While President Trump was talking big strategic issues with Bibi Netanyahu in the White House this week, Europe’s lilliputian leaders gathered for a leadership retreat in a snug Flemish castle, far from prying eyes.

Trump and Bibi were of course talking War and Peace. The future of the Middle East. What to do about the Iranian regime and its nuclear weapons.

Remember, it was weak-kneed leaders in the past, Obama and Biden, who allowed Iran get to the point of having a nuclear weapons arsenal. Only President Trump and Bibi have actually set back the Iranian regime’s ambitions.

And what have the Euros done? You could write their accomplishments when it comes to Iran on the back of a postage stamp with a Sharpie.

Yes, we learned that the President prefers negotiations. But what is there to negotiate? The Iranians have made clear they won’t give up uranium enrichment, which is the starting point for the US.

Unlike many of his meetings with foreign leaders, this time the President held no press conference or media talker with his visitor. It’s pretty clear to me that the Iranians will soon be feeling the pointy end of the US spear once again. But the president is making Trump-whisperers of us all.

The Euros took this apparent lull in the US-Iran conflict-to-be as an invitation to go into hiding, like the Lilliputians they are. They spent the day on Thursday in a posh, secluded castle in Flanders (Belgium), in a leadership confab — but without the press or the corporate leaders who flock to Davos.

Ostensibly, their talks at the Alden Biesen “fortress” were all about creating a “fortress Europe” to resist Trump. As former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta put it, they needed to demonstrate that “Europe can turn around and become truly united, fully mature and independent.”

Good luck on that. But the champagne and caviar were great.

Europe’s big problem is no different today than it has been for decades, just more obvious to the casual onlooker. They are weak, feckless, and incompetent. They want to be independent of “Big Daddy” America but are unwilling to shoulder the cost or the responsibilities of that independence.

Exhibit One is the war in Ukraine. This is a war on European soil, provoked by Europeans (who egged on Joe Biden to trip all over himself in promising the moon to Zelenskyy before the Russians moved in).

Yes, the  Russians invaded (bad on them), and deserve to be punished for their atrocities. But Putin has shown repeatedly – not just in his words, but in the incompetence displayed by his generals and the inability of Russian weaponry to checkmate the Ukes – that he does not or cannot invade the rest of Europe.

And yet, you’ve got the Poles, the Germans, and the French screaming World War III — and they’ve been screaming it since February 2022.

Until Trump returned to office, their hysterics paid off, with Biden plundering the US taxpayers of some $350 billion to support the Ukrainian war effort, while the Euros sat on their hands and their wallets. More recently, they have been forced to pay up. And they should.

Let me repeat: this is a war on European soil that the Europeans helped to ignite and have been unable to finish without US help. And President Trump has told them Big Daddy is not going to get sucked into a war with Russia that has zero strategic justification for America.

The only good news from the Lilliputians this week was a statement from the European Parliament on Thursday rebuking Turkey for its targeted expulsion of foreign Christian activists and journalists. Your read that right. A statement. No actions, no sanctions, no penalties. A statement.

At least Turkish president Erdogan knows what he wants from the United States: removal of the sanctions imposed by the White House in 2019 for Turkey’s purchase of S-400 air defense systems from Russia. We also kicked Turkey out of a co-production deal for the F-35, and Erdogan wants back in.

Does he think we are stupid, or what? For all of that, Trump has invited him to the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace next week, but the Turkish Caliph has been turning that invitation into his dainty fingers, trying to decide if he dare to touch it. The world would be a better place if Erdogan stayed home.

As for the Europeans, they need to grow a spine, shuck socialism so they can grow their economies, and get serious.

I discuss all of this on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida, area or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app.

If you miss us live, you can listen to the podcast here.

Yours in freedom.

©2026 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

---

Website: kentimmerman.com

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. 

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.