MAGA embrace: Europe’s nationalists head to Washington

WASHINGTON — Europe’s right-wing populists may be personae non gratae among the political establishment back home, but in the U.S. they are being greeted with open arms and access to the top.

On Wednesday evening, a crew of self-described European patriots will attend a reception in Washington, D.C. to kick off a three-day conference where they might compare flag lapel pins or grab a selfie with Speaker Mike Johnson — one of the most powerful members of the Republican Party.

The event opens the Alliance of Sovereign Nations, a conference organized by GOP Florida Congressmember Anna Paulina Luna and supported by Turning Point USA, the conservative political organization founded by slain activist Charlie Kirk.

Johnson is the star attraction. But the conference is otherwise more of a low-wattage affair, with secondary speakers like recent Romanian presidential candidate George Simion and largely mid-ranking officials from Austria, Belgium, Georgia, Cyprus, Croatia, Serbia and Germany. There are no listed speakers from the Trump administration. A White House spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. 

For the Europeans, it’s a chance to bask in the success of a kindred party at the peak of its power — and maybe have a little Trumpian aura rub off on them.

“The MAGA movement is extremely important for Romanians, especially for the conservative-patriotic side, those who identify with MAGA values and policies,” said Simion, who is the leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, which has a big polling lead over centrist rivals, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. He said he looked forward to seeing Johnson, whom he met at Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025 and called “one of our friends in Washington.”

Luna has cultivated ties with like-minded European lawmakers, as have a handful of other House Republicans. David Leatherwood, Luna’s spokesperson, said those meetings were “focused on understanding the political climate in Europe, hearing concerns firsthand and fostering candid dialogue on transatlantic issues.” 

This week’s conference, he added, would promote dialogue on energy, free speech and immigration. Supporters have described it as a “counter World Economic Forum” event, with Leatherwood saying that those types of conferences “have actively left ‘normal’ citizens out of the conversations regarding policy, both nationally and internationally, that directly affect them.”

He also raised “growing concerns in Europe over censorship, political exclusion and the narrowing of acceptable public debate” and said Luna “believes it is important to hear directly from opposition and dissident voices” on the topics that will be discussed during the conference. 

A campaign spokesperson for the GOP leader said: “Speaker Johnson shares his perspective nearly every single day with members, individuals, groups, and organizations across the full spectrum of beliefs and political persuasions. If he declined every invite – including this one in which he is attending in his personal capacity – where some attendees might hold views different from his own, he wouldn’t be able to accept any request to speak.”

Luna, who is delivering opening and closing remarks Thursday, has been a frequent management challenge for the speaker. She has launched multiple discharge petitions over the past year seeking to sidestep Johnson’s control of the floor agenda. 

Meanwhile, Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Ryan Zinke of Montana are set to participate in an “Energy Independence” panel. (Europe is increasingly dependent on U.S. natural gas). Asked about his participation this week, Donalds, who is also the frontrunner to be the next governor of Florida, said he had no recollection of the event.

The event opens the Alliance of Sovereign Nations, a conference organized by GOP Florida Congressmember Anna Paulina Luna and supported by Turning Point USA. | David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

“I haven’t even looked that far in the calendar,” he said.

Zinke said, “My messages are always the same — I speak to the crazy right and the commie left.”

Rep. Randy Fine of Florida is part of a “National Sovereignty & Foreign Migration” panel. Known as a provocateur inside the House GOP ranks, he was in the news last month after saying publicly he preferred dogs to Muslims, referencing a post from a Muslim leader that said dogs shouldn’t be allowed inside.

Fine said in an interview Tuesday he did not know anything about the event or its participants from abroad and agreed to join at Luna’s request.

“I’m a new member of Congress, but she’s a fellow member of the delegation, asked me to talk about the effect of immigration in Europe, and I said I would do it,” he said. “So I actually don’t know who’s going to be there at this point. And frankly, given that it’s two days from now, I still have to figure out what I’m going to say.”

Despite the growing popularity of the far right among European voters, centrists in their home countries and in the European Union more broadly have treated anti-immigration and populist political groups on the right with a mixture of scorn and fear. In many countries, cooperation with those on the furthest right is verboten through an unofficial agreement among mainstream parties not to cooperate with them.

“The MAGA movement is extremely important for Romanians, especially for the conservative-patriotic side, those who identify with MAGA values and policies,” said George Simion. | Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images

Asked about possible criticism and perceptions in Europe or the U.S., Leatherwood said Luna thought “outside criticism does not override the importance of free speech, open dialogue and direct engagement” and said she refused “to let labels substitute for diplomacy or debate.”

“Rep. Luna does not believe that being labeled ‘extremist’ by political opponents and media critics is a legitimate basis for censorship, exclusion or disenfranchisement,” he said. “In a democracy, ideas should be contested in open debate and at the ballot box.” 

From the grassroots of conservative activism to the pages of the U.S. National Security Strategy, Trumpists and their European brethren are seeking to build ties across the Atlantic. Nowhere will that be more evident than at the conference at the Fairmont hotel in  Washington this week.

“The conference is an opportunity to take part in this transatlantic dialogue and a signal that the European-American dialogue is far from dead, contrary to popular belief, but simply has shifted gear,” said Barbara Bonte, a member of the European Parliament for Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, a far-right party.

“The Republican Party remains a force devoted to similar political subjects, such as the opposition to the far-left, woke theories and the current European path towards less freedom and more constraints,” she said.

“We share a range of political priorities with the MAGA movement — from pushing for greater free speech online to working toward an end to mass migration, which we believe disproportionately impacts Western nations,” said Petra Steger, an Austrian lawmaker in the EU parliament and member of right-wing FPÖ.

“The conference is an opportunity to take part in this transatlantic dialogue and a signal that the European-American dialogue is far from dead, contrary to popular belief, but simply has shifted gear,” said Barbara Bonte. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

Asked if there was a formal alliance of transatlantic movements forming, Simion, the recent Romanian presidential candidate, texted from aboard his plane to Washington: “We wish conservative and patriotic parties to collaborate and be in power. The most important country in the world, United States, has such an administration and we want to have stronger links with them.” Luna’s office said no formal alliance was being announced “at this time.”

Simion’s delegation of 10 Romanian members of parliament wasn’t even the largest he had sent to the U.S. this year. In January, he said, he joined an even bigger group to attend a party for the anniversary of Trump’s second inauguration in Washington. During that party, he joined Luna in cutting a cake in the shape of Greenland with a U.S. flag in icing on top.

For Nikoloz Samkharadze, a member of parliament from the Caucasus republic of Georgia, the trip was an opportunity to reset relations with the U.S. after President Joe Biden accused the country of “democratic backsliding” and mimicking the Kremlin in 2024.

“The main task is to reset relations and not only restore strategic partnership, but also to imbue them with more content than before,” Samkharadze said in comments reported by Interpressnews, a Georgian news agency.

The drumbeat of meetings between MAGA and its counterparts in Europe has been increasing. In December, Luna hosted lawmakers from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The U.S. State Department has floated supporting like-minded think tanks in Europe. Last week a State Department official hosted British anti-Muslim activist who goes by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson for a visit.

Turning Point USA, which has chapters on thousands of high school and college campuses in the U.S., has been working to expand its presence in Europe — particularly in the U.K.

Turning Point USA, which has chapters on thousands of high school and college campuses in the U.S., has been working to expand its presence in Europe. | Alex Wrobelewski/AFP via Getty Images

Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, the organization’s political arm, said in a recent interview that there are “a lot of things going wrong in Germany right now” when asked about the gathering in Washington this week.

He called AfD and other parties represented at the conference “center-right,” and said it’s “important to hear everybody out.”

Luna formerly worked at Turning Point. A spokesman for Simion’s Alliance for the Union of Romanians said each of the 10 members of parliament it was sending to Washington was paying for their own expenses and travel.

Andrew Howard, Meredith Lee Hill and Pauline Von Pezold contributed to this report.