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From the moment I first spoke with Henri Mignon, an 88-year-old tour guide in Belgium, I knew that he illustrated a story that I wanted to tell.
I am the Brussels bureau chief at The New York Times, a role I began in January. Until last year, I covered economics for The Times and split my time between New York City and Washington.
While traveling, finding sources and getting to know my new beat, I’ve been struck by something time and time again: The view that Europeans have about America is undergoing a profound change.
I have spent a lot of time on this side of the Atlantic Ocean over the course of my career. I briefly covered the European Central Bank from Frankfurt, and I’ve spent the last few years reporting on a forthcoming book from both Ireland and Switzerland. My husband is English, and my in-laws live in the United Kingdom.
After the 2024 U.S. election, it became impossible to miss the change in tone over here. In both Brussels and small-town Belgium, politics seemed to be at the heart of every conversation I had — whether at work or casually, in English or in my broken French, in my capacity as a journalist or in my capacity as yet another American tourist at a kitschy restaurant.
People wanted to know if President Trump’s negative comments about the European Union reflected the sentiments of the American population at large.
I also heard stories about the war generation; there are older adults who still distantly remembered the end of World War II, and several people told me about their parents or older friends who had long held up Americans as liberators.
Many cities and small towns in Luxembourg and Belgium have spent the past year celebrating the 80th anniversary of the end of occupation. But my sources said the parades and the memorial ceremonies took on a bittersweet note because America’s role in the world is changing.
After hearing a few anecdotes of that variety, I decided to poke around to see if that creeping disappointment was more widely felt — which is how I stumbled upon Mr. Mignon.
I found his name on a travel blog. A native of a small town just outside Bastogne, Belgium, Mr. Mignon was liberated by American soldiers twice, the second time shortly after his father was killed by shrapnel. Mr. Mignon’s house was burned in the crossfire. He lost an enormous amount to the conflict.
He viewed American veterans as heroes. He joined the Belgian military and then retired back in Bastogne, where he gives tours about the war and the Battle of the Bulge, in particular.
When we talked on the phone, I asked Mr. Mignon his thoughts on Americans in this moment. Much like others I had spoken to, he felt increasingly complicated about the relationship between his little corner of Belgium and the United States.
In particular, he was alarmed about how Mr. Trump talked about President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. And he was distraught to see the United States take a more conciliatory tone toward Russia.
Toward the end of our call, he mentioned that he was going to give a tour to a group of American tourists the following weekend. He was unsure what he would say to them. Naturally, I asked if I could tag along. I wanted to see what he would share.
On a gleaming spring day in early March, the photographer Jim Huylebroek and I each drove a couple of hours through the rolling Wallonia countryside to Bastogne. Mr. Mignon’s audience consisted of a quiet, attentive group of high schoolers from North Carolina.
We followed the group as Mr. Mignon pointed out statues and foxholes. His young audience listened politely and increasingly raptly as the tour went on. The tour was replete with references to the show “Band of Brothers” — which is based partly on events that took place in the area.
By the end, I wondered if Mr. Mignon had decided to leave current events out of the tour. Perhaps he felt that concentrating on the past was better.
He almost did. But in the very final moments of the tour, that resolve cracked. He was talking about Victory in Europe Day, which falls a day later in Russia than in Bastogne. He mused about what it would be like this year.
“Maybe your president will be present in Moscow then,” he quipped, to utter silence on the bus. “With his friends Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong.”
While I had considered writing something broader, it was clear in that instant that the article should be about Mr. Mignon, who offered a snapshot into the increasingly fraught relationship between the United States and even its most storied allies.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
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