Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief.

This is FP Live.

So I've just gotten back from the Munich Security Conference,

an annual meeting of spy chiefs, foreign and defence ministers and world leaders.

And this past weekend, for the European leaders there,

it really seemed like their relationship with the United States had reached a tipping point.

Now, it was already strained, to be sure, for a variety of reasons. But the most recent issue

was that U.S. President Donald Trump had a call last week with

Russia's Vladimir Putin, ostensibly about Ukraine. And he had that call without consulting

Europe. That sparked all kinds of fears across the continent. Add to that, a statement by

Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth that Ukraine was unlikely

to get into NATO, and you can see why many European leaders felt Washington was giving away

way too much before negotiations had even started. All of that was the backdrop at the Munich

conference I was at. Attendees there eagerly awaited

one speech above all others, the one by Vice President J.D. Vance. And in a pretty big surprise,

he didn't talk about foreign policy at all. Instead, he told leaders there the biggest threat to their

continent was not China, not Russia,

but rather a lack of free speech and real democracy in Europe.

If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,

nor for that matter is there anything that you can do for the American people who

elected me and elected President Trump. European leaders immediately found this strange,

not only because it was an unusual bit of interference, but also because of America's own

...