It's been quite the week! It began with us being caterpaulted into a new-look Europe, as Friedrich Merz, leader of the centre-right CDU, won Germany's snap election. In his victory speech, Merz said that his absolute priority was "to strengthen Europe so that we are independent from the United States".
And so the thorny issue of European defence without the US begins...
Mary Dejevsky wrote about why Merz is the right man to unite Europe against Trump, while Sean O'Grady unpicked whether Europe is ready for a US-free Nato – and what that might look like (spoiler: Sean strongly believes we'll need a new European Defence Community – for what that means in practice, read here).
Meanwhile, tensions have been hotting up as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to meet with the US president in Washington for crunch talks on US support for Ukraine. Do dig in to our recent editorial for our advice to the PM. And don't miss the thorny backlash to Starmer's decision to slash foreign aid to boost defence spending – Andrew Mitchell thinks it's egregious, cynical... (and some other choice words), while Diane Abbott pulls no punches (and that's an understatement).
By the time you receive this newsletter, Trump and Starmer will be emerging from the Oval Office for a joint press conference. Keep your eyes peeled for any cringe hand-holding (a la Theresa May), clownish thumbs ups (surprise surprise, that was Boris Johnson) or something different – my bet is that Trump will try to make Sir Keir look as awkwardly British as possible with a fist-bump. See you on the other side...
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