It is not unusual for Washington Republicans to receive visitors — candidates, lobbyists, political donors — who boast about their commitment to securing the border and cutting taxes.

It’s not every day that one of those visitors used to run Denmark.

Yet on a recent Thursday afternoon, several hard-line members of the House found themselves listening to Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the former Danish prime minister emphasized his small-government values. As a head of government, Rasmussen told them, he had restricted migration and held down taxes — stances even the right-wing Freedom Caucus might admire.

“He was trying to draw parallels with Republican ideology,” recalled Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, who helped convene the meeting.

Then Rasmussen addressed his real agenda: a passionate appeal for aiding Ukraine.

The meeting between a statesman of the West and outspoken voices of the American right captured the tensions at the heart of the transatlantic security relationship — and served, perhaps, as a preview of just how strained old alliances could grow under a second Trump presidency. For Rasmussen, who is also a former head of NATO, it was a brief immersion in the brute transactional politics that now governs the U.S. Congress, even on the most sensitive matters of national security.

The group that met with Rasmussen, which included at least two Freedom Caucus members, heard him out politely and even sympathetically, according to Buck and others in the room. They liked his argument that holding the line against Russia would send a message to China about American resolve. Even more resonant was Rasmussen’s scathing criticism of the Biden administration’s pullout from Afghanistan — a costly error, he........

© Politico