Though it’s been just a month since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump is making his presence felt at home and abroad, from the Department of Government Efficiency to tariffs to setting the stage to negotiate the end of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Republican Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Eric Burlison of Missouri, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Andy Harris of Maryland, and others experienced just how Trump is shaking things up across Europe as they attended the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London this week.

The Daily Signal accompanied them as they engaged with European leaders and citizens.

“What’s loud and clear to me is that Europeans aren’t happy,” Norman said. “The people aren’t happy; the leaders are.”

“It’s like the United States: The people were not happy with Joe Biden and his policies. In England, the people are not happy with what’s going on with their leaders, with regulations, the price of living, and they’re willing to do something about it.”

Last week, Vice President JD Vance delivered remarks at an AI summit in Paris and the Munich Security conference in Germany. Vance took European nations to task for their regulatory environment on matters ranging from energy to speech to artificial intelligence, and he reasserted America’s national interests in U.S. foreign policy. 

Energy Secretary Chris Wright had his turn to address a European crowd when he virtually joined the ARC conference and lambasted Europe’s energy policies. “Energy realism is critical if you want to have humanism,” he said, specifically addressing Vance’s critique of European energy policy. 

Wright said what’s happening in Europe now is “lunacy.”

“This is impoverishing citizens for the delusion that this is somehow going to make the world a better place,” he said.

Harris told The Daily Signal he was “not surprised at what happened at the Munich Security Conference.”

“I mean, that’s the deep state of Europe,” he said.

“The bottom line is there are people who don’t believe that Western civilization is something to be prized, treasured, and developed,” Harris said.

“We have nothing to apologize for. We have the strongest economy. We have the strongest military. We’ve preserved freedom a couple of times in Europe, and we’re not going to stop doing that,” the Maryland lawmaker continued. In Europe, the Trump administration is making “a call for Western civilization to bring back the ideals of Western civilization and the success of Western civilization.”

“I think that was brought out at the conference,” Harris said, “and that’s the message that Donald Trump brings—the end of wokeism, economic security, low energy prices, and a nationalistic pride that precedes economic success.”

“Donald Trump is going to, once again, make the United States the leader of the free world,” he said.

“In general, I think that it’s reminding Europe that it’s time to get serious again,” Burlison told The Daily Signal. “We need to get serious about our manufacturing. We need to get serious about energy production, and we need to get serious about the threats to national security.”

Though many European elites in government have responded in dismay to the Trump administration’s message to Europe, the people the members of Congress met in London feel differently.

Hageman told The Daily Signal that Vance and Wright took “absolutely the right tack” in engaging with European nations over the past week.

“Energy security is national security,” the Wyoming congresswoman continued, “What you’re seeing of these European countries, and what the U.N. is demanding, is that we all live under energy poverty, and none of us believe in that. We believe in prosperity. I think that that’s exactly the message that Donald Trump and JD Vance are sending, and I think it’s what the European people want.”

“The government and the leadership in Europe for so long has been focusing on ‘net zero’ and carbon and global warming, and all of this nonsense,” Hageman said. “It’s costing their citizenry dearly, and they’re tired of it.”

For Hageman, the new sheriff in town is not only Trump, “the new sheriff in town is common sense, and getting back to what governments are supposed to be.”

“The ones that I’ve spoken with are happy that Trump is rolling back regulations and calling Europe out for not [doing so],” said Norman.

DOGE has been a buzzworthy topic in London as well. “With DOGE, Trump and [DOGE chief Elon] Musk are more than investigators. What have they done? They’ve just exposed where the money went.” Europeans are now starting to desire a thorough accounting of where their money has gone, Norman said.

“We can’t continue [on] the same path that’s put us in debt,” Norman said of the reckless spending. “And I think many Europeans feel the same way. They wanted to take the same path Donald Trump is taking, and go a different way.”

“We’ve wasted a lot of time and a lot of money on foolish things,” Burlison said of the West. “America, sadly, has led in some of these foolish wastes, like studying [critical race theory] and this woke ideology and climate. But I think that, given the problems that we’re facing today, Trump is kind of a wake-up call, and it’s kind of the sobering message that Europe and America really needed to hear.”

With tariffs and charting a new path for foreign policy, “Trump is sending a message: Europe has got to defend itself,” Norman said. “Their percentage [of gross domestic product] that they spend is minuscule [compare with] what we spend, and we got a bigger GDP. He’s putting the pressure on them. They’re going to have to make the decision about how to keep their countries safe, and I think it’s long time in coming.”

“You can tell, at least at this point, that they’re taking that seriously and kind of walking through what that would mean,” Burlison said of Trump’s policies. “So, I hope that England and the European countries that have been relying on America for so long recognize that America is taking things seriously, but we also need Europe to do so as well.”

Because of her interactions in London, Hageman thinks Britons are “coming around to the Trumpian point of view,” because European leaders are not changing a failed course.

“Instead of changing course, instead of fixing this mess they created, “ the Wyoming lawmaker said, European leaders “are telling all of you to shut up. That’s what’s happening in Europe, and that’s what JD Vance was calling out.”

Almost more than on any other issue, European leaders “made bad policy decisions on migration.”

“It has caused severe issues and problems within these communities throughout their countries, and their response isn’t to say we need to fix this. Their response is to say we’re going to make it illegal for you to point it out,” Hageman said. “I think that it is absolutely fair for JD Vance and all of us to stand up for our brethren, to stand up for our brothers and sisters in Europe and say we’re not going to allow you tyrants to get away with that.”

Whether at home or abroad, she said, “We’re going to stand up for the citizens, and we’re going to fight to make sure that they have a voice.”

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