The Trump administration's antagonistic posture toward Europe is a direct result of European countries failing to invest in their own defense.

“I see the American argument and I am deeply deeply frustrated with the British government of the country that we are from and many many European countries that have lived, let's be honest, this is clout cuckoo land. You cannot destroy your own industry, your own jobs for the sake of quote unquote sa”

European nations have neglected their own defense spending while relying on American military support.

“We've been living under the American nuclear umbrella, not investing in our own defense, not investing in our armed services, running them down to completely ridiculous levels, um, while at the same time increasing over time. and spending more and more money on welfare.”

The US is using diplomatic pressure to force European nations to stop relying on American security and take responsibility for their own defense and policy decisions.

“one of the policies it seems of the Trump Administration is to force the Europeans to actually own their own policies or to dissociate from their own stupidity of the past”

Mike Pompeo believes European countries have created security dependencies through their own failure to invest adequately in defense.

“The dependencies didn't evolve because of something that the United States did. They did it because of failures of political leadership in Europe and in the United Kingdom, right? It was the Europeans in the United and in the United Kingdom who decided, you know, we're just not going to spend the mo”

Britain functions as a subimperial power that performs the bidding of the United States while suffering from state-level vassalage.

“I would say that we're politically subimperial. We're a subimperial power. We do the bidding of the United States with vasil state characteristics, which is to say that technologically I think we are a vessel state.”

The UK is too dependent on the United States and should move towards closer cooperation with Europe to gain more independence on critical issues.

“Option three is that you really begin to do the serious work and working out how Britain gets lockstep with Europe and begins to work out how it becomes more independent. And more independent on critical minerals, AI, nuclear, etc.”

The United Kingdom is acutely dependent on the United States across economic, energy, and security dimensions, which creates clear limits on British autonomy.

“I'm not sure I would use the word vessel but Britain is acutely dependent upon the United States I think in a in a number of um ways economically in terms of energy.”