Veteran German diplomat: US midterms a 'huge opportunity' for Europe

The outcome of the US midterm elections is a "huge opportunity" for Europe and potentially the beginning of the end of Donald Trump's MAGA movement, veteran German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger said on Friday.

Speaking to public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, Ischinger said Trump had exercised a "very particular form of rule" with the slogan Make America Great Again, the foundations of which were now beginning to crumble.

"I would venture to predict that in just a few years we will be talking about the MAGA movement as something that played a role in the 2020s and then disappeared again," said Ischinger, who headed the Munich Security Conference from 2008 to 2022 and is currently again serving as its chair.

The first signs of people distancing themselves from Trump were already becoming apparent, not least in the case of Vice President JD Vance, the 80-year-old veteran diplomat said. Vance was apparently positioning himself for the 2028 presidential election, Ischinger said.

"Starting in January, when the new Congress convenes, we have a huge opportunity to establish contacts with a relatively significant number of entirely new senators and an even larger number of new members of the House of Representatives," he said.

Ischinger also wants to invite as many of the new US senators responsible for foreign, security and defence policy as possible to the next Munich Security Conference in February and not limit the engagement to that event.

He called for US Congress members to visit Ukraine. "They have no idea what war really is," Ischinger told the broadcaster.