Maybe there would have been applause at one point or another. Maybe a quick, friendly clap to show the speaker at the front of the white desk that he belongs. That he is an ally, a partner. But the Europeans can not clap. How are you supposed to cheer for a man who seems to praise Donald Trump in every sentence?
Mike Pence has achieved great mastery in this discipline in his two years as US Vice President. Nobody pays homage to his boss as devoutly as the Indiana man. In Munich, in the large hall of the Bayerischer Hof, that sounds like that. Donald Trump is a "champion of freedom", under his leadership America is "stronger than ever", the economy is booming, unemployment is low, stock prices are going up, and "America is again the leader of the free world" ,
"Under Donald Trump's leadership, Nato's military spending has risen dramatically," Pence reads, unmoving, from the teleprompter, and there are at least two dozen participants in the audience when a well-known US diplomat on the sidelines of the conference complains that he is The word "Allied" has long since ceased to be heard in the American capital. "It makes me sick, as in Washington over the allies is spoken," says a senior American officer.
The fact that the transatlantic partnership is in its worst crisis for seven decades is common knowledge in Munich. Never before has the Atlantic seemed as broad as these days. At one of the evening receptions veteran foreign policy-makers argue whether NATO is still strong enough to survive two more Trump years. Six more years, however, there is the round agree, they will survive in any case.
America does not lead, it retreats
And so it is a strange parallel world that Pence describes in his speech. She has little to do with reality. America does not lead, it retreats. Others are pushing into the vacuum left by Trump's erratic "America First" policy. China, Russia but also Iran. And the US does not lead, they give instructions.
Pence also uses his appearance in Munich to issue orders. Germany and other European NATO countries must finally meet the Alliance's two-percent spending target: "The truth is, many of our allies need to do more." In the controversial gas pipeline Nordstream 2, he threatens the Germans blatantly with the end of alliance solidarity, if they do not finally feel. "We can not ensure the defense of the West," he calls into the hall, "if our allies are dependent on the East."
But his rhetoric is the hardest when Pence attacks Iran. He accuses Teheran of calling the "murderous, revolutionary regime" the biggest sponsor of global terrorism. He and his wife had just visited Auschwitz. There is a lesson he draws from the past: "If an authoritarian regime propagates anti-Semitism, one must take it at its word." Therefore, it was finally time "that the Europeans withdraw from the nuclear agreement" and stopped subverting the US sanctions against Tehran.
Anyone who argues with Auschwitz leaves no room for negotiation. The Europeans in the hall acknowledge the instructions of the Trump-Vizes with petrified faces. You realize what Pence understands under American leadership - one gives orders and others obey. It's not their idea of a partnership.
The usual question and answer session is not available at Pence. As soon as the vice president has finished his speech by the teleprompter, he leaves the hall. No time for annoying discussions.