Last week, Trump administration officials blasted Germany after a 1,100-page report from that country’s intelligence agency found that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a racist and anti-Muslim organization, labelling it “a proven right-wing extremist organization.”

The report was compiled by experts and was years in the making. Among its key findings is that the AfD poses a threat to Germany’s constitution by propagating xenophobia, Islamophobia and an “ethnicity-and-ancestry-based conception of the people.” The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution submitted the report to the interior ministry in the final days of the outgoing center-left government, prompting the AfD to claim that the move was political in nature and to file a lawsuit against the agency. But the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, whose mission is to safeguard the German constitution, had long held suspicions that the AfD and its youth organization were engaged in right-wing extremist activities and now feels convinced that the confidential report has justified its suspicions; hence the agency’s designation of Alternative for Germany as “a proven right-wing extremist organization.”

The Trump administration, however, is actively defending the extremist party.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X: “What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.”

Vice President J.D. Vance also rushed to the defense of the AfD, sharing a post on X asserting that “the AfD is the most popular party in Germany” and accusing the German political establishment of rebuilding a “Berlin Wall.”

So what if the AfD’s activities seek to “undermine or abolish the free democratic order,” in violation of Article 21 of the German constitution? For Trump and his minions, this is an insignificant detail as AfD’s vision for the future of Germany resonates with the Trump administration’s vision for the future of the United States.

The Trump team has been trying to boost Europe’s far right since day one. Elon Musk has openly supported the AfD and even held a livestreamed conversation on X with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel in which he encouraged Germans to vote for the party ahead of the federal elections. As for Trump himself, he is obsessed with strongmen and has gone out of his way to embolden far right and white supremacist groups, including by issuing pardons to........

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