European Union flag on wall with a crack. Credit: Alexander Borisenko / Alamy Stock Photo
The group behind the radical Project 2025 agenda is increasingly turning its attention to Europe.
The group that drafted a key blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term convened a meeting in Washington D.C. this week to consider proposals for bulldozing the European Union (EU).
The Polish investigative outlet VSquare revealed that the Heritage Foundation gathered hardline conservative groups on 11 March to hear how they would overhaul the current structures of the EU.
The “closed-door workshop” featured a debate on a new paper produced by the lobby groups MCC and Ordo Iuris entitled: “The Great Reset: Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the 21st Century”.
The paper proposes dismantling the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. It claims that the “EU is evolving into a quasi-federal state, limiting national decision-making power” and is imposing “ideologically motivated policies on member states, without any mandate”. Under the plan, the EU would cease to function in its current guise, and would instead be renamed the European Community of Nations (ECN).
Kenneth Haar, a researcher and campaigner at the transparency watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, said it was “quite simply terrifying” to see the Heritage Foundation moving its attention to Europe.”
“Most of the attacks made by the Trump presidency in recent weeks on civil rights, on migrants, on LGBTQ+ rights and more, can be traced back to Project 2025,” he said. “We should be worried about them building up ambitions and strength in Europe.”
DeSmog can also reveal that the Heritage Foundation has been holding private meetings with European politicians in recent months, as the group attempts to forge new alliances on the continent.
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The family of Mahmoud Khalil released a video of his March 8, 2025 arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in New York City. (Photo: screen grab/Family of Mahmoud Khalil)
Khalil’s wife said that “officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me.”
The family of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States now at risk of deportation because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last spring, on Friday released a video of his recent arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in New York City, which has sparked legal battles and protests.
“You’re watching the most terrifying moment of my life,” Khalil’s wife, Noor, said in a statement about the two-minute video. “This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me.”
“Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”
“They threatened to take me too, even though we were calm and fully cooperating. For the next 38 hours after this video, neither I or our lawyers knew where Mahmoud was being held. Now, he’s over 1,000 miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by U.S. immigration,” said Noor, whose husband is detained at a facility in Jena, Louisiana.
Noor, who is eight months pregnant, noted that “Mahmoud has repeatedly warned of growing threats from Columbia University and the U.S. government unjustly targeting students who want to see an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Now, the Trump administration and DHS are targeting him, and other students too.”
“Mahmoud is clearly the first of many to be illegally repressed for their speech in support of Palestinian rights,” she added. “Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”
BREAKING: Family of Mahmoud Khalil releases footage from the night of his arrest.
Make no mistake: This is federal agents in plainclothes dragging a man from his home as punishment for his constitutionally protected speech. pic.twitter.com/X7JVQyAzrm
— The CCR is on bsky (@ccrjustice.org) (@theCCR) March 14, 2025
Khalil, who finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December, is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent. He was living in the United States with a green card until his arrest on Saturday. In response to a filing by his legal team—which includes Amy Greer from Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project—a judge has temporarily blocked his deportation.
The ACLU and its New York arm have joined Khalil’s legal team, and his attorneys filed an amended petition and complaint on Thursday. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said that with the new “filing, we are making it crystal clear that no president can arrest, detain, or deport anyone for disagreeing with the government. The Trump administration has selectively targeted Mr. Khalil, a student, husband, and father-to-be who has not been accused of a single crime, to send a message of just how far they will go to crack down on dissent.”
“But we at the NYCLU and ACLU won’t stand for it—under the Constitution, the Trump administration has no basis to continue this cruel weaponization of Mr. Khalil’s life,” Lieberman added. “The court must release Mr. Khalil immediately and let him go home to his family in New York, where he belongs. Ideas are not illegal, and dissent is not grounds for deportation.”
Samah Sisay of CCR reiterated those messages as the arrest video circulated on Friday, saying that “Mr. Khalil was taken by plainclothes DHS agents in front of his pregnant wife without any legal justification. Mr. Khalil must be freed because the government cannot use these coercive tactics to unlawfully suppress his First Amendment protected speech in support of Palestinian rights.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“Trump is causing a completely unforced recession, the markets tanking, and your 401(k)s plummeting, and he’s focused on invading Greenland,” said one observer.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Mark Rutte met with President Donald Trump on Thursday at the White House in Washington, D.C., where he brushed off the Republican leader’s suggestion that the transatlantic alliance might get involved in his quixotic bid to annex the autonomous territory of another NATO member.
Revisiting his wish to somehow acquire Greenland from Denmark—an outcome opposed by Greenland, Denmark, and a majority of Americans—Trump told reporters during a joint press conference with Rutte and other NATO and U.S. officials including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that he’s bullish on the prospects of annexation.
“I think it’ll happen,” the president said. “And I’m just thinking, I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental. You know, Mark, we need that for international security, not just security, international.”
At one point during the meeting, Trump turned to Hegseth and remarked, “You know, we have a couple of bases on Greenland already, and we have quite a few soldiers, and maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers go there, and I don’t know, what do you think about that, Pete?”
Maintaining the congenial vibe of the meeting, Rutte said with a laugh that “when it comes to Greenland yes or not joining the U.S., I would leave that outside, for me, this discussion, because I don’t want to drag NATO into that.”
The former longtime Dutch prime minister then said that Trump is “totally right” about countering Chinese and Russian regional influence, and that NATO cooperation on that matter is “very important.”
While many observers focused on Rutte’s diplomatic rejection of Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland, Rasmus Jarlov, a member of Denmark’s Parliament representing the Conservative People’s Party, said on social media that “we do not appreciate the secretary general of NATO joking with Trump about Greenland like this.”
“It would mean war between two NATO countries,” Jarlov warned. “Greenland has just voted against immediate independence from Denmark and does not want to be American, ever.”
The center-right Demokraatit Party pulled off a surprise victory Tuesday in Greenland’s parliamentary election, with Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the territory’s likely next prime minister, vehemently rejecting U.S. annexation.
“I hope it sends a clear message to [Trump] that we are not for sale,” he said of the election results in an interview with Sky News. “We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”
Trump’s comments came on the same day that NBC Newscited U.S. officials who said the president has ordered the Pentagon to prepare plans to “take back” the Panama Canal—including through the use of military force if deemed necessary.
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