U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks to the media before he boards Air Force Two to depart for Washington, in Baku, Azerbaijan, February 11, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/Pool
Vice President JD Vance is having an "unnerving" impact on US allies, and some of them "freeze like a deer in headlights" when he's brought up in conversation, according to a report.
Vance's name has been tossed around as the eventual heir to the MAGA throne once the second Trump administration ends in 2028. While some allies see Vance as a more predictable policymaker than Trump, others are growing concerned that he may throw a wrench into global affairs because he lacks sufficient knowledge of the world and is willing to put ideology over reality, Politico reported.
"If you want to make a foreign official roll their eyes in exasperation, ask them about President Donald Trump," the report reads. "If you want to make them freeze like a deer in headlights, ask them about JD Vance."
Vance has been a central figure in the Trump administration's foreign policy apparatus. He led the chorus of attacks against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last year and was also a member of the Signalgate group chat that leaked to The Atlantic.
“He’s an intellectual, so he’s got all the positives and negatives of intellectuals,” a European diplomat told Politico. “He’s very smart and has a great deal of sort of abstract, theoretical depth, but he’s probably not much of a pragmatist and doesn’t really know a huge amount of the ins and outs of history and how the world works.”
Another diplomat who spoke to Politico anonymously described Vance as an "enigma."
“Life would be easier if we could choose our problems,” another foreign official said. “Instead, we deal with the ones we get.”