US sent Europe bitter bonbons rather than the boxer on Valentine’s Day
AI’s view of what happened when a US official offered a ‘love’ token to Europe
Only the emotionally unintelligent could come over all fluttery at the Trump administration’s Valentine’s Day message to Europe.
For the second consecutive year, US President Donald Trump despatched a high-ranking flunkey to Munich to tell Europe exactly what the new world expects from the old…if she doesn’t want a divorce, that is.
In 2025, it was the hirsute vice-president-cum-White House pugilist J D Vance.
In 2026, the emissary was baby-faced Latino-American Marco Rubio, a man who simultaneously holds four offices of varying import: secretary of state, national security adviser, acting Administrator of the US Agency for International Development and acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Mr Vance threw jabs left and right, then a number of more powerful punches, got the opponent to the ground and departed with a well-aimed head kick. (That’s illegal in boxing but clearly not, in the pseudo-diplomacy pursued by a country that no longer has a department of defence, only one of war.)
Mr Rubio took a soothing line, offering a sugary promise – a box of diplomatic bonbons – to renew the vows and maintain commitment but the message was the same as the year before.
He spoke just like Mr Vance, a confirmed blood-and-soil nationalist who accused European societies of hastening their own decline with their humane immigration policies and resistance to far-right political discourse.
The difference between Mr Rubio and Mr Vance was the manner of message delivery, not its content.
Mr Rubio assured that the United States and Europe “belong together”, their destinies “intertwined”. But it wasn’t on account of any shared belief in rule of law, principles of democracy and governance; multilateralism in the service of the greatest good. Instead, said Mr Rubio, the US and Europe are linked by “shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together”.
He added, “We will always be a child of Europe”, setting out clearly that the ties are only of blood and family. Which is to say that the US regards Europe to be the home of its white European forbears and doesn’t recognise the brown and black Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains and others who make up modern Europe.
Mr Rubio and Mr Vance were saying the same thing using different methods of delivery: Immigration threatens “civilisational erasure”. The US only recognises a Europe that goes back to its future.
This year, Mr Trump’s America sent bitter bonbons rather than the boxer to Europe on Valentine’s Day but the message remained the same: Ugly and uncompromising.
