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.”

Sprawling defense legislation set for a vote as soon as this week would place new restrictions on reducing troop levels in Europe, a bipartisan rebuke of Trump administration moves that lawmakers fear would limit U.S. commitments on the continent. A just-released compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act — which puts Congress’ stamp on Pentagon programs and policy each year — has been in the works for months. The measure stands in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy, which sharply criticizes European allies and suggests the continent is in cultural decline. Lawmakers also endorsed a slight increase in the Pentagon budget with a price tag that is $8 billion more than Trump requested. And it would repeal decades-old Middle East war powers, a small win for lawmakers who’ve been fighting to reclaim a sliver of Congress’ war-declaring prerogatives. The final bill is the result of weeks of negotiations between House and Senate leadership in both parties, heads of the Armed Services panels and the White House. The measure had been slowed in recent days by talks on issues unrelated to defense, including a major Senate-backed housing package and greater scrutiny of U.S. investment in China. The defense bill typically passes with broad bipartisan support. Speaker Mike Johnson will likely need to win back some Democrats who opposed the House GOP’s hard-right initial bill in September. And the speaker will have to contend with fellow Republicans upset that their priorities weren’t included. But both House and Senate-passed defense bills reflected bipartisan concerns that the Trump administration would seek to significantly reduce the U.S. military footprint in Europe. Both measures included language that imposes requirements the Pentagon must meet before trimming military personnel levels on the continent below certain thresholds. Republicans, led by Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), broke with the Trump administration, arguing that troop reductions — such as a recent decision to remove a rotational Army brigade from Romania — would invite aggression from Russia. The final bill blocks the Pentagon from reducing the number of troops permanently stationed or deployed to Europe below 76,000 for longer than 45 days until Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the head of U.S. European Command certify to Congress that doing so is in U.S. national security interests and that NATO allies were consulted. They would also need to provide assessments of that decision’s impact. The legislation applies the same conditions to restrict the U.S. from vacating the role of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a role that the U.S. officer who leads European Command chief has held simultaneously for decades. Negotiators included similar limitations on reducing the number of troops on the Korean Peninsula below 28,500, a provision originally approved by the Senate. Lawmakers agreed to a slight increase to the bill’s budget topline, reflecting some momentum on Capitol Hill for more military spending. The final agreement recommends an $8 billion hike to Trump’s $893 billion flat national defense budget, for a total of roughly $901 billion for the Pentagon, nuclear weapons development and other national security programs. The House-passed defense bill matched Trump’s budget request while the Senate bill proposed a $32 billion boost. Republicans separately approved a $150 billion multi-year boost for the Pentagon through their party-line tax cut and spending megabill earlier this year. Regardless of the signal the topline budget agreement sends, the defense policy bill does not allocate any money to the Pentagon. Lawmakers must still pass annual defense spending legislation to fund Pentagon programs. House Armed Services ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) described the agreement as a “placeholder” that would allow lawmakers to finish the NDAA, while congressional appropriators continue their talks on a separate full-year Pentagon funding measure. A House Republican leadership aide who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss details of the bill ahead of its release, said the revised topline is a “fiscally responsible increase that meets our defense needs.” The bill also would repeal a pair of old laws that authorize military action in the Middle East, including 2002 legislation that preceded the invasion of Iraq and the 1991 Gulf War. Those repeals were included in both the House and Senate defense bills as bipartisan support for scrubbing the old laws — which critics contend could be abused by a president — overcame opposition from some top Republicans. Repealing those decades-old measures is a win for critics of expansive presidential war powers, who argued the measures aren’t needed anymore. They point to the potential for abuses — citing Trump’s use of the 2002 Iraq authorization to partly justify a strike that killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020. A second House GOP leadership aide said the repeal of the two Iraq authorizations won’t impact Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief. But the repeal is ultimately a minor win for lawmakers seeking to reclaim congressional power. The 2001 post-9/11 authorization that undergirds much of the U.S. counterterrorism operations around the world remains on the books. And the bill is silent on Trump’s ongoing campaign against alleged drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean. Many lawmakers — including some Republicans — have questioned the administration’s legal justification for the lethal strikes. The final bill also doesn’t include an expansion of coverage for in-vitro fertilization and other fertility services for military families under the Tricare health system. The provision, backed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and others, was included in both Senate and House bills before it was dropped. Johnson reportedly was seeking to remove the provision, which similarly was left out of last year’s bill.

President Donald Trump intends for the U.S. to keep a bigger military presence in the Western Hemisphere going forward to battle migration, drugs and the rise of adversarial powers in the region, according to his new National Security Strategy. The 33-page document is a rare formal explanation of Trump’s foreign policy worldview by his administration. Such strategies, which presidents typically release once each term, can help shape how parts of the U.S. government allocate budgets and set policy priorities. The Trump National Security Strategy, which the White House quietly released Thursday, has some brutal words for Europe, suggesting it is in civilizational decline, and pays relatively little attention to the Middle East and Africa. It has an unusually heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere that it casts as largely about protecting the U.S. homeland. It says “border security is the primary element of national security” and makes veiled references to China’s efforts to gain footholds in America’s backyard. “The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region,” the document states. “The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence — from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined.” The document describes such plans as part of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The latter is the notion set forth by President James Monroe in 1823 that the U.S. will not tolerate malign foreign interference in its own hemisphere. Trump’s paper, as well as a partner document known as the National Defense Strategy, have faced delays in part because of debates in the administration over elements related to China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed for some softening of the language about Beijing, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. Bessent is currently involved in sensitive U.S. trade talks with China, and Trump himself is wary of the delicate relations with Beijing. The new National Security Strategy says the U.S. has to make challenging choices in the global realm. “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests,” the document states. In an introductory note to the strategy, Trump called it a “roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history, and the home of freedom on earth.” But Trump is mercurial by nature, so it’s hard to predict how closely or how long he will stick to the ideas laid out in the new strategy. A surprising global event could redirect his thinking as well, as it has done for recent presidents from George W. Bush to Joe Biden. Still, the document appears in line with many of the moves he’s taken in his second term, as well as the priorities of some of his aides. That includes deploying significantly more U.S. military prowess to the Western Hemisphere, taking numerous steps to reduce migration to America, pushing for a stronger industrial base in the U.S. and promoting “Western identity,” including in Europe. The strategy even nods to so-called traditional values at times linked to the Christian right, saying the administration wants “the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health” and “an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes.” It mentions the need to have “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.” As POLITICO has reported before, the strategy spends an unusual amount of space on Latin America, the Caribbean and other U.S. neighbors. That’s a break with past administrations, who tended to prioritize other regions and other topics, such as taking on major powers like Russia and China or fighting terrorism. The Trump strategy suggests the president’s military buildup in the Western Hemisphere is not a temporary phenomenon. (That buildup, which has included controversial military strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs, has been cast by the administration as a way to fight cartels. But the administration also hopes the buildup could help pressure Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to step down.) The strategy also specifically calls for “a more suitable Coast Guard and Navy presence to control sea lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.” The strategy says the U.S. should enhance its relationships with governments in Latin America, including working with them to identify strategic resources — an apparent reference to materials such as rare earth minerals. It also declares that the U.S. will partner more with the private sector to promote “strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region.” Such business-related pledges, at least on a generic level, could please many Latin American governments who have long been frustrated by the lack of U.S. attention to the region. It’s unclear how such promises square with Trump’s insistence on imposing tariffs on America’s trade partners, however. The National Security Strategy spends a fair amount of time on China, though it often doesn’t mention Beijing directly. Many U.S. lawmakers — on a bipartisan basis — consider an increasingly assertive China the gravest long-term threat to America’s global power. But while the language the Trump strategy uses is tough, it is careful and far from inflammatory. The administration promises to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China, prioritizing reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence.” But it also says “trade with China should be balanced and focused on non-sensitive factors” and even calls for “maintaining a genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing.” The strategy says the U.S. wants to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific — a nod to growing tensions in the region, including between China and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines. “We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” it states. That may come as a relief to Asia watchers who worry Trump will back away from U.S. support for Taiwan as it faces ongoing threats from China. The document states that “it is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine,” and to mitigate the risk of Russian confrontation with other countries in Europe. But overall it pulls punches when it comes to Russia — there’s very little criticism of Moscow. Instead, it reserves some of its harshest remarks for U.S.-allied nations in Europe. In particular, the administration, in somewhat veiled terms, knocks European efforts to rein in far-right parties, calling such moves political censorship. “The Trump administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the [Ukraine] war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition,” the strategy states. The strategy also appears to suggest that migration will fundamentally change European identity to a degree that could hurt U.S. alliances. “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,” it states. “As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.” Still, the document acknowledges Europe’s economic and other strengths, as well as how America’s partnership with much of the continent has helped the U.S. “Not only can we not afford to write Europe off — doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve,” it says. “Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,” it says. Trump’s first-term National Security Strategy focused significantly on the U.S. competition with Russia and China, but the president frequently undercut it by trying to gain favor with the leaders of those nuclear powers. If this new strategy proves a better reflection of what Trump himself actually believes, it could help other parts of the U.S. government adjust, not to mention foreign governments. As Trump administration documents often do, the strategy devotes significant space to praising the commander-in-chief. It describes him as the “President of Peace” while favorably stating that he “uses unconventional diplomacy.” The strategy struggles at times to tamp down what seem like inconsistencies. It says the U.S. should have a high bar for foreign intervention, but it also says it wants to “prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries.” It also essentially dismisses the ambitions of many smaller countries. “The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations,” the strategy states. The National Security Strategy is the first of several important defense and foreign policy papers the Trump administration is due to release. They include the National Defense Strategy, whose basic thrust is expected to be similar. Presidents’ early visions for what the National Security Strategy should mention have at times had to be discarded due to events. After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s first-term strategy ended up focusing heavily on battling Islamist terrorism. Biden’s team spent much of its first year working on a strategy that had to be rewritten after Russia moved toward a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The European Broadcasting Union cleared Israel to take part in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, brushing aside demands for its exclusion and sparking an unprecedented backlash. “A large majority of Members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,” the EBU said in a statement Thursday. Following the decision, broadcasters in Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia said they disagreed with the EBU and announced they would not participate in the 70th-anniversary Eurovision in Vienna because Israel was allowed to take part. The boycotting countries said their decision was based on Israel’s war in Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis, as they launched a historic boycott that plunges Eurovision into its deepest-ever crisis. “Culture unites, but not at any price,” Taco Zimmerman, general director of Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, said Thursday. “Universal values such as humanity and press freedom have been seriously compromised, and for us, these values are non-negotiable.” On the other side of the debate, Germany had warned it could pull out of the contest if Israel was not allowed to take part. Before the voting took place, Golan Yochpaz, a senior Israeli TV executive, said the meeting was “the attempt to remove KAN [Israeli national broadcasters] from the contest,” which “can only be understood as a cultural boycott.” Ireland’s public broadcaster RTÉ said it “feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.” Spanish radio and television broadcaster RTVE said it had lost trust in Eurovision. RTVE President José Pablo López said that “what happened at the EBU Assembly confirms that Eurovision is not a song contest but a festival dominated by geopolitical interests and fractured.” The EBU in Geneva also agreed on measures to “curb disproportionate third-party influence, including government-backed campaigns,” and limited the number of public votes to 10 “per payment method.” RTVE called the change “insufficient.” Controversy earlier this year prompted the changes, when several European broadcasters alleged that the Israeli government had interfered in the voting — after Israel received the largest number of public votes during the final. The EBU has been in talks with its members about Israel’s participation since the issue was raised at a June meeting of national broadcasters in London. Eurovision is run by the EBU, an alliance of public service media with 113 members in 56 countries. The contest has long proclaimed that it is “non-political,” but in 2022, the EBU banned Russia from the competition following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people in Israel, a large majority of whom were civilians, and taking 251 hostages. The attack prompted a major Israeli military offensive in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them civilians, displaced 90 percent of Gaza’s population and destroyed wide areas. The ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump in October 2025 led to the release of the remaining 20 Israeli hostages. Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen is separating herself from the corruption allegations engulfing the EU’s diplomatic service, with staffers saying it is a non-issue for the Commission chief. After Belgian authorities conducted dawn raids on Tuesday and detained the EU’s former top diplomat Federica Mogherini and ex-European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino, Commission officials dismissed it as an EEAS problem — noting that while Sannino took on a top job at the Commission earlier this year, the probe dates back to his previous role. “It’s not the Commission distancing itself, it’s a different institution that’s being investigated,” an EU official said. Helpfully for von der Leyen, Sannino fell on his sword Wednesday, with the Commission announcing he was gone from the helm of its Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf department (DG MENA). Three Commission officials forcefully argued the investigation launched Tuesday — into allegations the EEAS fraudulently awarded a tender to run a training academy for future EU diplomats to the College of Europe in Bruges — had nothing to do with von der Leyen, given the diplomatic service is a separate institution from the Commission. An EU official characterized attacks on the Commission chief as unfair and unwise, coming at a sensitive time when von der Leyen is attempting to shore up support for Ukraine ahead of a crunch December summit of EU leaders. The events take place against the backdrop of tensions between von der Leyen and the current boss of the EEAS, Kaja Kallas. Kallas, who was not in office at the time of the alleged corruption, has also sought to distance herself from the probe. On Wednesday, the former Estonian prime minister sought to drive home the idea that she had been working to clean up the EEAS since her appointment as the EU’s high representative in December 2024. In a letter to EEAS staff seen by POLITICO, the top EU diplomat wrote that she found the allegations against Mogherini and Sannino “deeply shocking,” but that these had predated her time at the EEAS. In the months since then, her team had launched internal reforms including setting up an “Anti-Fraud Strategy” and building stronger cooperation with the EU’s anti-fraud agency, OLAF, and the EPPO, she said. But at issue is who knew what in relation to the claims against Sannino. According to four EEAS employees, speaking to POLITICO in interviews prior to Tuesday’s raids, wider questions were raised about the way Sannino handled appointments for coveted diplomatic posts during his time at the service, including allegations that he had awarded them to favorites. Officials from OLAF visited the secretary-general’s offices prior to his departure from the EEAS, according to two people familiar with the matter. Kaja Kallas, who was not in office at the time of the alleged corruption, has also sought to distance herself from the probe. | Dursun Aydemir/Getty Images But an EU official said the Commission was not aware of prior complaints about Sannino when he was hired to be the head of a new department covering the Middle East and North Africa. In its statement announcing Tuesday’s raids, the EPPO said it had requested that authorities lift the immunity ― typically given to diplomats, protecting them from legal action ― of “several suspects” prior to the probe, and that this was granted. It did not specify which bodies it had made the requests to. The EU official mentioned above said the EPPO had directed a request to lift Sannino’s immunity to the EEAS in September, and that the Commission had not been made aware of it. An EEAS official did not respond directly to a question about whether such a request had been received. The official said the EEAS would have followed the law in such circumstances. The allegations are not proven and Mogherini, Sannino and the other individual who was detained are presumed innocent until deemed guilty by a court. Sannino did not immediately respond to a request for comment via his European Commission office. Tuesday’s events could also aggravate tensions between EU politicians and Belgian authorities. Two officials questioned the quality of the Belgian justice system, noting that authorities had held flashy press conference and detained suspects but then failed to advance cases in the 2022 “Qatargate” scandal and this year’s bribery probe into Chinese tech giant Huawei’s lobbying activities.

A pair of documents laying out the Trump administration’s global security strategy have been delayed for weeks due in part to changes that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted on concerning China, according to three people familiar with the discussions on the strategies. The documents — the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy — were initially expected to be released earlier this fall. Both are now almost done and will likely be released this month, one of the people said. The second person confirmed the imminent release of the National Security Strategy, and the third confirmed that the National Defense Strategy was coming very soon. All were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The strategies went through multiple rounds of revisions after Bessent wanted more work done on the language used to discuss China, given sensitivity over ongoing trade negotiations with Beijing and the elevation of the Western Hemisphere as a higher priority than it had been in previous administrations, the people said. The National Security Strategy has been used by successive administrations to outline their overall strategic priorities from the economic sphere to dealing with allies and adversaries and military posture. The drafting goes through a series of readthroughs and comment periods from Cabinet officials in an attempt to capture the breadth of an administrations’ vision and ensure the entire administration is marching in the same direction on the president’s top issues. The administration has been involved in sensitive trade talks with Beijing for months over tariffs and a variety of trade issues, but the Pentagon has maintained its position that China remains the top military rival to the United States. The extent of the changes after Bessent’s requests remains unclear, but two of the people said that Bessent wanted to soften some of the language concerning Chinese activities while declining to provide more details. Any changes to one document would require similar changes to the other, as they must be in sync to express a unified front. It is common for the Treasury secretary and other Cabinet officials to weigh in during the drafting and debate process of crafting a new strategy, as most administrations will only release one National Security Strategy per term. In a statement, the Treasury Department said that Bessent “is 100 percent aligned with President Trump, as is everyone else in this administration, as to how to best manage the relationship with China.” The White House referred to the Treasury Department. Trump administration officials have alternately decried the threat from China and looked for ways to improve relations with Beijing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to deliver a speech on Friday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, on Pentagon efforts to build weapons more quickly to meet the China challenge. At the same time, Hegseth is working with his Chinese counterpart, Adm. Dong Jun, to set up a U.S.-China military communication system aimed to prevent disagreements or misunderstandings from spiraling into unintended conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Bessent told the New ‍York Times Dealbook summit on Wednesday that China was on schedule to meet the pledges it made under a ‌U.S.-China trade agreement, including purchasing 12 million metric tons of soybeans by February 2026. “China is on track to ‍keep every ⁠part of the deal,” ⁠he said. Those moves by administration officials are set against the massive Chinese military buildup in the Indo-Pacific region and tensions over Beijing’s belligerent attitude toward the Philippines, where Beijing and Manila have been facing off over claims of land masses and reefs in the South China Sea. The U.S. has been supplying the Philippines with more sophisticated weaponry in recent years in part to ward off the Chinese threat. China has also consistently flown fighter planes and bombers and sailed warships close to Taiwan’s shores despite the Taiwan Relations Act, an American law that pledges the U.S. to keep close ties with the independent island. The National Security Strategy, which is put out by every administration, hasn’t been updated since 2022 under the Biden administration. That document highlighted three core themes: strategic competition with China and Russia; renewed investment and focus on domestic industrial policy; and the recognition that climate change is a central challenge that touches all aspects of national security. The strategy is expected to place more emphasis on the Western Hemisphere than previous strategies, which focused on the Middle East, counterterrorism, China and Russia. The new strategy will include those topics but also focus on topics such as migration, drug cartels and relations with Latin America — all under the umbrella of protecting the U.S. homeland. That new National Defense Strategy similarly places more emphasis on protecting the U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere, as POLITICO first reported, a choice that has caused some concern among military commanders. Both documents are expected to be followed by the “global posture review,” a look at how U.S. military assets are positioned across the globe, and which is being eagerly anticipated by allies from Germany to South Korea, both of which are home to tens of thousands of U.S. troops who might be moved elsewhere.

BRUSSELS — Stefano Sannino, a director general in the European Commission who was detained by Belgian authorities as part of a fraud probe, is no longer in his job, the Commission said. The confirmation came after Belgian authorities, acting at the request of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), conducted dawn raids on Tuesday and detained Sannino, who led the Commission’s Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf department and was the former secretary-general of the European External Action Service. Sannino “is no longer serving in his function,” a Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday. “In light of allegations brought forward by the EPPO,” Sannino has “taken leave until end of the year, when he will then retire as planned.” Sannino has reached the retirement age. In an email sent to colleagues announcing his imminent retirement, first reported by Euractiv, Sannino said “under these circumstances, I do not consider it appropriate to continue in my present position.” He added that he was “confident in the work of the magistrates and confident that everything will be clarified.” The deputy director general of DG MENA, Michael Karnitschnig, will take over Sannino’s job until a replacement is appointed. The Commission spokesperson said “we must all respect the assumption of innocence until judicial proceedings are completed.” Sannino, as well as the EU’s former top diplomat Federica Mogherini, who was also detained on Tuesday as part of the probe, was released from custody after being held for questioning for several hours. Mogherini, the rector of the College of Europe, Sannino and a staff member of the College of Europe were detained Tuesday in connection to an investigation into whether the public tender awarded by the European External Action Service (EEAS) in 2021-22 to a higher education institution to host the EU Diplomatic Academy was rigged. The allegations are not proven and Mogherini, Sannino and the other individual detained are presumed innocent until deemed guilty by a court. “Yesterday I clarified my position with the investigators acting on behalf of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office,” Mogherini said in a statement on Wednesday. “The College has always applied and will continue to apply the highest standards of integrity and fairness.”

BRUSSELS ― Ursula von der Leyen is facing the starkest challenge to the EU’s accountability in a generation ― with a fraud probe ensnaring two of the biggest names in Brussels and threatening to explode into a full-scale crisis. Exactly a year into her second term as Commission president, von der Leyen, already plagued by questions over her commitment to transparency and amid simmering tension with the bloc’s foreign policy wing, must now find a way to avoid being embroiled in a scandal that dates back to her first years in office. An announcement by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office that the EU’s former foreign affairs chief and a senior diplomat currently working in von der Leyen’s Commission had been detained on Tuesday was seized on by her critics, with renewed calls that she face a fourth vote of no confidence. “The credibility of our institutions is at stake,” said Manon Aubry, co-chair of The Left in the European Parliament. If proven, the allegations would set in motion the biggest scandal to engulf Brussels since the mass resignation of the Jacques Santer Commission in 1999 over allegations of financial mismanagement. Police detained former Commission Vice President Federica Mogherini, a center-left Italian politician who headed the EU’s foreign policy wing, the European External Action Service, from 2014-2019, and Stefano Sannino, an Italian civil servant who was the EEAS secretary-general from 2021 until he was replaced earlier this year. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office said it had “strong suspicions” that a 2021-2022 tendering process to set up a diplomatic academy attached to the College of Europe, where Mogherini is rector, hadn’t been fair and that the facts, if proven, “could constitute procurement fraud, corruption, conflict of interest and violation of professional secrecy.” The saga looks set to inflame already strained relations between von der Leyen and the current boss of the EEAS, EU High Representative Kaja Kallas, four EU officials told POLITICO. Earlier this year Sannino left his secretary-general job and took up a prominent role in von der Leyen’s Commission. An EU official defended von der Leyen, instead blaming the EEAS, an autonomous service under the EU treaties that operates under the bloc’s high representative, Kallas — who is one of the 27 European commissioners. “I know the people who don’t like von der Leyen will use this against her, but they use everything against her,” the official said. Police detained former Commission Vice President Federica Mogherini, a center-left Italian politician who headed the EU’s foreign policy wing, the European External Action Service, from 2014-2019. | Christoph Gollnow/Getty Images “Because President von der Leyen is the most identifiable leader in Brussels, we lay everything at her door,” the official added. “And it’s not fair that she would face a motion of censure for something the External Action Service may have done. She’s not accountable for all of the institutions.” Mogherini, Sannino and a third person have not been charged and their detention does not imply guilt. An investigative judge has 48 hours from the start of their questioning to decide on further action. When contacted about Sannino, the Commission declined to comment. When contacted about Mogherini, the College of Europe declined to answer specific questions. In a statement it said it remained “committed to the highest standards of integrity, fairness, and compliance — both in academic and administrative matters.” ‘CRIME SERIES’ The investigation comes as Euroskeptic, populist and far-right parties ride a wave of voter dissatisfaction and at a time when the EU is pressuring countries both within and outside the bloc over their own corruption scandals. “Funny how Brussels lectures everyone on ‘rule of law’ while its own institutions look more like a crime series than a functioning union,” Zoltan Kovacs, spokesperson for the government of Hungary, which has faced EU criticism, said on X. Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea, a member of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, who was behind a failed no-confidence vote in von der Leyen in July, told POLITICO he was considering trying to trigger a fresh motion. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state media that EU officials “prefer to ignore their own problems, while constantly lecturing everyone else.” The EU has struggled to shake off a series of corruption scandals since this decade began. Tuesday’s raids come on the back of the 2022 “Qatargate” scandal, when the Gulf state was accused of seeking to influence MEPs through bribes and gifts, as well as this year’s bribery probe into Chinese tech giant Huawei’s lobbying activities in Europe.  Those investigations implicated members of the European Parliament, and at the time Commission officials were quick to point the finger at lawmakers and distance themselves from the scandals. But the Commission hasn’t been immune to allegations of impropriety. In 2012, then-Health Commissioner John Dalli resigned over a tobacco lobbying scandal. Von der Leyen herself was on the receiving end of a slap-down by the EU’s General Court, which ruled earlier this year that she shouldn’t have withheld from the public text messages that she exchanged with the CEO of drug giant Pfizer during the Covid-19 pandemic. Tuesday’s revelations are far more dangerous for the Commission, given the high profile of the suspects and the gravity of the allegations they face. ‘DISASTROUS IMPACT’ After serving as a European Commission vice president and head of the EEAS, Mogherini was appointed rector of the College of Europe in 2020, amid criticism she wasn’t qualified for the post, didn’t meet the criteria, and had entered the race months after the deadline. In 2022 she became the director of the European Union Diplomatic Academy, the project at the heart of Tuesday’s dawn raids. Sannino, a former Italian diplomat, was the EEAS’s top civil servant and is now the director-general for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf department in the Commission. Stefano Sannino, a former Italian diplomat, was the EEAS’s top civil servant and is now the director-general for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf department in the Commission. | Pool Photo by Johanna Geron via Getty Images Cristiano Sebastiani, the staff representative of one of the EU’s major trade unions, Renouveau & Démocratie, said that if proven, the allegations would have “a disastrous impact on the credibility of the institutions concerned, and more broadly on citizens’ perception of all European institutions.” He said he had received “tens of messages” from EU staff concerned about reputational damage. “This is not good for EU institutions and for the Commission services. It is not good for Europe, it steers attention away from other things,” said a Commission official granted anonymity to speak freely. “It conveys this idea of elitism, of an informal network doing favors. Also, Mogherini was one of the most successful [EU high representatives], it’s not good in terms of public diplomacy.”

BRUSSELS ― Belgian police raided the EU’s foreign service and the College of Europe on Tuesday in a bombshell corruption probe — and detained two of the EU’s most powerful officials. Federica Mogherini, who once served as the EU’s top diplomat, and Stefano Sannino, a director-general in the European Commission, were questioned over allegations of fraud in the establishment of a training academy for diplomats. Mogherini was born in Rome, the daughter of a film set designer. She was elected to the Italian parliament in 2008 as an MP with the center-left Democratic Party and became Italy’s foreign minister in 2014, an appointment that, at the time, took many by surprise. The 52-year-old’s tenure was short-lived, as she was made the EU’s high representative — the foreign policy chief — the same year, a position she held until 2019. Her time in the job is perhaps most notable for her work on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. At the end of her five-year term, she became the rector of the Bruges-based College of Europe, a position she’s been in ever since. But her appointment was mired in claims of cronyism, as professors and EU officials argued that she was not qualified for the post, did not meet the criteria and applied after the deadline. She has also served as the director of the EU Diplomatic Academy, a program for junior diplomats across EU countries that is run by the College of Europe, since August 2022. It’s the academy that is at the center of the probe. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) said it has “strong suspicions” that rules around “fair competition” were breached when the EEAS awarded the tender to set up the academy. Sannino, a career diplomat from Naples with a packed CV including various roles in Rome and Brussels, has served as director-general of DG Enlargement, permanent representative of Italy to the EU, Italian ambassador to Spain and Andorra and secretary-general of the European External Action Service (EEAS). He has championed LGBTQ+ rights and is married to Catalan political adviser Santiago Mondragón. He started his current role as director-general of DG MENA, the EU’s department for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf, in February. He has lectured at the College of Europe and at the diplomatic academy. None of the people questioned has been charged. An investigative judge has 48 hours to decide on further action.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has officially requested a pardon from the country’s President Isaac Herzog over corruption charges. In a statement Sunday, the prime minister’s office said that Netanyahu had submitted a request for a pardon to the legal department of the Office of the President. The Office of the President called it an “extraordinary request,” carrying with it “significant implications,” the Associated Press reported. Netanyahu is in the midst of a stalled corruption trial for charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, including receiving extravagant gifts, among them cigars and Champagne. The Israeli prime minister was indicted in 2019, with some of the investigations that gave rise to the charges going back to 2015. One of the “most important roles” of the Israeli president, per the office’s website, is the legal power to pardon offenders or modify their sentences. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Netanyahu to be pardoned, including as recently as October. “Cigars and Champagne, who the hell cares about that?” Trump said during an address in Jerusalem, dubbing Netanyahu “one of the greatest” wartime leaders. The case has been delayed time and again because of legal maneuvers by Netanyahu and his lawyers, as well as because of security and diplomatic concerns during the war in Gaza. Netanyahu insists he is innocent, arguing the cases against him are part of an orchestrated left-wing plot that’s out to topple a democratically elected right-wing leader.