Friend or foe? By meeting with the AfD, Vance clearly revealed US intentions

The Trump administration is making a big bet on Europe's hard right.

- Andrew Roth

Speaking at a conference of Europe's leaders in Munich last Friday, the US vice president, JD Vance, stunned the room by delivering what amounted to a campaign speech against Germany's sitting government just one week before an election in which the anti-immigrant, antiMuslim Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is set to take second place.

Vance accused foreign leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters' true beliefs.

Hours later he met Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, breaking a taboo in German politics called the "firewall against the far right", meant to kept the party with ties to extremists out of the mainstream.

"It's an incredibly controversial thing for him to do," said Kristine Berzina, the managing director of the German Marshall Fund's Geostrategy North.