Europe is “decaying” due to a group of “weak” leaders too focused on being “politically correct,” President Donald Trump said on Monday in his latest criticism of the leaders of traditional U.S. allies.
“I think they’re weak, but I also think that they want to be so politically correct,” the president told Politico in an interview. “I know the good leaders. I know the bad leaders. I know the smart ones. I know the stupid ones. You get some real stupid ones, too. But, uh, they’re not doing a good job. Europe is not doing a good job in many ways. They’re not doing a good job.”
The president’s criticism of European leaders focused on unchecked migration, and their position on the Russia-Ukraine war reflects the policy positions outlined in the administration’s recently released national security strategy.
In it, the 33-page guiding document for the president’s “America First” foreign policy agenda argued that Europe faces “civilizational erasure” due to mass migration, which he warned could prevent traditional U.S. allies from maintaining those statuses.
“And if it keeps going the way it’s going, Europe will not be … in my opinion, uh, many of those countries will not be viable countries any longer. Their immigration policy is a disaster. What they’re doing with immigration is a disaster,” Trump said. “This is one of the great places in the world, and they’re allowing people just to come in and … unchecked, unvetted.”
The president praised Hungary and Poland, saying the countries have “done a good job” regarding immigration, but added that “most” European nations are “decaying.”
The administration has been putting pressure on European countries to change their domestic immigration policies, including issuing guidance for U.S. embassies in Europe to report “violent crimes and human rights abuses perpetrated by migrant populations.”
Trump said in the interview he’d be open to endorsing candidates for elections in Europe, as he has in the past with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Argentine President Javier Milei.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the Trump administration’s new national security strategy “confirms my assessment that we in Europe, and so also in Germany, must become much more independent from the U.S. in terms of security policy.”
Merz noted that the administration’s viewpoint “is not a surprise, but it has now been confirmed again. It has been documented.”
Under pressure from the Trump administration, the NATO alliance agreed to increase the minimum defense spending threshold from 2% of a member’s gross domestic product to 5%, although it’s a long-term goal that most countries won’t reach for years.
Trump said, “NATO calls me daddy.”
Congress is seeking to put some guardrails on the administration’s ability to reduce the military’s presence on the European continent.
Lawmakers added a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 that prohibits the Pentagon from reducing “the total number of members of the Armed Forces permanently stationed in or deployed to the area of responsibility of the United States European Command below 76,000 for longer than a 45-day period.”
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It also blocks the military from divesting, redeploying, or permanently moving equipment or physical property with an “initial purchase value of more than $500,000” still in the area as of June 1, 2025, and prevents the department from giving up the U.S.-held role of NATO’s supreme allied commander.
Last month, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matt Whitaker, said he looked forward to the day Germany would take over the Supreme Allied Commander Europe position, though he caveated it with, “We’re a long way from that.”