In the midst of an international crisis like the one in Yemen, an uncomfortable truth emerges—one that U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and President Donald Trump have had the courage to say out loud: Europe continues to live under the umbrella of American security, but instead of showing gratitude, it behaves like a parasite.
A group chat, recently made public, revealed how the highest ranks of the U.S. administration openly discussed the costs and benefits of a preemptive strike against the Houthi militias threatening commercial routes in the Red Sea. “Only 3% of U.S. trade passes through Suez, while 40% of European trade does,” noted Vance, highlighting a hard truth: once again, the United States is risking lives and resources to defend interests that are mostly European.
And he’s right. Because Europe, instead of taking responsibility for its own security, waits for Washington to do the dirty work. France and the United Kingdom, although they fought side by side with the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, now appear timid, divided, and paralyzed. The European Union, under the technocratic and undemocratic leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, has abandoned any form of self-determination, preferring inertia to courage.
This is not the first time Vance has raised this issue. In Munich, he had already denounced the authoritarian drift of a Europe that censors dissent while pretending to be a bastion of democracy. And who can blame him? The United States not only defended the free world in the 20th century—sacrificing hundreds of thousands of young lives in World War II to prevent German from becoming the only spoken language—but still today bears the burden of European freedom.
The paradox is that many of the peoples once liberated from Hitler now allow themselves to be led—without protest—by a cold, technocratic German elite that shows little regard for democratic values. The same people, led by von der Leyen, who now want to impose regulations and bureaucracy without any democratic vote.
If Europe wants to be respected, it must first learn to respect those who defended it—yesterday with blood, today with strategy and deterrence. Otherwise, it will continue to be seen for what many Americans now believe it to be: a “pathetic and parasitic” continent, unable to take care of itself.