Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Keine Brandmauer in München: Nach zwei Jahren sind drei AfD-Politiker wieder auf die Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz eingeladen. MSC-Chef Wolfgang Ischinger setzt auf Dialog statt Ausgrenzung, auch wenn die Entscheidung für Kritik bei den Grünen und Sicherheitsbedenken in der Union sorgt. Pauline von Pezold und Gordon Repinski analysieren die Hintergründe der Einladung und das juristische Tauziehen hinter den Kulissen.  Wahlkampf-Check Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: In Schwerin zeichnet sich ein Zweikampf zwischen SPD und AfD ab, während die CDU in Umfragen bei 13 Prozent stagniert. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview bezieht CDU-Spitzenkandidat Daniel Peters Stellung: Wie viel „Politikwechsel“ ist mit ihm machbar und wo zieht er die Linie gegenüber der AfD?  Eskalation im Iran: Während das Regime in Teheran mit äußerster Brutalität gegen die eigene Bevölkerung vorgeht und die Armeen der EU-Staaten als Terrororganisationen einstuft, stellt sich die Frage nach der Rolle des Westens. Nahost-Experte Daniel-Dylan Böhmer, Korrespondent für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik von  WELT, ordnet ein, warum ein US-Militärschlag unter Donald Trump aktuell unwahrscheinlich bleibt und welche Vermittler jetzt gefragt sind. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 information@axelspringer.de Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

BERLIN — Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is heading back to the Munich Security Conference (MSC) — reclaiming a seat at one of the world’s most prestigious security forums after being banished for three straight years. The decision to invite AfD lawmakers to the mid-February gathering marks a significant reversal for the conference and a symbolic win for a party eager to shed its pariah status by rubbing shoulders with global leaders. The AfD mounted an aggressive campaign beginning late last year to regain access to the MSC, including legal action against conference organizers and attempts to capitalize on relationships with Trump administration officials. That effort appears to have paid off, at least in part. MSC organizers have invited three AfD parliamentarians to attend this year’s conference, though the party has pushed for more prominent figures — including national co-chair Alice Weidel — to be included. “The invitations were issued because we made an impression with our contacts to the Americans,” Heinrich Koch, one of three AfD parliamentarians who received an invite, told POLITICO. Koch, by his own account and that of one of the AfD’s legal representatives, was deployed by the party to gain access to the MSC. Wolfgang Ischinger, the prominent German diplomat acting as MSC chair this year, denied that conference organizers invited the AfD due to a pressure campaign, framing the decision rather as one that acknowledges a simple political reality: that the AfD is the largest opposition force in Germany. “It is a decision that we took on our own conscience, if you wish, trying to do the right thing in order to make sure that we would be able to reflect the current reality,” he told POLITICO. “It would be very difficult for the Munich Security Conference — which brings together so many opposing views, adversaries, people who accuse each other [of being] murderers or genocidal people — for us to justify categorically excluding the largest German opposition party.” LEGACY OF NAZI RESISTANCE This year won’t be the first time AfD politicians have attended the MSC. During Ischinger’s previous tenure as head of the conference, which lasted from 2008 to 2022, AfD politicians with a focus on defense were invited to the conference. But since that time, the AfD has come under the increasing scrutiny of national and state domestic intelligence agencies tasked with monitoring groups deemed anti-constitutional, culminating last year in the party’s federal classification as a right-wing extremist organization. Ischinger’s successor, career diplomat Christoph Heusgen, refused to invite AfD leaders for the past three conferences, arguing that a party deemed at that point to have been at least partly right-wing extremist by intelligence authorities had no place at the event. After all, he argued, the conference was founded after World War II by Ewald von Kleist, one of the aristocratic Wehrmacht officers now revered in Germany for having partaken in the failed 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. “I can well imagine that Ewald von Kleist would have supported my decision against the AfD,” Heusgen told German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Wolfgang Ischinger speaking at the 2023 Munich Security Conference in Munich. He denied that conference organizers invited the AfD this year due to a pressure campaign. | Johannes Simon/EPA Heusgen stepped aside after last year’s conference, and this year Ischinger is back at the helm. But it was in response to Heusgen’s rejection of the party that the AfD sued late last year to get into the conference this February. The AfD said it was a victim of “targeted exclusion,” according to documents from the Munich regional court seen by POLITICO.  “The plaintiff wishes to be involved in foreign policy and security policy issues in order to have a say as an opposition faction,” the court said. But the court ultimately rejected the AfD’s argument, ruling last December that the MSC, as a private organization, is free to choose whom to invite. Koch, who was in court on behalf of the AfD parliamentary group, says he pressured the MSC side during the proceeding to invite party members by threatening to come to the conference anyway as guests of the American delegation. Soon after, his party received three invitations, he said.  The MSC denied in emailed comments to POLITICO that such threats had led to the invites. EMPTY THREATS? The AfD’s threats appear to have consisted mostly of bluster. Koch said he reached out to the office of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is set to attend the conference, but never heard back from the Republican lawmaker. Graham did not respond to three requests for comment. The threat nevertheless illustrates how the AfD has sought to utilize past support from the Trump administration to pressure the MSC and, more broadly, to end its domestic political ostracization. The AfD’s effort to get into the MSC can be seen as part of a larger push to knock down the so-called firewall mainstream forces have erected around the far right, precluding close cooperation with the party despite its rising popularity. In that effort, the AfD has received support from the highest rungs of the Trump administration. At last year’s MSC, U.S. Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized European centrists for excluding the far right, declaring “there’s no room for firewalls.” Following his speech, JD Vance met with AfD national co-leader Alice Weidel in a Munich hotel.  Koch said the AfD would attempt to organize a similar high-level meeting this year, though it’s not clear Vance will attend the February conference. Koch said he has also sought an invitation for Weidel, but the MSC had denied it. The MSC’s Ischinger said he and his team would not issue any further invitations to AfD politicians. Weidel’s spokesperson, Daniel Tapp, denied that the AfD had used the prospect of another meeting with a high-level Trump administration official to press for invites to the MSC, but said a “certain pressure” had led to three of its lawmakers being invited. Weidel’s plans for the conference remain unclear. “We will wait and see over the next few days whether anything else develops in this matter,” said Tapp late last month. As of Friday, no meeting involving Weidel and U.S. officials during the MSC had been planned, according to Tapp. Ischinger said any AfD events occurring outside the confines of the MSC are irrelevant to the conference. “They can organize a huge conference, you know, if you ask me,” he said. “And it’s not my business to stop them or discuss this with them. It’s their business, but it has nothing to do with the Munich Security Conference.” POLITICO is an official media partner of this year’s Munich Security Conference.

PARIS — European populist champions are turning away from a U.S. president they once openly admired.   As Donald Trump escalates his attacks on the continent, his scorched-earth approach to transatlantic relations is becoming a political liability — even for leaders who previously benefited from their association with him.   For the right-wing and far-right movements in Europe, Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement offered validation from the other side of the Atlantic for similar populist movements back home — until its leader started threatening the invasion of a European territory.  While on Wednesday Trump backtracked on his administration’s threats, saying he will not take Greenland by force and would suspend his tariff threats, powerful right-wing figures in the continent’s capitals and core EU institutions have already shifted their narrative to adapt to the transatlantic hostility, mimicking the centrist leaders they loathe and dialing up the rhetoric against American imperialism.  “I think we should be honest,” said Nicola Procaccini, the leader of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, who is also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-hand man in the chamber. “When Trump is wrong, we should say he’s wrong, when he’s right, we should say he is right.” Jordan Bardella, president of France’s far-right National Rally, and Nigel Farage, the populist leader of Reform UK, condemned Trump’s escalating threats over Greenland and his use of tariffs as coercive leverage against the very countries they hope to govern. Both are wary of appearing too close to a figure increasingly viewed by public opinion, including their voters, as a hostile force.    Trump’s aggressive push on Greenland “goes way beyond a diplomatic disagreement,” Bardella said in the European Parliament on Tuesday, describing the U.S. president’s tariff threats as “blackmail” and accusing him of attempting the “vassalization” of Europe.  In the same address he called on the EU to activate its so-called trade bazooka, also known as the anti-coercion instrument, aligning with the position of his rival, President Emmanuel Macron. That puts Bardella at odds with a leader to whom he has long felt an affinity: Meloni, whose government is still advocating a let’s-keep-calm-and-negotiate approach.  Even the far-right Alternative for Germany, which once openly embraced support from the Trump administration, is scrambling to recalibrate.  WANNABES VS. INCUMBENTS  Populist leaders in office are proceeding cautiously, well aware of the risk of alienating a powerful but unpredictable ally.   Italy’s Meloni, whose status as a Trump whisperer has raised her international profile, has so far refrained from directly criticizing the U.S. president’s offensive on Europe’s sovereignty. As Trump announced he would slap punitive tariffs on NATO allies that have opposed his move on Greenland, he noticeably spared Italy, which has criticized European troop deployments to the Arctic territory. Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki, a Trump stalwart, said the U.S. remained his country’s “very important ally.” | Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images Similarly, speaking from Davos, Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki, a Trump stalwart, said the U.S. remained his country’s “very important ally.” But even he balked at one of the U.S. president’s recent initiatives, with one of his aides expressing concerns about the inclusion of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the U.S.-led “Board of Peace.”  In the European Parliament, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s troops continue to seek close ties with Trump and are downplaying the annexation threats, arguing that Greenland is an issue solely between Denmark and the United States.  “With President Donald Trump comes peace,” Orbán said three days ago on X.  By contrast, far-right figures who still are aiming for higher office have adjusted their rhetoric. In France, the National Rally has always been cautious in its approach to Trump, trying to maintain a healthy distance. But Bardella himself had flattering words for the U.S. president as recently as last month, when he said in a BBC interview that Trump was an example of the “wind of freedom, of national pride blowing all over Western democracies.”  In the same interview, Bardella gave a hat tip to Trump’s successes at home and “welcomed with a certain goodwill” the moral support offered to nationalist European parties in Trump’s National Security Strategy, a bombshell policy paper widely received as another nail in the coffin of the traditional world order.  END OF A BROMANCE  In the U.K., Farage can claim to be a longtime friend of Trump, having campaigned for him during his 2016 presidential run and later being welcomed to Trump Tower as his personal guest.   But this week the populist leader opened up clear blue water between himself and the U.S. president by saying Trump’s Greenland threats represent the “biggest fracture” in the transatlantic relationship since the Suez crisis of 1956.  The Reform leader, who is scenting real power ahead of the next general election, is well known for being attuned to public opinion — which remains pretty hostile toward the U.S. president. Trump was unpopular in Europe even before the Greenland offensive, including among the supporters of right-wing populist parties he sees as allies, according to a POLITICO Poll in partnership with Public First conducted in November.  Farage supporters were the exception, but even so, only 50 percent of Reform-aligned respondents had favorable views of Trump.   PUBLIC DISTANCE VS. PRIVATE EMBRACE  France’s Marine Le Pen has long warned her troops against embracing Trump too loudly.  France’s Marine Le Pen has long warned her troops against embracing Trump too loudly. | Tom Nicholson/Getty Images While the American president is ideologically close to her National Rally on some subjects, first among them migration, Trump’s interference in domestic politics has ruffled the far-right veteran’s feathers. After U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference last year, where he criticized longstanding policies by centrist parties against collaboration with the far right, she warned her troops against cheering the apparent win for their camp.  Still, the party’s leading figures have also looked at Trump for inspiration and sought to emulate some of his movement’s successes.  Last September, her former partner and National Rally Vice President Louis Aliot, who traveled to the U.S. for Trump’s inauguration, gave a passionate speech on democracy and freedom of speech at the party’s back-to-school meeting in Bordeaux, paying tribute to slain U.S. conservative influencer Charlie Kirk — a name virtually no one in France’s heartland had heard of before his assassination. He elicited roars from the crowd.  Now, far-right politicians may legitimately fear that invoking Trump will earn them boos instead of claps. Esther Webber contributed reporting from London. Ketrin Jochecová contributed reporting from Brussels.

Republican lawmakers breathed a collective sigh of relief Wednesday after President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t use force to seize Greenland. Trump’s surprise announcement removed the immediate threat of a military escalation that could have shattered the NATO alliance. It also offered a momentary reprieve for Republicans who risked either crossing the president or embracing an unpopular military intervention that could cost them in November. Republicans instead discounted that Trump was ever serious about conquering the island, even as they appeared to support acquiring Greenland for national security reasons. “All of us knew it was never on the table, but it’s very helpful that he said that,” House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in an interview. “We need to start talking about more reasonable pathways to having a better relationship with Greenland, ideally a territory one day.” Speaker Mike Johnson pushed back on the idea that Trump was serious about taking over the Arctic island. “I don’t think that was ever his intent, and so I’m glad he clarified,” he said. “I’ve been speaking with him a lot along the way, and I don’t think anyone here in this building or at the White House ever expected that troop deployment to Greenland was a necessary option.” Trump, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, insisted, “I don’t want to use force,” even as he bashed NATO allies for not selling Greenland to the U.S. “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable, but I won’t do that,” Trump said. “That’s probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force, but I don’t have to use force.” The president, in a Truth Social post hours later, called off a plan to impose tariffs on European nations and said he’d struck a “framework of a future deal” in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Several top Republicans, including Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Senate Defense Appropriations chief Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), had pushed back against Trump’s threats against Greenland — a rare rebuke that signaled just how seriously they took the situation. But many Republicans still appeared to support the idea of acquiring Greenland through negotiations given its strategic Arctic location — or at least beefing up the U.S. military presence there. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who chairs the House panel that controls Pentagon spending, suggested the Trump administration could seek “a better agreement” with Denmark. He argued that only the U.S. would ever spend the money in Greenland needed to defend North America. “We never were going to use force. Come on,” he said. “This isn’t Venezuela, for God’s sake.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally and vocal defense hawk, expressed support for “a lawful and fair process” to acquire the island. Trump “rightly removed the option of taking Greenland by force,” he said. Polling data reveals the challenge Republicans face with Trump’s call for military action. GOP voters are overwhelmingly aligned with the president’s foreign policies and many support acquiring Greenland peacefully. But they draw a sharp line at troop deployments. Around 64 percent of Republicans approve of buying Greenland, according to a new CBS poll, although only 30 percent of Americans overall agree. Eighty-six percent of voters overall and 70 percent of Republicans disapprove of taking the island by military force. “Flexing America’s power is different from putting in American troops,” said Amy Walter, editor-in-chief of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “Capturing [Venezuelan leader Nicolás] Maduro, Republicans absolutely love it. Should we put military troops there? Well, no.” Republicans were unlikely to ride to Greenland’s rescue if it meant defying Trump, she said. More than 80 percent of House Republicans represent districts Trump won by double digits, and lawmakers have little incentive to break publicly with a president who backs primary challenges against his enemies. The issue also gave Democrats a ready-made midterms attack line to reinforce their argument that Republicans are focused on distractions abroad and not voters’ pocketbook issues. “You can kind of hear the Democratic ads already: ‘Congressman so-and-so thinks it’s okay for our $700 billion dollars to go to Greenland instead of to hard-working American families,’” Walter said. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), one of the few vocal Republican opponents of Trump’s threats to Greenland, said he and many of his colleagues felt the president would do better to focus on the economy ahead of the midterms. “Most of us think it was crazy, with a few exceptions,” Bacon said. “Most of us thought, behind shut doors, he should be bragging on the economy that’s growing at 4.3 percent, wages climbing faster than inflation for the first time in four or five years. But now we’re talking Greenland.” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who represents one of the GOP’s most competitive swing districts, said Congress should step in if Trump moved toward military action. A member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, he plans to go to next month’s Munich Security Conference to try to repair relations with allies. “We’re going to do our part to strengthen the alliance, to calm fears, to let them know we have their back and that we would never, ever allow that to happen,” he said. Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

DAVOS, Switzerland — The European leaders gathered for Donald Trump’s speech to the World Economic Forum, Wednesday, were once again reminded of the key principle that has guided the U.S. president’s foreign policy: “It’s important to make me happy.” That was the rationale Trump gave for ordering the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, and it formed the throughline of his address in Davos as well. Despite their best efforts to get in his good books, they have struggled to dissuade him from his attempt to take over Greenland or to keep him focused on helping Ukraine. His highly anticipated speech in Davos will likely have done little to ease their alarm and confusion about how to play him.   Unlike his predecessors, Trump doesn’t observe the courteous fiction that the transatlantic alliance is one of equals. He has stripped all that away; his approach to diplomacy is that he is the boss and his allies need to understand their places.   Time and again, he has put Washington’s transatlantic allies on the spot — from last April’s “Liberation Day” global tariffs to the roughing up of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, from his red-carpet Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin to his recent threats to annex mineral-rich Greenland come what may.  The one reassuring takeaway in his hour-and-twelve-minute-long speech in Davos, sections of which reprised his White House press conference on Tuesday night, was that he ruled out taking Greenland by force. “We would be frankly unstoppable. But I won’t do that,” Trump told world leaders at Davos, adding: “I don’t want to use force, I won’t use force.”   That will have come as a relief, as he has several times previously declined to rule out invading the Arctic island. His bid to wrest Greenland from Denmark, a fellow NATO member, on the grounds of countering Russia and China has left the U.S.’s traditional European allies fearing an immediate rupture in transatlantic relations.  Earlier this month Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, had warned that an American invasion of Greenland would mark the end of NATO and “therefore post-Second World War security.” The American military intervention in Venezuela only added to the panic, especially after Trump followed it with a threat to impose punitive tariffs on the countries that opposed him. Aside from taking force off the table, there was little else in the speech that European leaders will find reassuring. From the beginning, he used the occasion to bash Europe.  “I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good, but it’s not heading in the right direction,” he said. In citing mass migration as the cause, he echoed the criticism contained in the recently released U.S. National Security Strategy as well as the blistering assault his vice president, JD Vance, delivered at the Munich Security Conference last year.   “Certain places in Europe are not even recognizable anymore,” Trump said. He also complained about NATO, saying that the alliance offers “little in return” for U.S. support and that the institution should be grateful to him: “You wouldn’t have NATO, if I didn’t get involved in my first term.”  On Greenland, Trump argued Denmark doesn’t have the capacity to protect the island. | Martin Zwick/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images On Greenland, Trump argued Denmark doesn’t have the capacity to protect the island. “It’s costing Denmark hundreds of millions a year to run it. Denmark is a small country.”  “[Greenland] is very expensive,” he added. “It’s a very big piece of ice. It’s very important that we use that for national and international security. That can create a power that will make it impossible for the bad guys to do anything against the perceived good ones.” He went on to demand “immediate negotiations” to begin the acquisition of the Arctic island, and concluded darkly: “You can say yes and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”  He didn’t mention the tariffs he threatened last weekend to impose but concluded with a long tale about tariffs he imposed on Switzerland in the past, possibly as a warning.  That leaves Europeans faced with a question: Whether to hit back with tough economic countermeasures, as France’s Emmanuel Macron has urged, and risk Trumpian escalation, or contort themselves as much as they can and try to distract and deflect him, their usual strategy.  Despite tough rhetorical push-back by Macron and Canada’s Mark Carney, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s call for a “new form of European independence,” some leaders still hold out hope that while the transatlantic alliance is now fractured, a full rupture can still be avoided.    One of the sessions at Davos this year was entitled “How to tackle fear as a leader.” The more important behind-the-scenes discussions involving leaders of America’s allies this week could be accurately titled: How to tackle a fearsome leader. And those discussions will continue long after the World Economic Forum is over.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will not attend the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in February, a spokesperson for the event confirmed Friday. “Several weeks ago, invitations were extended to individual government representatives from Iran. In light of recent developments, the Munich Security Conference will not uphold these invitations,” the spokesperson told POLITICO.  Araghchi this week described the anti-government demonstrations in Iran — in which thousands of protesters have been killed in a wave of repression driven by the Tehran regime — as “violent riots.”   It remains unclear whether Iranian opposition representatives will be invited to Munich instead, as has been the case in recent years with figures from Russian civil society. “As a matter of principle, we do not publish invitation or participant lists prior to the start of the conference. The invitation process is only concluded once the conference begins,” the MSC spokesperson added. The Munich Security Conference will take place Feb. 14-16 at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. Chris Lunday contributed to this report.

BERLIN — Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has long sought close ties to the Trump administration in its quest for powerful international allies and an end to its political isolation at home. But as public sentiment in Germany increasingly turns against U.S. President Donald Trump and his foreign interventionism — in particular his talk of taking control of Greenland and his seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — AfD leaders are recalibrating, putting distance between their party and a U.S. president they previously embraced. “He has violated a fundamental election promise, namely not to interfere in other countries, and he has to explain that to his own voters,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said earlier this week.   Standing alongside Weidel, Tino Chrupalla, the AfD’s other national leader, partly defended Trump for pursuing what he perceives to be American interests within the country’s “sphere of influence.” At the same time, he also condemned the approach Trump was taking. “Wild West methods are to be rejected here, and the end does not always justify the means.” By distancing themselves from Trump, the AfD leaders are following the path of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in France, whose leaders, due to the American president’s deep unpopularity there, have been far more critical of Trump and view his administration’s overtures to European nationalists as a liability. In response to Trump’s stances on Greenland and Venezuela, for instance, National Rally President Jordan Bardella recently accused the American leader of harboring “imperial ambitions.” The AfD’s criticism this week, by contrast, was tepid; but even mild disapproval has been rare from the party’s leaders. From the moment Trump began his second term, the German far right has seen American ideological backing — including from billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk and U.S. Vice President JD Vance — as key to boosting the party’s domestic legitimacy and breaking the “firewall” that mainstream parties have historically imposed to keep the AfD from power. But the political risks inherent in the AfD’s efforts to ally with Trump are also becoming clearer. Surveys show the vast majority of Germans strongly oppose what Trump has said about Greenland and what he has done in Venezuela. Only 12 percent of Germans view his performance positively, according to Germany’s benchmark ARD-DeutschlandTrend poll released last week, while only 15 percent see the U.S. as a trustworthy partner, a new low. Trump’s unpopularity is forcing AfD leaders to attempt a awkward balancing act: Criticize the president, while not undermining the considerable efforts the party has made to forge links with Trump and his Republican party. Tino Chrupalla, the AfD’s other national leader, partly defended Donald Trump for pursuing what he perceives to be American interests within the country’s “sphere of influence.” | Clemens Bilan/EPA AfD leaders have leaned heavily on the Trump administration to help end their political ostracization at home. The strategy appears to have worked: When Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declared the AfD as extremist last year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the label “tyranny in disguise.”  At last year’s Munich Security Conference, meanwhile, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged mainstream politicians in Europe to dismantle the “firewalls” that have for decades shut out far-right parties. AfD politicians were delighted on both occasions, which explains why their criticism of Trump this week was leavened by praise. In fact, Weidel and Chrupalla portrayed Trump’s pursuit of what he believes to be in the U.S. national interest as something of a model. Germany’s government, Weidel suggested, could learn a lesson about how to put national self interest above other considerations. Trump’s recent actions were based on “geostrategic reasons,” Weidel declared. “I would like to see the German federal government finally making policies for the German people, in the interest of Germany.”

LONDON — Donald Trump has launched a crusade to convert European politics to his cause, mobilizing the full force of American diplomacy to promote “patriotic” parties, stamp on migration, destroy “censorship” and save “civilization” from decay.  The question is whether Europe’s embattled centrists have the power, or the will, to stop him. In its newly released National Security Strategy document, the White House set out for the first time in a comprehensive form its approach to the geopolitical challenges facing the U.S. and the world. While bringing peace to Ukraine gets a mention, when it comes to Europe, America’s official stance is now that its security depends on shifting the continent’s politics decisively to the right. Over the course of three pages, the document blames the European Union, among others, for raising the risk of “civilizational erasure,” due to a surge in immigrants, slumping birth rates and the purported erosion of democratic freedoms.  “Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” it says. “As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.” With its talk of birth rates declining and immigration rising, the racial dimension to the White House rhetoric is hard to ignore. It will be familiar to voters in Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, where far-right politicians have articulated the so-called “great replacement theory,” a racist conspiracy theory falsely asserting that elites are part of a plot to dilute the white population and diminish its influence. “We want Europe to remain European,” the document says. “Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” the document reads — making it “an open question” whether such countries will continue to view an alliance with the U.S. as desirable. The policy prescription that follows is, in essence, regime change. “Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,” the strategy document says. That will involve “cultivating resistance” within European nations. In case there is any doubt about the political nature of the message, the White House paper celebrates “the growing influence of patriotic European parties” as a cause for American optimism. In other words: Back the far right to make Europe great again. FIGHTING SHY Since Trump returned to the White House in January, European leaders have kept up a remarkable performance of remaining calm amid his provocations, so far avoiding an open conflict that would sever transatlantic relations entirely. But for centrist leaders currently in power — like Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Keir Starmer in London and Germany’s Friedrich Merz — the new Trump doctrine poses a challenge so existential that they may be forced to confront it head-on.  “We are facing the same challenges, or versions of the same challenges, and we do talk about it,” Starmer said. | Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images That confrontation could come sooner rather than later, with high-stakes elections in parts of Britain and Germany next year and the possibility of a snap national vote ever-present in France. In each case, MAGA-aligned parties — Reform U.K., the Alternative for Germany and the National Rally — are poised to make gains at the expense of establishment centrists currently in power. America, it is now clear, may well intervene to help.  On current evidence, European officials whose job it is to protect their elections from foreign interference have little appetite for a fight with Trump. The European Commission recently unveiled its plans for a “democracy shield” to protect elections from disinformation and foreign interference. Michael McGrath, the commissioner responsible for the policy, told POLITICO recently that the shield should be drawn widely as Russia is “not the only actor” that may have “a vested interest” in influencing elections. “There are many actors who would like to damage the fabric of the EU, and ultimately undermine trust in its institutions,” he said.  In light of the new National Security Strategy, Trump’s America must now surely count among them.  But McGrath played the diplomat when asked, before the strategy was published, if he would rather U.S. leaders stopped campaigning in European elections and criticizing European democracy.  “They’re entitled to their views, but we have our own standards and we seek to apply our own values and the European approach to international affairs and international diplomacy,” McGrath replied. “We don’t comment or interfere on the domestic matters of a close partner like the United States.” PATHETIC FREELOADERS Even before the strategy was published, Trump administration figures had already provided ample evidence of its disdain for Europe’s political center ground. So far this year, Vice President JD Vance launched a broadside against Europe over free speech and democracy; Elon Musk intervened in the German election to back the far-right Alternative for Germany; and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth privately savaged “pathetic” Europeans for “freeloading” on security.  The difference this time is that Trump’s National Security Strategy is official. “It was one thing for them to think it and say it to each other (or in a speech in Munich),” said one EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s something else to put it into a policy document.” What is worse for leaders like Macron, Merz and Starmer is that the Trumpian analysis — that a critical mass of voters want their own European MAGA — may, ultimately, be right.  These leaders are all under immense pressure from the populist right in their own backyards. In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. is on track to make major gains at next year’s regional and local elections, potentially triggering a leadership challenge in the governing Labour Party that could force Starmer out.  In Paris, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally tortures Macron’s struggling administrators in parliament, while the Alternative for Germany breathes down Merz’s neck in Berlin and pushes him to take ever harder positions on migration.  The British prime minister disclosed in an interview with The Economist this week that he spoke to Merz and Macron at a recent private dinner in Berlin about the shared threat they all face from the right. “We are facing the same challenges, or versions of the same challenges, and we do talk about it,” Starmer said.  If America makes good on Trump’s new strategy, private dinner party chats among friends may not be enough.

BERLIN — Alex Bruesewitz, an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, told leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD — a party labeled extremist by German authorities — that he sees them as “bold visionaries” shaping the country’s future. Speaking to a room packed with AfD parliamentarians and supporters in Berlin on Wednesday night, Bruesewitz declared that MAGA conservatives and members of Germany’s rising far right are united in a common fight along with other nationalist forces around the world against “Marxists” and “globalists” that he framed as “a spiritual war for the soul of our nations.” Bruesewitz, a social media guru credited with helping Trump return to the White House, is now a senior adviser to Never Surrender, Trump’s leadership political action committee. His speech to AfD parliamentarians comes at a time when German far-right figures are increasingly looking for legitimacy and support from MAGA Republicans in the U.S., particularly for what they frame as a struggle against political persecution and censorship at home. It’s something of a turnabout for AfD politicians, who have historically exhibited a strong anti-American streak, viewing the U.S. as having infringed on Germany’s sovereignty in the postwar era and seeking instead to build closer relations with Russia. But since Trump’s return to the White House, AfD leaders have made a concerted effort to get close to MAGA Republicans. Beatrix von Storch, an AfD politician who has been at the forefont of the party’s efforts to build connections with MAGA Republicans, said Bruesewitz’s visit was about “reaching out to be closer to our American friends.” Bruesewitz echoed that message during his talk on “the global battle for truth,” as the event was dubbed. “We are in this together,” he said. “The globalists fear united patriots more than anything.” WHO’S THE ANTI-DEMOCRAT? The AfD is now the strongest opposition party in the German parliament, and in many recent polls has surpassed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling conservatives. The party’s growing popularity comes despite the fact that earlier this year, Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, which is tasked with monitoring groups deemed to be antidemocratic, declared the AfD to be an extremist organization. This designation fueled debate among mainstream German politicians about whether the party ought to be banned under provisions of the German Constitution designed to prevent a repeat of the Nazi rise to power. Centrist parties in Germany have so far refused to form national coalitions with the AfD, maintaining a so-called firewall around the far right that has been in place since shortly after World War II. But AfD politicians argue that German mainstream politicians are the true antidemocratic forces and are seeking to suppress the will of the German people through the state apparatus. They have often found a sympathetic ear for that argument in MAGA circles. When Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declared the AfD to be extremist, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move “tyranny in disguise.” During the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged mainstream politicians in Europe to protect free speech rights of anti-immigration parties and to knock down the “firewalls” that shut out far-right parties from government. The AfD is now the strongest opposition party in the German parliament, and in many recent polls has surpassed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling conservatives. | Clemens Bilan/EPA AfD politicians have repeatedly visited Washington in recent months to make the case that they are the victims of political persecution and to solicit American support. Last week, German right-wing influencer and AfD ally Naomi Seibt said she had applied for asylum in the U.S., claiming to be “facing persecution” in Germany for her views and saying she is the target of “severe government and intelligence surveillance and harassment.” LOST IN TRANSLATION During his Berlin speech, Bruesewitz suggested MAGA Republicans had faced a similar experience of persecution in the U.S., likening criminal indictments against Trump and past social media deplatforming of right-wing figures to the same kind of leftist, anti-democratic suppression AfD leaders claim to be facing. “As I sit and watch what’s happening all over Europe with the censorship concerns, the same thing happened in America,” said Bruesewitz. “You can let it happen here. You have to protect free speech,” he added to a round of enthusiastic applause. Not all aspects of Bruesewitz’s message were met with equal enthusiasm. His defense of Trump’s tariffs, which have hit Germany’s export-oriented industries particularly hard, did not win applause. Bruesewitz also repeatedly invoked passages from the Bible and called on Germans to embrace a distinctly American brand of Christian nationalism that, while embraced by some AfD politicians, is largely alien to Germans, who are broadly less pious. At one point, Bruesewitz called faith “our greatest weapon,” and said the killing of conservative American influencer Charlie Kirk had made him realize that conservative nationalists are not just engaged in a political battle, but rather a “spiritual war” that extends beyond the U.S. “The forces arrayed against us aren’t just ideological opponents, they’re manifestations of evil, seeking to extinguish the light of faith, family and freedom,” Bruesewitz said. “This spiritual battle isn’t confined to the United States. Oh, no. Germany and America may be separated by thousands of miles of ocean, but we face the same exact enemies, the same threats, the same insidious forces trying to tear us down.”

Police in Berlin on Thursday searched the home of prominent conservative political commentator and former university professor Norbert Bolz over a social media post he wrote in 2024 that contained a Nazi-era slogan. On Thursday morning, officers arrived at Bolz’s home and questioned him about a post on X that featured the Nazi-affiliated expression, “Deutschland erwache!” (“Germany, awake!”). Bolz confirmed his authorship of the post, avoiding the seizure of his laptop, he told POLITICO.  “The friendly police officers gave me the good advice to be more careful in the future. I’ll do that and only talk about trees from now on,” Bolz sarcastically commented in a separate post on X. Bolz is a regular commentator for WELT, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group. A Berlin public prosecutor confirmed that police carried out a search in connection with an investigation into the “use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations.” Bolz had shared a post from the left-wing newspaper taz that read, “Ban of the AfD and a petition against Höcke: Germany awakens,” and added ironically: “A good translation for “woke”: Germany awake!” The German case comes after U.K. authorities arrested “Father Ted” co-creator Graham Linehan on suspicion of inciting violence with a series of social media posts about transgender people, amid a wider debate over hate speech laws and free expression in the U.K. and other European countries. In February at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance lambasted European leaders, arguing that free speech was increasingly under threat on the continent, though the Trump administration has itself also clamped down on some commentary posted on social media.