One way Europeans have coped with the return of Donald Trump is by clinging to the belief that the president and his team don’t really mean what they say. Anyone still labouring under that delusion should look at the leaked Signal group chat messages about a missile strike on the Houthis between the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials.
We have access to these messages because Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, added Atlantic editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group chat, which also included secretary of state Marco Rubio, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and CIA director John Ratcliffe. Goldberg then lurked in the chat taking screenshots without being noticed by the group as they decided whether to go ahead with missile strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. And how do the people controlling the most powerful military force react after their Navy kills around 58 people on the Arabian Peninsula? With emojis of flames, an American flag and a fist.
Despite one White House official telling Politico that Waltz is a “f***ing idiot”, the national security adviser seems likely to keep his job – for now – after Trump said he still backs him. It’s all part of the White House’s damage control which includes both admitting the screenshots were real and calling the Atlantic story a “hoax”, as the director of communications, Steven Cheung, did in a tweet on 25 March. Whatever the spin, the episode adds to the general impression that Trump’s team is incompetent – an impression it is struggling to shake after the mistaken firings and then rehirings by Elon Musk’s chaotic Doge (Department of Government Efficiency) purges.
But aside from the scandalous nature of the leak, the most notable thing about these messages is what they reveal about the thinking among Trump’s lieutenants. There is clearly a tension between those who are more traditionally hawkish and those who want America First to mean isolationism.
In one message the vice-president JD Vance says that he thinks the operation is a “mistake” because so little American – compared to European – trade goes through the Suez Canal. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” he posts, meaning that the strikes could be seen to be helping Europe defend waterways leading into the Mediterranean when the White House is trying to get Europe to pay for its own defence.
Hegseth goes on to suggest that strikes could be postponed – demonstrating the influence Vance has over foreign policy, despite occupying the traditionally irrelevant role of vice-president. Vance eventually concedes, posting: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again” – a sentiment that Hegseth heartily agreed with, calling European freeloading “PATHETIC”. The Trump team has such disdain for Europe that missile strikes in Yemen are now being partly decided based on whether the operation will or will not punish Europe for having weak armies.
Another tension brought to the surface in the messages is that the administration is clearly worried about the economic chaos brought about by Trump’s unpredictable tariff regime. Vance – who is an isolationist sceptical of foreign intervention – at one point says there is a “strong argument for delaying this a month… seeing where the economy is”. The point being that military strikes in the Middle East could increase oil prices, worsening America’s unstable economic outlook. This was a rare insight into how a suffering economy is shaping the decision-making inside the White House.
In the end, Vance’s attempt to get the administration to prioritise the domestic economy over international shipping lanes lost out to the more hawkish faction led by Waltz. But who knows how the balance of power might tip in the future? After all, the humiliation of mistakenly adding a reporter to a highly confidential chat could mean Trump changes his mind and ends up sacking Waltz.
[See also: Trump’s Golden Age]
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