Europe’s far-right leaders applaud Trump and downplay threat of possible US tariffs
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$0 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*No charge for 4 weeks then price increases to the regular rate of $19.00 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.75/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/02/2025 (301 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
MADRID (AP) — Europe’s far-right leaders applauded U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda and spoke of the turning point it presented Europe at an event Saturday organized by Spain’s Vox party in Madrid under the banner “Make Europe Great Again.”
Those gathered included Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Italy’s Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini, French National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen and others.
Salvini and Vox president Santiago Abascal downplayed Trump’s threat to hike tariffs on European imports, saying that the European Union’s taxes and regulations are a bigger danger to Europe’s prosperity.
“The great tariff is the Green Deal and the confiscatory taxes of Brussels and socialist governments across Europe,” said Abascal.
Salvini referenced the “historic opportunity” ahead of Germany’s Feb. 23 election, in which the far-right Alternative for Germany party is polling in second place, behind center-right opposition leader Friedrich Merz’s Union bloc.
“The engine of Europe has come to a halt in the face of the most disastrous government of the post-war period,” Salvini said of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government.
The defense of Europe’s borders against illegal immigration was another topic touched on by every speaker at the two-day event, even though irregular border crossings into the European Union fell sharply in 2024, according to data collected by the bloc’s border control agency Frontex.
Le Pen said that Trump’s election triumph put Europe before a “real change,” and said that the EU had left the continent at the margins of ongoing technological revolutions in artificial intelligence and other realms.
She also said that it was the European leaders present at the gathering, whose Patriots for Europe group has 84 seats in the European Parliament, who had the best chance of communicating and working with Trump.
“We are the only ones that can talk with the new Trump administration,” Le Pen said.