From Munich to Bratislava and Budapest.
The United States’ top diplomat left a major European security gathering over the weekend to a standing ovation, but he soon gave a clear signal of what America now sees as friendly territory on the continent.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio proclaimed a “golden age” Monday in U.S. relations — not with Germany or France, but with Hungary, as he met with the country’s strongman Viktor Orbán, widely considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest partner among all European Union leaders.
A day earlier, he met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, another populist opposed to support for Ukraine and aligned with the MAGA agenda.
That central European swing through Trump-friendly capitals followed Rubio's Valentine's Day appeal to old bonds at the Munich Security Conference, where he struck a warmer tone after months of mounting antagonism between America and its longtime allies.
“We belong together,” Rubio told the audience of European leaders and policymakers who gathered in Munich on Saturday still reeling from the clash over Greenland and the sense they could no longer rely on Washington’s support for their security.
“For us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe,” Rubio added to applause.
On the surface, this message stood in stark contrast to the verbal attack on European values made by Vice President JD Vance at the same gathering last year. But many experts and observers argued that the message delivered by Rubio was not a shift in policy, but a sugar-coated version of the U.S. approach that has fueled talk of a "rupture" with its longtime allies.
“The Rubio speech marked a deliberate contrast to Vance’s broadside at European cultural decline,” Bronwen Maddox, director and chief executive of the London-based think tank Chatham House, wrote in an analysis. “But there was a clear warning that the Trump administration would go its own way in pursuit of U.S. interests if it did not find Europe sympathetic.”
European leaders seem to be under no illusion.
“A gap, a deep divide, has opened up between Europe and the United States of America,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the conference Friday.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, meanwhile, expressed doubts in Munich that Trump had abandoned his aggressive pursuit of Greenland, the NATO member's semi-autonomous Arctic territory. “Unfortunately, I think the desire is the same,” she said.
“Our allies no longer trust us,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., wrote in a post on X after Rubio's speech. “I know there was celebration at the end of the Munich Security Conference. Unfortunately the champagne corks were popping in Beijing and Moscow,” he added.
