Asia and upwards of 50 percent from India, Brazil or China. “This has been an exhausting year, I’d say, for most CEOs in the country,” said Gary Shapiro, CEO and vice chair of the Consumer Technology Association, an industry group whose 1,300 member companies include major brands like Amazon, Walmart and AMD, as well as many small businesses and startups. “The level of executive time that’s been put in this has been enormous. So instead of focusing on innovation, they’re focusing on how they deal with the tariffs.” Upping the pressure, the Justice Department has announced that it intends to make the prosecution of customs fraud one of its top priorities. The proliferation of trade regulations and threat of intensified enforcement has driven many companies to beef up their staff and spend what could add up to tens of millions of dollars to ensure they are not running afoul of Trump’s requirements. The time and expense involved, combined with the tens of billions of dollars in higher tariffs that companies are paying each month to import goods, amount to a massive burden that is weighing down industries traditionally reliant on imported products. And it’s denting, for some, the impact of the hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts that companies will receive over the next decade via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act championed by the White House. “Every CEO survey says this is their biggest issue,” said Shapiro. A recent survey by KPMG, a professional services firm, found 89 percent of CEOs said they expect tariffs to significantly impact their business’ performance and operations over the next three years, with 86 percent saying they expect to respond by increasing prices for their goods and services as needed. Maytee Pereira, managing director for customs and international trade at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, another professional services firm, has seen a similar trend. “Many of our clients have been spending easily 30 to 60 percent of their time having tariff conversations across the organization,” Pereira said. That’s forced CEOs to get involved in import-sourcing decisions to an unprecedented degree and intensified competition for personnel trained in customs matters. “There’s a real dearth of trade professionals,” Pereira said. “There isn’t a day that I don’t speak to a client who has lost people from their trade teams, because there is this renewed need for individuals with those resources, with those skill sets.” But the impact goes far beyond a strain on personnel into reducing the amount of money that companies are willing to spend on purchasing new capital equipment or making other investments to boost their long-term growth. “People are saying they can’t put money into R&D,” said one industry official, who was granted anonymity because of the risk of antagonizing the Trump administration. “They can’t put money into siting new factories in the United States. They don’t have the certainty they need to make decisions.” A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. However, the administration has previously defended tariffs as key to boosting domestic manufacturing, along with their overall economic agenda of tax cuts and reduced regulation. They’ve also touted commitments from companies and other countries for massive new investments in the U.S. in order to avoid tariffs, although they’ve acknowledged it will take time for the benefits to reach workers and consumers. “Look, I would have loved to be able to snap my fingers, have these facilities going. It takes time,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview this week on Fox News. “I think 2026 is going to be a blockbuster year.” For some companies, however, any benefit they’ve received from Trump’s push to lower taxes and reduce regulations has been substantially eroded by the new burden of complying with his complicated tariff system, said a second industry official, who was also granted anonymity for the same reason. “It is incredibly complex,” that second industry official said. “And it keeps changing, too.” Matthew Aleshire, director of the Milken Institute’s Geo-Economics Initiative, said he did not know of any studies yet that estimate the overall cost, both in time and money, for American businesses to comply with Trump’s new trade regulations. But it appears substantial. “I think for some firms and investors, it may be on par with the challenges experienced in the early days of Covid. For others, maybe a little less so. And for others, it may be even more complex. But it’s absolutely eating up or taking a lot of time and bandwidth,” Aleshire said. The nonpartisan think tank’s new report, “Unintended Consequences: Trade and Supply Chain Leaders Respond to Recent Turmoil,” is the first in a new series exploring how companies are navigating the evolving trade landscape, he said. One of the main findings is that it has become very difficult for companies to make decisions, “given the high degree of uncertainty” around tariff policy, Aleshire said. Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs — imposed on most countries under a 1977 emergency powers act that is now being challenged in court — start at a baseline level of 10 percent that applies to roughly 100 trading partners. He’s set higher rates, ranging from 15 to 41 percent, on nearly 100 others, including the 27-member European Union. Those duties stack on top of the longstanding U.S. “most-favored nation” tariffs. Two notable exceptions are the EU and Japan, which received special treatment in their deals with Trump. Companies also could get hit with a 40 percent penalty tariff if the Trump administration determines an item from a high-tariffed country has been illegally shipped through a third country — or assembled there — to obtain a lower tariff rate. However, businesses are still waiting for more details on how that so-called transshipment provision, which the Trump administration outlined in a summer executive order, will work. The president also has hit China, Canada and Mexico with a separate set of tariffs under the 1977 emergency law to pressure those countries to do more to stop shipments of fentanyl and precursor chemicals from entering the United States. Imports from Canada and Mexico are exempt from the fentanyl duties, however, if they comply with the terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade pact Trump brokered in his first term. That has spared most goods the U.S. imports from its North American neighbors, but also has forced many more companies to spend time filling out paperwork to document their compliance. Trump’s increasingly baroque tariff regime also includes the “national security” duties he has imposed on steel, aluminum, autos, auto parts, copper, lumber, furniture and heavy trucks under a separate trade law. But the administration has provided a partial exemption for the 25 percent tariffs he has imposed on autos and auto parts, and has struck deals with the EU, Japan and South Korea reducing the tariff on their autos to 15 percent. In contrast, Trump has taken a hard line against exemptions from his 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, and recently expanded the duties to cover more than 400 “derivative” products, such as chemicals, plastics and furniture, that contain some amount of steel and aluminum or are shipped in steel and aluminum containers. And the administration is not stopping there, putting out a request in September for further items it can add to the steel and aluminum tariffs. “This is requiring companies that do not even produce steel and aluminum products to keep track of and report what might be in the products that they’re importing, and it’s just gotten incredibly complicated,” one of the industry officials granted anonymity said. That’s because companies need to precisely document the amount of steel or aluminum used in a product to qualify for a tariff rate below 50 percent. “Any wrong step, like any incorrect information, or even delay in providing the information, risks the 50 percent tariff value on the entire product, not just on the metal. So the consequence is really high if you don’t get it right,” the industry official said. The administration has also signaled plans to similarly expand tariffs for other products, such as copper. And the still unknown outcomes of ongoing trade investigations that could lead to additional tariffs on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, critical minerals, commercial aircraft, polysilicon, unmanned aircraft systems, wind turbines, medical products and robotics and industrial machinery continue to make it difficult for many companies to plan for the future. Small business owners say they feel particularly overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the various tariff rules and rates. “We are no longer investing into product innovation, we’re not investing into new hires, we’re not investing into growth. We’re just spending our money trying to stay afloat through this,” said Cassie Abel, founder and CEO of Wild Rye, an Idaho company which sells outdoor clothing for women, during a virtual press conference with a coalition of other small business owners critical of the tariffs. Company employees have also “spent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours counter-sourcing product, pausing production, restarting production, rushing production, running price analysis, cost analysis, shipping analysis,” Abel said. “I spent zero minutes on tariffs before this administration.” In one sign of the duress small businesses are facing, they have led the charge in the Supreme Court case challenging Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose both the reciprocal and the fentanyl-related tariffs. Crutchfield Corp., a family-owned electronics retailer based in Charlottesville, Virginia, filed a “friend of the court” brief supporting the litigants in the case, in which the owners detailed its difficulties in coping with Trump’s erratic tariff actions. “If tariffs can be imposed, increased, decreased, suspended or altered … through the changing whim of a single person, then Crutchfield cannot plan for the short term, let alone the long run,” the company wrote in its brief, asking “the Court to quell the chaos.”

BRUSSELS — A large group of European lawmakers is joining forces in a bid to derail efforts to get a long-awaited trade deal with Latin American countries over the finish line.  The group — counting more than 100 MEPs — plans to propose a motion on Friday calling  for a resolution to ask the Court of Justice of the EU to assess whether the accord with the Mercosur trade bloc is compatible with the European treaties. Should the resolution be adopted at the European Parliament’s next plenary session, from Nov. 24 to 27, it risks thwarting the European Commission’s bid to sign the deal before Christmas to create one of the largest free-trade areas in the world. Mercosur groups Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The text would show that “it is still possible to work constructively across our groups,” said Belgian Green MEP Saskia Bricmont.  “Beyond the sometimes divergent views on the pros and cons of the agreement with Mercosur, we must ensure that it is fully compatible with our European treaties,” she told POLITICO.  If a majority of lawmakers supports the resolution, the Parliament would then have to wait until the court issues its opinion before it can vote to approve the agreement. That would risk delaying the process as judicial proceedings in Luxembourg are typically lengthy.  Should the Court issue an opinion against the legality of the agreement, this would put the EU executive in an impossible spot, given how divisive the issue is across the bloc. While it might not crash the whole deal, any required amendments could easily delay the process by a year. The lawmakers — spanning the EPP, S&D, Renew, the Greens and the Left group — want the Court of Justice to issue an opinion on a rebalancing mechanism baked into the deal. This provision, a first in EU trade agreements, foresees that either party can seek redress in the form of tariffs or quotas if they consider the other party has introduced a measure that “nullifies or substantially impairs” the benefits of the deal. The MEPs also want the court to rule on the legal basis for splitting the deal’s trade and partnership sections. Such splits have been introduced to ensure that the main trade provisions can go through a streamlined ratification process that only requires the approval of the European Parliament — but not national or regional parliaments. In addition, the lawmakers want the court to review whether the EU-Mercosur deal is compatible with the EU’s right to apply the so-called precautionary principle, fearing that it could weaken or override this principle when the EU tries to act on environmental or health risks. The principle foresees preventive action in the face of foreseeable environmental harms. The signatories mostly come from countries that have traditionally opposed the behemoth deal — such as Poland, France, Belgium and Ireland.  The EPP, the biggest group in the European Parliament, is represented by its Polish and French members, such as Krzysztof Hetman, Marta Wcisło and François-Xavier Bellamy, among others. Other MEPs include Renew’s Pascal Canfin and S&D’s Raphaël Glucksmann, as well as the Greens’ Majdouline Sbaï.  The Parliament is also set to decide next week which of the trade and agriculture committees will lead work on the Commission’s proposal to introduce safeguards in case a surge of imports of sensitive agricultural produce hurts European markets.  Camille Gijs and Antonia Zimmermann reported from Brussels, and Judith Chetrit from Paris. Max Griera Andreu and Koen Verhelst contributed to this report. 

ROME — The conservative think tank behind Donald Trump’s Project 2025 roadmap is looking for new friends across the Atlantic.  The Heritage Foundation, the intellectual engine behind the 922-page blueprint that has become the key policy manual for Trump’s second term, is partnering with a constellation of European nationalist far-right movements to export its playbook for countering progressive policies.  That included a conference in late October at the frescoed former home of late premier Silvio Berlusconi in Rome focused on Europe’s demographic crisis and the idea that falling birthrates pose a threat to Western civilization. Speakers included Roger Severino, Heritage’s vice president of domestic policy and the architect of the group’s campaign to roll back abortion access in the U.S., as well as Italy’s pro-life family minister Eugenia Roccella, the deputy speaker of the Senate, and members of Italian right-wing think tanks.  Severino and the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, have also been speaking guests at summits and assemblies of far-right groups such as Patriots for Europe, which includes Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Italy’s League, under a Make Europe Great Again banner.  Meanwhile Heritage representatives have held private meetings in Washington and Brussels with lawmakers from far-right parties in Hungary, Czechia, Spain, France and Germany. Just in the past 12 months, the group held seven meetings with members of the European Parliament, compared to just one in the five years prior, according to Parliament records. And they’ve had additional meetings with MEPs that weren’t formally reported, including with three members from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. Severino told POLITICO that meetings with the European right serve to exchange ideas. But the meetings signal more than pleasantries. For European politicians, they’re a way to get access to people in Trump’s orbit. For Heritage, they’re a way to extend influence beyond Washington and achieve its ideological goals, which under Roberts have grown increasingly aligned with Trump’s MAGA approach.  Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at Heritage, said he meets with conservative parties to share experience in dealing with common challenges — “comparing notes, that kind of thing.” He said his interlocutors are “very interested” in policies on abortion, gender theory, defense and China, adding that parts of Project 2025 such as a section he wrote on defunding public broadcasters, are “very transferable” to Europe.  The foundation has been active in Europe for years, he points out, but demand has increased since Trump’s return to office. European right-wing leaders, Gonzalez said, “see Trump and what he is doing and say, ‘I want to get me some of that.’”  BETTER THE SECOND TIME It’s not the first time MAGA has attempted to galvanize the European right. Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon unsuccessfully tried to unite populist nationalist parties under the Movement think tank in 2019, hamstrung by a lack of buy-in from the parties themselves.  Some observers are doubtful this renewed push will go differently. “I’m skeptical that it will amount to much,” said EJ Fagan, an associate politics professor at the University of Illinois and author of The Thinkers, a book on partisan think tanks. “The European right have their own resources that produce policies, so there’s not a lot Heritage can provide to European parties.”  That is especially an issue, Fagan noted, when it comes to finessing legislation, since Heritage doesn’t have a deep bench of “people who have a fine understanding of laws and treaties” in Europe.  But the Heritage Foundation’s European mission comes as far-right groups gain ground across Europe by tapping public frustration over issues such as immigration, climate policy and sovereignty and pushing policies that are similar to those laid out in the group’s Project 2025 agenda.  Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, have also been speaking guests at summits and assemblies of far-right groups such as Patriots for Europe. | Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA In Italy, two MPs have proposed legislation granting fetal personhood, which would make abortion impossible. The regional government in Lazio is preparing to approve a law that would guarantee protection of the fetus “from conception,” echoing a similar push in the US. And Rocella, Meloni’s family minister who appeared last month with Heritage’s Severino, is attempting to block a regional law banning conscientious objectors from roles in clinics providing abortions.  It’s not just reproductive rights. Meloni’s government has pulled out of a memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese government’s ambitious program that aims to finance over $1 trillion in infrastructure investments. It effectively blocked Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from being a part in telecommunications development.  Lucio Malan, an MP in Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party and a panelist at two conferences organized with the Heritage Foundation, attempted to reverse a ban on homophobic and sexist advertisements — though he told POLITICO he took part in the events on the invitation of the center-right FareFuturo think tank, which co-organized the events with Heritage.   Heritage and its allies in the Trump administration have everything to gain from stronger nationalist parties in Europe, which are also pushing for delays in climate and agriculture regulations and sided with the US and Big Tech on digital regulation. Earlier this year, Heritage hosted the presentation of proposals by two far-right European think tanks, Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and Poland’s Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, to overhaul and hollow out the EU, undermining the commission and the European Court of Justice. And Heritage’s activity in Europe comes as the organization faces a swirl of controversy back home after Roberts sided with right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson over criticism for interviewing a white nationalist. The incident triggered an open revolt against Roberts, who subsequently apologized. The unexpectedly swift and wide-ranging implementation of Project 2025 in the U.S. has boosted Heritage’s credentials in Europe, said Kenneth Haar of Corporate Europe Observatory, a non-profit that monitors lobbying in the EU. “Trump’s wholesale adoption of their agenda has given them unparalleled status,” he said. Now, Haar added, Heritage “is not just a think tank from the U.S., it is a representative of the MAGA coalition. It is not an exaggeration to say they are carrying out foreign policy on behalf of the president.” But the Heritage Foundation’s European mission comes as far-right groups gain ground across Europe by tapping public frustration over issues such as immigration, climate policy and sovereignty and pushing policies that are similar to those laid out in the group’s Project 2025 agenda. | Shawn Thew/EPA For Heritage, there’s good reason to focus on Europe in particular: It has become a focal point for the group’s donors and activists in the U.S., who fret about perceived Islamicization and leftist politics on the continent.  “We have an existential interest in having Europe be sovereign and free and strong,” Gonzalez told POLITICO. A RALLYING POINT Historically, Europe’s right has struggled to cooperate, with different factions representing conflicting national interests. But the machinery underpinning Trump’s reelection, and his ability to move national policy in European capitals, has shifted those dynamics, making Heritage “a factor in uniting the European right,” Haar said.  “MAGA has become a rallying point, the European right is meeting more frequently,” he added. Trump’s support for their policies also gives them more “clout” in Europe, he said, as Europe’s leaders seek favor from Trump and his allies across a range of issues, including tariffs.  Transparency activists said that they’re seeing a notable uptick in activity that suggests Heritage is gaining traction beyond symposiums and events.  Raphaël Kergueno, Senior Policy Officer at Transparency International, a NGO advocating against undue political influence, said the group’s activities — including those undeclared meetings with MEPs, which may put those members in breach of the European Parliament’s code of conduct — underscores the weakness of European rules on lobbying and advocacy.  Kenneth Haar added, Heritage “is not just a think tank from the U.S., it is a representative of the MAGA coalition. It is not an exaggeration to say they are carrying out foreign policy on behalf of the president.” | Shawn Thew/EPA “The Heritage Foundation has pushed blatantly anti-democratic projects, and is now free to court MEPs without disclosing its goals or funding,” he said. “If the EU does not clean up its act, it will allow hostile actors to import authoritarianism through the backdoor.” But Nicola Procaccini, an MEP in Meloni’s party who has held several meetings with Heritage, dismissed the idea that Heritage presents a danger to the rule of law or to European politics. He said he has not read Project 2025, and pointed to the group’s long history as an economic policy powerhouse — though that has changed in the Trump era, as the group’s new head Roberts has pivoted closer to Trump.  Nevertheless, he said, “You can share or not share their views … but Heritage is certainly an authoritative voice.”  

China suspended a ban on exporting some dual-use materials to the U.S., the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced on Sunday, following the easing of trade tensions between the two sides. The move covers exports of gallium, germanium and antimony, which are used in the production of advanced semiconductors used in smartphones and computing. The materials are also used in military technologies such as electronic warfare and surveillance systems, and, in the case of antimony, also missile systems and ammunition. Beijing suspended a measure introduced last year that restricted exports of those materials and imposed stricter checks on dual-use items that include graphite. The suspension will be in effect “from now until Nov. 27, 2026,” the ministry said in a statement. China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump recently agree to lower tariffs and ease other trade measures for one year, providing relief to global value chains after a trade war that threatened to escalate. Beijing has relaxed checks on exports of rare earths and lithium battery materials and agreed to resume shipping key chips for Europe’s manufacturers.