WASHINGTON — European Union Ambassador to the United States Jovita Neliupšienė told Breitbart News exclusively in a lengthy interview last week that relations between Europe and the United States are going the “right direction” under the leadership of U.S. President Donald Trump and E.U. Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen.
“I think that they are going the very right direction because we had a meeting of Commission President Von der Leyen and President Trump in Scotland, in D.C., and on the margins of the NATO summit as well,” Neliupšienė said in the interview at the headquarters of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States in downtown Washington last week. “So I think that it’s really pretty clear that there are a lot of issues to be discussed. We have the most developed trade and investment relations. We have security alliances working. And I think that we are closer value-based allies than you can find around the world.”
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle interviews European Union Ambassador to the USA Jovita Neliupšienė at the headquarters of the European Union delegation in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
Part of the strength of the relationship between the two, Neliupšienė said, is that Trump seems to respect Von der Leyen’s ability to deliver what she promises.
“Well, I think that the idea that first of all the Commission president is the one responsible for implementing our trade policy,” Neliupšienė said when asked about how the two of them get along personally. “So the European Union, and it’s a European competence, so the Commission negotiates on the behalf of the member states. So the trade relations are so huge. Of course, the one who is negotiating is an important person so I think that—but she’s very competent as a person. She is really, really very personal. I think that maybe resonates with the President, with President Trump. If I may guess, from media, from what you report, he likes the people who actually have their things in their hands and can deliver. I think this is where they meet. This is where the understanding comes. President Trump several times repeated publicly that she is a big boss. She’s a strong leader. I think we are seeing that they see each other not only for bilateral meetings but on different occasions. The last one was actually in New York during the United Nations General Assembly. Leaders are humans as well.”
U.S. President Donald Trump (R) shakes hands with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (L) after agreeing on a trade deal between the two economies following their meeting, in Turnberry south west Scotland on July 27, 2025. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
This summer in Scotland, Trump and Von der Leyen announced a massive trade deal between the U.S. and the E.U. while Trump was at his golf club Turnberry—and the next morning Breitbart News interviewed Trump there while he awaited the arrival of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Trump told Breitbart News at the time that the deal was a “great deal for both” the U.S. and the E.U., and now that it is being implemented by both sides Neliupšienė told Breitbart News it is the largest trade deal between any two entities anywhere in the world and represents anywhere from 35 to 45 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP). “It’s a massive thing,” she said.
“I think that we’re right now in the phase of implementation of the deal because the deal was signed in late August,” Neliupšienė said. “We kept our promise. We legislated on the car tariffs, to bring the mostly automotive tariffs for American cars down. The Commission put a proposal for the European Parliament. Then, the American side, the U.S. side, actually kept their promise. The President issued an Executive Order a few weeks later to make sure that we have the 15 percent across the board—15 percent of the tariffs across the board for everything—and we have no issue whatsoever to have a doubt that the deal would not be implemented at least on our side. We will implement it. As the Commissioner said [last week], until the last dot, and I think that’s the right approach. Look, our trade relations are 1.7 trillion [euros] a year, which makes 4.5 billion [euros] a day. So, it’s massive—E.U. and U.S. to each other. We are the biggest investor, foreign direct investor. European companies invest massively here, and American companies invest back in Europe. That trade and investment creates more than 10 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s a huge thing, actually, and I think that both sides have an interest to implement the deal we have. So we started from the car tariffs. We know now that there is no stacking, there is no adds up, for example, on Pharma or on lumber. So I think that we are full speed ahead, and there will be, again, the working level conversations on how we implement the rest of the pact but I’m really very hopeful that we will do that.”
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While the deal is being implemented, Neliupšienė said that it is tough to be too specific in terms of delineating the vast array of investment booms on both sides until the deal is fully implemented but did highlight when asked for details the plans for energy cooperation and investments in U.S. semiconductor chips.
“So I think that there is a very clear pathway in the trade deal itself on what kind of investment commitments the E.U. side made so and for example what kind of joint purchases we are going to do in the energy sector as such and U.S. commitment actually to sell us for example 40 billion [euros] worth of semiconductor chips,” Neliupšienė said. “So it’s a very clear pathway where we will land but it’s still very early in the day. The statistics usually lag behind a couple of months, but it’s very clear there is in general no decline whatsoever. We don’t see there that the European businesses would have a doubt about investments, and I’m sure this will remain. So I hope we will see this even increase, because that’s the interest. But it’s very difficult to go into nitty gritty at the moment.”
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle interviews European Union Ambassador to the USA Jovita Neliupšienė at the headquarters of the European Union delegation in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
In addition to the trade negotiations, another moment where Trump and Von der Leyen really hit it off came this summer when Trump hosted her and other European leaders alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska to try to broker an end to the Russian war in Ukraine. Neliupšienė told Breitbart News that the message coming out of that meeting is that the Europeans all want to see peace achieved there.
“The most important element and the most important message is actually the peace,” Neliupšienė said. “I think you would not find any Ukrainian or any European who would not like to have peace. I think that was the main message when the leaders came in. ‘Okay, we all agree that we need peace as soon as possible.’ To stop the war, there are several elements or several ideas how you can do that. We do believe—and I think there was a conversation among the leaders and President Trump, among the others—that we have to put pressure on the aggressor. The aggressor is clearly Russia—and this maximum pressure and then the question is, how we go about it? President Trump has good ideas that we have to use tariffs for example for those who buy Russian gas and oil. We are using massive sanctions we actually been sanctioning for this year already. For example, refineries in India, banks in China—we are kind of really trying to put adequate measures to stop sanction evasion as well. Europeans are very adamant that we have to continue support of Ukraine. We are glad, actually, that President Trump as well thinks that the support for Ukraine should continue—and the way, how it’s constructed, is that the U.S. has a huge capacity, for example, for producing certain capabilities, certain military equipment. So NATO countries and the E.U. countries actually can buy it and support Ukraine with that equipment. Last but not least, we have to have in mind that the conversation happened not only in the context of the just-recent Alaska meeting of Putin, but as well kind of as a second phase or second meeting after when there was a NATO summit which actually committed for the 5 percent of GDP for defense and security. Actually the leaders who came in they were very strong with the message that they are going to implement that because it’s important for actually developing our own defense industrial base which will one way or another will be developed together with the United States.”
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle interviews European Union Ambassador to the USA Jovita Neliupšienė at the headquarters of the European Union delegation in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
Neliupšienė added that the U.S. can help bring the end to this with more debilitating sanctions on those helping the Russian war effort and that things are not going so well in Russia right now.
“You remember that when the war started, when Russian aggression started in Ukraine, and Russia violated all possible international principles—from territorial integrity to the borders—they said that they will end the war in three days because Ukraine will capitulate,” Neliupšienė said. “Then they said that they will end the war in three weeks because all the Ukrainians will surrender. Well, here we are painfully, but it’s more than three years. So inflation is off the roof in the Russian economy. Therefore for the first time, they are actually increasing taxes. We should not really read Russian media or Russian press saying that, ‘Oh, everything is fine in the Russian economy and they will continue. They can last and over-last everyone.’ This is not true. They can produce a lot of guns and build a war economy, but it’s not sustainable socially. For three years, the gains of the Russian military were quite limited. So Ukrainians are innovating. Ukrainians probably right now have the best battle-ready forces, and I think that we have to learn from some of the innovations with them. But this will not happen without our help, without the help of Europeans, without the help of the U.S., and definitely without the major pressure on Russia. It’s, as I said, everything is on the table. It could be different ways how to pressure. Of course, we have to put sanctions on Russia directly, but as well, to make sure that those who are around are not feeding with the money. Like, who is buying Russian energy resources, nuclear. Let’s be honest, there are some countries around Russia who are actually supplying components for war be it the battleground goods coming from China or be it drones coming from Iran. So those bad guys are lining up.”
One place of massive agreement between Trump and Von der Leyen seems to be on NATO countries increasing their share of defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Neliupšienė said that Trump was totally right about this dating back a decade, and that many other NATO partners of the United States wish they listened to him back then—but that they have come around and are listening to him now.
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle interviews European Union Ambassador to the USA Jovita Neliupšienė at the headquarters of the European Union delegation in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
“After the Cold War was over, in the 1990s, I think there was a misguided understanding that, well, this is the end of history and everybody will be like us and nobody will want to fight a war and well I think that the bell began tolling back in 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea,” Neliupšienė said. “I can tell you that some of the NATO countries, together with us, were saying, ‘Okay, guys, we have to, we have to ramp up. Something is going to happen. Then President Trump back in 2018 pushed quite hard in the NATO Summit, saying, ‘look, there is a commitment of 2 percent everybody has to honor this commitment.’ I think that he was absolutely right at that moment. It’s a pity that not everybody picked up at that moment and we had really yet to face a full-fledged war on the European continent which probably was unthinkable and people could not believe back in 2014 or 2018 so. But here we are and we have. Right now, European support for Ukraine is at $185 billion and the defense support is over $60 billion already. But we actually used our capabilities to support Ukraine now we have to ramp up our industrial capacity because if we want to build our security—our defense—and take really seriously responsibility of security in our hands, we have to boost our investment in this industry from the very traditional military things like 155mm shells to innovations. Right now, we have all the E.U. 27 leaders meeting in Copenhagen as we speak and the main conversation is about security. Actually, it’s not only NATO countries who are investing their national money but as well the European Union as an organization is planning to invest 150 billion Euros. All in all I think that maybe we should actually name that if every country would honor its commitment of 5 percent it would be more than $1 trillion spent in less than five years. So it will be not only national money from the NATO countries, but it will be E.U. money as well to actually really invest into industry and to common purchases. E.U. countries are small countries, some of them, so buying together is actually more efficient. European countries actually are becoming the biggest buyers in the market or the biggest demanders in the market. I think that this is one of the areas where the European or E.U. and the broader European context will be really very important in cooperation with the United States because we will need equipment. We will need a know-how. We will need co-production, if you wish, if we really want to be serious and to be competitive. The main discussion right now by leaders is actually about the drone wall—know how to protect ourselves, because you probably noticed that these last three weeks actually we’ve seen this escalation with the flyover in the NATO territories.”
Outside of Europe, another arena with intense international focus and Trump leading the way in pushing for peace is what’s happening in Gaza. Last week, Trump announced a major deal he brokered to end the Israeli war in Gaza, and less than a week later Hamas accepted it with some conditions. Final negotiations are ongoing with regard to some specifics and implementation, but asked about this deal last week Neliupšienė told Breitbart News that the Europeans are still studying it but overall generally supportive and want to help Trump end the war.
“We have to admit we’re still looking into the details and know how it could be implemented,” Neliupšienė said. “But I think that one element which is important is the European Union being a longstanding supporter of the Palestinian Authority. We do believe that Palestinians have to have the responsibility in their hands. This is one thing we have a huge experience in, for example, training police forces across the world. We have the experience of building institutions. This is what’s in our DNA—to help countries around us to build proper institutions. We have the largest development budget globally. So I think that having all those things in mind, whenever it’s possible, the European Union and European countries will be ready actually to step in and to help to rebuild of course together with us and the neighboring Gulf countries. But we are ready to share our experience.”
Asked whether or not Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for these and other peacemaking efforts he’s undertaken worldwide, Neliupšienė said she defers to the Nobel Prize Committee but that the Europeans are supportive of what Trump is trying to accomplish and want to help him.
“Well, I will leave that for the Nobel Prize Committee to decide as an independent institution,” Neliupšienė said. “But look I think it’s extremely important to put all our efforts in order to geopolitically calm down the conflicts and not only calm them down because it’s easy to freeze sometimes but really to go and solve them. So once we have the peace or resolution of the two or three or multiple fighting parties we have to continue to make sure that it’s sustainable. There is another example, Armenia-Serbian in Caucasus. I think that this is again—it’s not so far away from European borders, from the E.U. borders, and then we learn that there is a possibility that it would be solved. Of course, we actually had a contact on our level as well, and on our principals level, saying, like, ‘look, we have experience. We worked with them. We actually have a possibility to build an infrastructure, for example, to implement infrastructure projects together.’ So we are really looking into—the word is a possibility—to be helpful, and actually in general to be useful if you wish to implement the President’s agenda.”
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle interviews European Union Ambassador to the USA Jovita Neliupšienė at the headquarters of the European Union delegation in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
Interestingly, as well, Neliupšienė said that Europe faces many similarities with immigration problems that the United States also faces and said the European approach to confronting migration issues is not far off from the American approach under Trump.
“We had the migration crisis peak back in 2015 and we saw masses of people because there was a crisis in Libya, crisis in Syria, the situations in other African countries as well,” she said. “So people were on the move. It was difficult even to talk because the problem for us was that those people were going usually through the sea. They were drowning. So it was horrible, horrible pictures in which we saw people. The leaders tried to solve it. I have to tell you it took us actually 10 years to find a proper solution. So there we have, there right now, the legal framework. So we have several laws coming into force in the next year, which are not only about legal pathways for migration—because we need labor forces as well—but how do we deal with the illegal migration? How we actually control the flows, how we actually return people. Because so far it’s only one in five who are supposed to be returning to their safe countries are returned. So there’s the laws which will actually allow to expedite the deal. Actually one of the main elements is how we secure the borders. I think those maybe we are a bit slower. It took a while. Maybe we are there, and it’s very near but actually we have to find a consensus among 27 member states and it’s very different as we don’t have a two-party system. We have coalition governments all across Europe. So we have a lot of stakeholders who are looking into that. It took us a while. But I think that the constituency, the people in Europe, really want a solution to really order the process which would be controlled or order, or the real post-process if I may put it like that. It’s not very far away actually from the American approach.”
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle interviews European Union Ambassador to the USA Jovita Neliupšienė at the headquarters of the European Union delegation in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
Asked what tools can be used to confront the migration crisis, Neliupšienė told Breitbart News that there are legal frameworks, as well as digital tools, that can be implemented at borders.
“There are a lot of tools. For example, one of the tools I haven’t heard people here talking about but what we are developing is actually a so-called digital border because for example there are places where we have mountains or forests or something,” Neliupšienė said. “So we have to invest quite a lot technology at the border so you can actually see the people crossing the border and tackle the problem without having like hundreds of thousand of border guards. I think that sometimes the technology will help us in a way. So we’re looking into the different not only legal frameworks but as well the legal actual solutions how to do that. There is one element which I think Europeans investing very much in is actually tackling root causes of migration. Because if the people, for example, in African countries or in some of the distant Asian countries, if they have an opportunities or if they have a proper health system they will stay. So the idea is actually to try to invest where possible to create opportunities for people to have jobs and the proper social support system back home so they would not see their need actually to move. I think this is where Europeans would continue to invest in Africa, in some Indo-Pacific countries.”
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