Trump's Europe Allies Side With Russia and China — SkimNews
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- AfD scored its best-ever regional election result earlier this month, falling a few seats short of an outright majority in a German state parliament; two more regional elections are Sunday and Chancellor Friedrich Merz canceled his UN General Assembly visit amid resignation speculation.
- Trump administration officials launched a State Department fund for MAGA-aligned European groups; Trump posted "MGGA" on Truth Social and envoy Richard Grenell called the AfD's regional win "a huge win and a new day in Germany."
- AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla have called for ending all arms deliveries to Ukraine and lifting all sanctions on Russia, and boycotted Zelensky's 2024 Bundestag speech—positions incompatible with burden-shifting European conventional defense.
- Marine Le Pen, front-runner for France's presidential election, has promised to take France out of NATO's integrated military command, undercutting any plan to shift NATO's defense burden onto European allies.
- Weidel lived in China for six years, speaks Mandarin, and wrote her doctoral dissertation on China's pension system, while defeated Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán blocked EU criticism of Beijing and launched an "all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership" with China.
- A Carnegie Endowment analysis found AfD supports a multipolar world order in which Russia and China possess spheres of influence—a view at odds with a Europe capable of deterring those powers.
Why it matters: The AfD's best-ever regional showing and Marine Le Pen's status as France's presidential front-runner position the US for fragmented allies who favor Russian and Chinese spheres of influence rather than a self-sufficient defense partner—while Poland's foreign minister warns AfD-driven German rearmament revives Eastern European historical anxieties.
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