US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a reassuring message to America’s allies on Saturday, striking a less aggressive but still firm tone about the administration’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its priorities after more than a year of President Donald Trump’s often-hostile rhetoric toward traditional allies.
Reminding his audience at the annual Munich Security Conference about America’s centuries-long roots in Europe, Rubio said the United States would remain forever tied to the continent even as it pushes for changes in the relationship and the international institutions that have been the bulwark of the post-World War II world order.
Rubio addressed the conference a year after Vice President JD Vance stunned the same audience with a harsh critique of European values. A series of statements and moves from the Trump administration targeting allies followed, including Trump’s short-lived threat last month to impose new tariffs on several European countries in a bid to secure US control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.
On Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had opened this year's gathering by calling for the US and Europe to “repair and revive trans-Atlantic trust together,” saying that even the US isn’t powerful enough to go it alone in a world whose old order no longer exists. But he and other European officials made clear that they will stand by their values, including their approach to free speech, climate change and free trade.
While offering a calmer and more reassuring tone than the one often heard over the past year, Rubio made clear that the Trump administration is sticking to its guns on policy. He denounced “a climate cult” and “an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies.”
Rubio argued that the “euphoria” of the Western victory in the Cold War led to a "dangerous delusion that we had entered ‘the end of history,’ that every nation would now be a liberal democracy, that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood ... and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world.”
“We made these mistakes together and now together we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward to rebuild,” Rubio said.
“This is why we Americans may sometimes come off as a little direct and urgent in our counsel," he said. "This is why President Trump demands seriousness and reciprocity from our friends here in Europe.”
Rubio said that an end of the trans-Atlantic era “is neither our goal nor our wish,” adding that "our home may be in the Western hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe.”
He acknowledged that "we have bled and died side-by-side on battlefields from Kapyong to Kandahar," a contrast with disparaging remarks by Trump about NATO allies’ troops in Afghanistan that drew an outcry. "And I’m here today to make it clear that America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity. and that once again, we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends.”
US officials accompanying Rubio said his message was much the same as Vance’s last year but was intended to have a softer landing on the audience, which they acknowledged had recoiled at much of Trump’s rhetoric over the past year.
The president of the European Union's executive commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said Rubio's speech was “very reassuring” but noted that “in the administration, some have a harsher tone on these topics.”
In her speech to the conference, she stressed that “Europe must become more independent,” including on defense. She insisted on Europe's “digital sovereignty” — its approach to hate speech on social media.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that “we shouldn’t get in the warm bath of complacency. He said the UK must re-forge closer ties with Europe to help the continent “stand on our own two feet” in its own defense, and said there needs to be investment that “moves us from overdependence to interdependence.”
Hanno Pevkur, the defense minister of EU and NATO member Estonia, said it was "quite a bold statement to say that America is ‘a child of Europe’.”
“It was a good speech, needed here today, but that doesn’t mean that we can rest on pillows now," he told The Associated Press. “So still a lot of work has to be done."
The conference pointed to tensions beyond those in the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Speaking after Rubio, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing felt “gratified” that Trump respects President Xi Jinping and China, but warned that some voices in the US are leery of China’s rise.
“We see that some forces and some people are still trying their best to suppress and contain China, and are still attacking and slandering China by any means,” Wang said.
He cautioned that “law of the jungle and unilateralism have taken hold” and said some countries “even revive the Cold War mentality.”
