Europe

Transatlantic tensions and heckling boiled over at the Ryder Cup Saturday, with multiple fans reportedly escorted off the property at Bethpage Black Golf Course. On the international stage, Americans are known for often being loud, brash and utterly uncouth. The attitude is a product of the country’s endearing patriotism and unfettered confidence. The Ryder Cup is a case in point of this. The limits of unruly behavior from American fans have known no bounds since the start of the tournament in Long Island. Chants of “U-S-A” quickly shifted to straight-up jeers at European players, notably the duo of Rory McIlory and Shane Lowry, both of whom snapped back in reaction. McIlroy was approaching his shot on the 16th green when several members of the crowd began shouting.

President Trump returns to Britain this week for his second state visit, to a country which is much changed yet depressingly still the same. On his first, six years ago, Britain had yet to complete its departure from the EU, Elizabeth II was still on the throne and the Conservatives still in power – with three Prime Ministers to go before their eventual ejection from office. He will no doubt receive a warm and dignified welcome from King Charles, whatever is going through the monarch’s head – the impeccable neutrality of the British throne has survived the change of reign. Yet the President will find a country that is anything but transformed by Brexit or by its change of government.

When Charles Kushner took up his appointment as American ambassador to France this summer, his first official visit was to the Shoah Memorial in Paris. As a child of Holocaust survivors, he tweeted, “fighting anti-Semitism will be at the heart of my mission.” So it has proved. Last month, Kushner published a letter in the Wall Street Journal in which he accused Emmanuel Macron of insufficient action in the face of soaring anti-Semitism in the Republic. The ambassador was summoned for a dressing down. He didn’t attend as he was on vacation Kushner also castigated the French President for his imminent recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Where do you strike the balance between expression and security? It is a question Americans don’t need to ask. Our Constitution is plain and unambiguous about our fundamental rights to say what we want, write what we like, to gather in protest and – sweet relief – to mock our government.  Not everyone is so lucky. Not even our friends. “It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful, authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into,” Britain’s Nigel Farage told the House Judiciary Committee yesterday afternoon, as he detailed the speech crackdown being carried out in the UK. “At what point did we become North Korea?

Vice President J.D. Vance’s family vacation in Britain was disrupted by protesters who insisted that he was not welcome in the country. In the Cotswolds, an area northwest of Oxford and the British equivalent of Martha’s Vineyard, ultraliberal white protesters huddled together on August 12 to make their meager numbers look large for the cameras, wielding signs bearing such slogans as “End Genocide!” and “Stop Fascists!” One participant quoted by the Guardian explained: “I’m most worried about his environmental policies. They risk eliminating the whole of humanity, all the creatures on the Earth.

What’s really at stake in these trade deals? That is what we are slowly discovering as Donald Trump’s handshakes with America’s trading partners are turned into specific and detailed agreements. Today we are getting the details of one of the biggest deals struck so far: a trade agreement with the famously protectionist European Union, which agreed in principle to a deal back in July, with the caveat on both the US and EU side that taxes on key sectors were still up for discussion. Those discussions, it seems, have produced some details. Despite early threats that America would impose tariffs of 250 percent and 100 percent on EU imports of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors respectively, the headline duties for both have been reduced to 15 percent.

As Muslim migration roils Europe, some Catholic bishops are starting to notice. "For decades, the Islamization of Europe has been progressing through mass immigration,” Polish Bishop Antoni Długosz said July 13, adding that illegal immigrants “create serious problems in the countries they arrive in." Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan spoke more bluntly in March: "We're witnessing an invasion. They are not refugees. This is an invasion, a mass Islamization of Europe." Yet Pope Leo XIV lives in a different dimension. "In a world darkened by war and injustice . . . migrants and refugees stand as messengers of hope," Leo said July 25.

Candace Owens joined Freddy Gray on the Americano show last Friday to discuss her recent lawsuit with the Macrons, Trump's intervention, the Epstein Files and accusations of anti-Semitism. Here are some highlights from their conversation. Why did Macron and his wife sue Candace Owens? Freddy Gray: Candace is being sued or threatened with legal action by the Macrons, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, the President and First Lady of France. Because, Candace, you believe that Brigitte Macron is a man. Why do you think the Macrons are choosing to sue you? Candace Owens: Because they were trying to stop the story. I think it was an effective PR strategy.

“I’m having financial problems,” a long-ago ex-girlfriend desperately messaged me some years after our third breakup, before tossing a convoluted word salad trying to make a case that I should give her money. I refused and told her that although I felt very sorry for her, it would be better for both of us if we had no further contact. Fortunately, we haven’t. As President Trump cuts America’s ties with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for the third time, this would seem to be the best approach. UNESCO was founded in 1945 to advance the cause of international peace through intellectual and cultural programs under the auspices of the newly created United Nations.

What's the best novel you've read all summer? For Cockburn it's the more than 200-page complaint that Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte filed in federal court today against Candace Owens, regarding several episodes that Owens has broadcast claiming that the First Lady of France was, in fact, born a man. Cockburn understands that Owens offered the Macrons the right of reply before airing the speculation, but the French President and his wife declined. This has led to a source close to Owens to claim to Cockburn that the suit is nothing more than “a foreign government trying to silence an independent American journalist.” And they’re not the only ones, pace Candace.

Openly, President Trump has expressed a desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This is understandable. It is “the world’s most prestigious prize.” That is the judgment of the Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary World History. The prize is associated with some golden names: Albert Schweitzer, Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa. All of those were Nobel peace laureates. Of course, Yasser Arafat was too. The history of the prize is messy, like history itself. Last month, the Pakistani government nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. That was for his intervention in the Pakistani-Indian clash over Kashmir. The Indians were less keen on his intervention, but that is another matter. A veteran Pakistani politician, Senator Mushahid Hussain, had a wry, realistic comment.

Talk to a Brit about their preference in social structures, and the first thing they'll likely tell you, as an American, is that you’re wrong. Whether it’s healthcare or guns, public transport or urban walkability, the American way of being is often at odds with our English cousins, and indeed the rest of the Europe. While we mostly resist conforming, the quietly irksome traffic circle – or, yeesh, “roundabout” – is quickly taking root in America’s vast suburban sprawl. And you could soon find yourself in a pile-up before you even know it. Europe’s favorite novelty is still relatively rare in America, but they are springing up fast. The UK has over 25,000 roundabouts, while the entire US has only about 11,000. Yet that figure has doubled over the last ten years.

Where does a good America First hillbilly like to spend his summer? Cockburn would not have thought the answer was the Cotswolds — that glossy patch of the English countryside where limey aristos and media darlings drink overpriced rose with plutocratic American slebs. And yet your correspondent hears from almost impeccable sources that Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife Usha are looking for properties to rent in the area. Vance is supposedly making enquiries for a country pad, possibly ahead of Trump's state visit to the UK. One Oxfordshire property was unable to help because it is playing host to a literary festival at around the same time. But another filthy rich Anglo is said to be considering offering his own home to the Second Family.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, the second most powerful politician in the country, shed a few tears from the front row of the government benches in the House of Commons during the weekly Prime Minister's Questions session. Her boss Prime Minister Keir Starmer – to her mounting horror – pointedly refused to confirm whether she'd be staying in her current post. "We’ve got free school meals, breakfast clubs, we’ve got £15 billion invested in transport funds in the North and the Midlands. We’re cutting regulation, planning and infrastructure is pounding forward," Starmer said with affected bolshiness.

Henry Kissinger once complained: “Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?” Today the answer would be Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, who has emerged as the most important leader in the European Union. No Italian leader has filled this unofficial role before: it is usually reserved for the heads of the bloc’s two largest economies, Germany and France. Yet Meloni has capitalized on the weakness of their leadership. French President Emmanuel Macron may delude himself that he is Napoleon or Jupiter, but in reality he is the deeply unpopular head of a lame-duck government. To borrow a phrase from Donald Trump, he doesn’t “have the cards.” Meanwhile, Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, heads up a flimsy coalition.