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Live Updates: In Munich, Rubio Calls Europe a Friend but Says It Must Change
European leaders expressed relief at the tone of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s remarks, but they made it clear that the trans-Atlantic rift remained.
Jim Tankersley, Edward Wong
Europe and America “belong together,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, in a speech that underlined the deep ties between the United States and the continent but also echoed the Trump administration’s talking points about the threat of Western decline.
“We want Europe to be strong,” Mr. Rubio said, adding that the two world wars of the 20th century were a reminder that “our destiny is and always will be intertwined with yours.”
Speaking on a panel on Greenland, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, called President Trump’s threats to take over the large Artic island “offensive.” She strongly condemned Trump’s claims to the territory, receiving applause from the crowd and from other panel members. “When we’re spending this much time talking about the situation with Greenland and whether or not the United States is going to acquire it, it takes the eye off the real issue, the real threat,” she said, pointing to Russia, China and the teetering alliance between the United States and Western Europe.
Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, said security in the Arctic should be the reponsibility of the NATO alliance, not just the United States. If Washington believes its security is at stake, then it is up to NATO “to address that problem and to solve it by joint activities, joint missions, joint operations in the High North and in Greenland if wanted by Denmark and Greenland,” he said. “It is about NATO. Not about anybody else.”
Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Greenland is also taking a strong line on President Trump’s attempts to acquire his country. “The paradox” he said, “is the Greenlandic people has never felt threatened, and the first time they felt unsafe for real is when an ally talked about acquiring them.” But, he added, “we are taking steps in the right direction,” including dialogue and strengthening counterweights to Chinese and Russian influence through the Arctic Sentry initiative.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, drew a hard line against Trump’s desire to take over Greenland: “There are of course things that you cannot compromise on. Our basic values, the cornerstone of our democracy is the respect of other states sovereignty and territorial integrity and people’s right for self-determination.”
Asked if she believes that President Trump still wants to buy Greenland, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark said: “I unfortunately think the desire is the same,” adding, “I think the pressure on Greenland is unacceptable.”
The prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark have taken the stage at a panel on Arctic security, one of the conference’s central issues. Both leaders immediately began making the case for proactive investment into Arctic security, and touting the NATO’s new Arctic Sentry initiative, an effort to boosts the West’s military presence in the Arctic. President Trump has said the United States needs to annex Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, for its security, an idea most European leaders strongly oppose. The issue has divided the Washington and its NATO allies.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio just finished an informal meeting of about 40 minutes with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Rubio had said during an on-stage chat after his speech this morning that it’s unclear if Russia wants to end its war in Ukraine.
Sanam MahooziJonathan Wolfe and Abdi Latif Dahir
Sanam Mahoozi reported from the demonstrations in London.
Protesters demanding regime change in Iran converged on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, a day after President Trump said a change in government would be the best outcome for a country reeling from deadly unrest.
Earlier this month, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the country’s deposed shah and an opposition figure in exile, had encouraged protesters to take to the streets on Feb. 14 to put pressure on the Iranian government. Speaking at the Munich conference on Friday, Mr. Pahlavi renewed an appeal for American intervention in Iran.
European officials have not had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to Rubio’s speech. The general feeling is that the speech was not as bad as it could have been, nor as bad as JD Vance’s inflammatory remarks last year. “Of course it is a different tone — it is less aggressive,” Terry Reintke, a German member of the European Parliament, said. “But it is not a speech which I take as a call for Europeans to just calm down and not be vigilant anymore. It just didn’t further deteriorate the situation.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, gathered with U.S. Senators, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. She posted about the meeting, which had a focus on Ukraine: “Sanctions work,” she wrote. “And they work best when coordinated.” Graham has been trying to push sanctions on Russia through Congress.
While some European officials said they appreciated the speech by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other European observers said some of Rubio’s arguments echoed dangerous far-right ideas. Constanze Stelzenmuller, a German scholar of U.S.-Europe relations at the Brookings Institution, wrote online that “Rubio’s language of civilizational decline is deeply off-putting to Europeans. And the reference to not wanting allies to be ‘shackled by guilt and shame’ is a direct lift from the ‘Schuldkult’ (cult of guilt) rhetoric of the German hard-right AfD.” She ended with this assessment: “Chilling stuff.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had several meetings with senior officials in the afternoon at Munich Security Conference, after his morning speech and a group session with foreign ministers from the Group of 7 nations. In the afternoon, Rubio had talks with the prime minister of Norway, the president of Finland, the leader of the German region of Bavaria, and the chief of the army staff of Pakistan.
The two chairs of the Senate NATO Observer Group just sought to project a message of reassurance at an event hosted by Politico during the conference. It will take time to measure whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech this morning effectively dispelled European concerns about the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO.
Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said leaders should “leave Munich with a sense of optimism.” He made the case that U.S. lawmakers and Rubio have “put Greenland to bed” and did reassure European allies that America is a loyal member of NATO. “Congress is never going to buy what we can get for free,” added Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire. She said there is no need for threats to territorial sovereignty when both Denmark and Greenland have been “very upfront” that they are “willing to partner with the United States on whatever” Washington needs.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is making the rounds today, holding one-on-one meetings with European politicians and continuing to share a foreign policy vision focused on improving the lives of the working class around the world. At a press conference earlier, she and Representative Jason Crow, both Democrats, offered a contrast to Marco Rubio’s address to European leaders. “We have tried everything that the conventional wisdom has said is best, and where we are today is record inequality,” she said. “We are seeing gains in any economy be increasingly meaningless when it comes to the material lives of the majority of people.”
Another notable comment from the Ukraine lunch in Munich: Petr Pavel, the Czech president, said, “A very quick peace will not result in a Nobel Prize for peace,” but in “another aggression.”
Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday ruled out holding elections until a cease-fire is reached in the war with Russia, despite pressure from the United States.
Mr. Zelensky, who was speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, has long maintained that elections could not be held during the war. The Financial Times, citing Western and Ukrainian officials, reported on Wednesday that he would announce on Feb. 24 plans to hold both a presidential election and a referendum on a peace deal by May, although no deal has been reached. Mr. Zelensky said the first time he heard about that plan was in the Financial Times.
Marta Kos, the European Union commissioner for enlargement, was asked whether Ukraine would become a member of the 27-nation E.U. in 2027 — one of Kyiv’s security priorities. She said that joining that fast is not possible under the current path to joining the E.U. but that the process needs to change, and “We are discussing this.” She addsed: “Bringing Ukraine into the European Union is not enlargement. It is unifying Europe.”
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, is one of several European leaders to warn about the consequences of a rapid peace in Ukraine. “A bad peace deal in Ukraine will open the door for more attacks from Russia, in Ukraine again or in another European country,” she said at a lunch on Ukraine.
Himes said Secretary Marco Rubio’s speech this morning “changed the weather around here really pretty rapidly,” and “made our jobs easier,” referring to U.S. lawmakers like him who came to reassure European leaders that Washington will not abandon the European Union and NATO.
I just sat down with the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, and he told me that fears over Greenland have dominated his conversations with Europeans this weekend. “If I were to draw a cartoon of these bilats, it would be a European saying, ‘Greenland, Greenland, Greenland, Greenland,’” said Himes, who bought a commercial ticket to Munich after Speaker Mike Johnson canceled the House delegation. But the reality of trans-Atlantic cooperation on defense and intelligence is more nuanced, he added, and the European intelligence chiefs he has talked to told him they are still committed to a partnership in which the United States holds the upper hand. “It doesn’t make sense to imagine that the Europeans are going to say, ‘Sorry, this partnership is over because they can’t,” Himes said. “Right now.”
Rutte, the NATO chief, pushed back against any idea that the United States was walking away from NATO, while adding that Europe needed to take more of a leadership role, with the U.S. as an anchor.
Rutte pushed back on barbed questions from the moderator, Christiane Amanpour from CNN, about the U.S. role in peace negotiations, defending the United States and saying that this war was difficult to resolve. Metsola, the European Parliament president, said there was nothing that keeps Putin going like stories about a split between Europe and the United States.
Zelensky has been president since 2019, and elections have been frozen since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Zelensky denies reports that he’s prepared to have early elections under American pressure. “Give us a cease-fire,” and Ukraine will have elections, he said. Not before.
Ukrainian drones are also already being built under a joint initiative in the United Kingdom. Ukraine plans to open 10 export centers for Ukrainian weapons this year across Europe.
Zelensky said the best defense against Russia’s plans was unity: “Our unity is what protects us.”
Zelensky mentioned that production of Ukrainian drones started yesterday in Germany. Ukrainian drones are also being built under a joint initiative in the United Kingdom. Ukraine plans to open 10 export centers for Ukrainian weapons this year across Europe.
Zelensky said he was “grateful to every American heart” that was helping Ukraine. The elephant in the room of course was the Trump administration, which has upended the U.S. approach to the war in Ukraine and engaged more with Russia than the previous Biden administration.
Zelensky noted that Ukraine has endured 1,451 days of war since Russia’s full-scale invasion, “longer than anyone predicted.” He showed a map visualizing one of Russia’s recent attacks on Ukraine, including 24 ballistic missiles and 200 drones. “Just one night,” he said.
Zelensky thanked Europe and mentioned the leaders by their first names, a sign of how close they are.
For a panel discussing long-term support for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky wore a dark suit instead of the more casual military-like clothing he has worn in past years. The audience greeted him with a standing ovation, a reminder of Europe’s support for Ukraine’s leader even as President Trump has treated him more coolly.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for a stronger Europe in a sweeping speech at the Munich Security Conference, emphasizing America’s European heritage even as he slammed “mass migration” and echoed U.S. officials’ past warnings of “civilizational erasure.”
His remarks were received initially with relief by European leaders. They had watched the speech nervously, afraid that Mr. Rubio might reprise Vice President JD Vance’s scorching takedown of the continent’s governance at last year’s conference.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is about to give remarks on the state of his country as part of a panel discussion.
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on Saturday of the United States being descended from Europe, he drew applause from the mainly European audience here at the Munich Security Conference.
“For us Americans, home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe,” he said. He stressed that countries on both sides of the Atlantic were “heirs to the same great and noble civilization,” and mentioned the cultural gifts that Europe had bestowed on the world — from ancient universities to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. That line got laughs.
Starmer said that “too often” Europe’s defense capacity “adds up to less than the sum of its parts.” Fragmented manufacturing and planning “have led to gaps in some areas and massive duplication in others,” he said, noting that Europe has more than 20 kinds of frigates and more 10 kinds of main battle tanks. “It’s wildly inefficient, and it harms our collective security,” he said.
“We must spend more, deliver more, and coordinate more, and crucially, we must do this with the United States,” Starmer said, describing the United States as an “indispensable” ally. But he also said that Europe had to take “primary responsibility” for its own defense.
One big takeaway from this Munich Security Conference panel with Britain’s Keir Starmer and the European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen? In a world of contention, European allies are trying to draw closer together. “We are not the Britain of the Brexit years,” Starmer said, not once but twice.
Starmer emphasized that rather than a moment of “rupture,” this should be one of “radical renewal.” He suggested that rather than independence, Europe should be aiming for a more balanced interdependence with the United States.
Starmer said that it was necessary to “build a stronger Europe and a more European NATO,” underpinned by “deeper links” between Britain and the European Union. “As Europe, we must stand on our own two feet,” he said.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its “hybrid threats” against Europe had left the continent with “only one viable option.” Europeans, he said, “must build our hard power, because that is the currency of the age. We must be able to deter aggression, and yes, if necessary, we must be ready to fight.”
Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, said in his speech to the conference that “we shouldn’t get in the warm bath of complacency” after Rubio’s remarks. “That would be a mistake, and it would be a particular mistake for Europe.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said she was “ very much reassured by” Rubio’s speech. She said that some members of the Trump administration have a harsher tone but that Rubio was clear that it wants a strong Europe — and that’s exactly what the European Union is working on.
Ursula von der Leyen — who speaks, in a way, for all of Europe — is laying out a proactive vision for what an independent and powerful European Union might look like. It’s notable how much things have shifted since just a year ago, when many of the ideas she’s suggesting would have been taboo and when what amounts to an overt call for decoupling from the United States would have been all but unthinkable.
Von der Leyen is trying to paint a vision of Europe that is stronger, more aggressive on shared defense, and nimbler. She says in this speech that “we must grow a European backbone,” that European nations must be ready to come to one another’s military aid and that E.U. nations might need to make decisions in smaller groups — rather than by unanimity — so that they can get things done faster. And she emphasizes that Europe is going to work more closely with its “closest partners”: Britain, Norway, Iceland and Canada.
“In today’s fractured world, Europe must become more independent – there is no other choice,” von der Leyen said, to applause. “Some may say the word ‘independence’ runs counter to our transatlantic bond. But the opposite is true.” In fact, the Trump administration has been pushing for Europe to become mightier, including during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech here earlier this morning. He argued that America wants Europe to be strong because “Our destiny is, and always will be, intertwined with yours.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, took aim at the Trump administration at the start of her speech at the Munich Security Conference, in a barely concealed reference to recent tensions over Greenland and Europe’s digital regulations. “The European way of life – our democracies, the democratic foundations and the trust of our citizens -- is being challenged in new ways, on everything from territories to tariffs to tech regulations,” she said.
Rubio is asked about the U.S.-China relationship, since President Trump has made positive remarks about the ties. “We have an obligation to communicate with them and to talk,” Rubio says. “It would be in geopolitical malpractice to not be in conversations with China.” He said that the two nations’ national interests often will not align but that the two governments can find areas of cooperation. He said European nations should also carry on positive conversations with China but need to be wary of compromising their national interests. Trump and Xi Jinping, the leader of China, are making plans to have a summit in Beijing in April.
In the stage talk after his speech, Rubio is asked first about the Ukraine war. “We don’t know if the Russians are serious about ending the war,” he said., “We’re going to continue to test it.” He said the United States will continue to pressure Russia with sanctions and to sell weapons that will ultimately be used by Ukraine in its defense.
“The fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our own,” Rubio said. But the United States wants “to revitalize an old friendship” and a “reinvigorated alliance.”
Rubio adds that the United States doesn’t want an alliance crippled by the “malaise of hopelessness and complacency.” He says allies should not be paralyzed by fears of climate change and new technology.
The Trump administration is asking Europe to join the United States in a new vision for the future, Marco Rubio says. “It is a path we have walked together before, and can walk again,” he says. So far, the secretary of state’s tone is more diplomatic than the one that Vice President JD Vance struck here last year. “We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary can ever be tempted to test our collective strength,” Rubio says.
Rubio attacks uncontrolled “mass migration” as “an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilization itself,” echoing the harsh criticism in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy that warned of Europe’s “civilizational erasure.”
Rubio stresses the need to reindustrialize Western nations. He says the countries can work on commercial space travel, artificial intelligence and critical mineral supply chains. He also insists that countries must limit the people who cross their borders to settle in their lands and says this is not xenophobia.
Rubio talked of the cultural connections of the West and how they must be defended. “Our disagreements come from our profound sense of concern about a Europe with which we are connected, not just economically, not just militarily. We are connected spiritually and we are connected culturally,” he said. He did not mention a West that has also embraced immigration from other parts of the world.
“We made these mistakes together,” Rubio said, referring to the idea that the world would be liberal and borderless. But now “we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward to rebuild.” Of course, he said, President Trump will lead that reconstruction. “The United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration.”
Rubio mentions the cultural gifts that Europe has given the world, from ancient universities and scholarship to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. That got laughs from the audience.
Rubio says, “We believe Europe must survive.” The history of the two world wars means the United States and Europe have destinies that are “intertwined,” he says.
Rubio denounces the idea of a united, globalized citizenship. He said that led to misconceptions about adversarial nations, which still seek to dominate aspects of global commerce, including energy resources. And he said that idea led to an opening borders that resulted in “an unprecedented wave of mass migration.”
The expectation of global liberal democracy, Rubio said, “was a foolish idea that ignored both human nature and it ignored the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history, and it has cost us dearly.”
Rubio speaks of a “dangerous delusion,” that the world would now be a safe place “without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world.”
Rubio began his speech by talking about the united American and Western European struggle against Communist nations during the Cold War. He mentioned the downfall of the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union. But he said that led the delusional idea of the “end of history.”
The signs in the main hall are billing this Rubio event as “The U.S. in the World.” I see American lawmakers sitting in rows near the front. They include Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. On Thursday, Speaker Mike Johnson canceled travel plans by the official House delegation to this conference because of the shutdown of some federal agencies. It appears Pelosi came on her own. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York also made her own trip here and spoke on the main stage on Friday.
Marco Rubio also met on Friday evening with Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s foreign minister. The State Department said Saturday morning that Rubio “affirmed the United States’ support for a Syria that is stable, at peace with its neighbors, and protects the rights of all its ethnic and religious minority groups.”
Marco Rubio had a half-dozen meetings on Friday with senior officials from European nations, China and Syria. He spoke with the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland about President Trump’s intentions toward Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. Rubio and Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany, talked about the Ukraine war, which Merz called the most pressing issue.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading the Trump administration’s delegation at the Munich Security Conference. It’s his third time at the conference — he came once as senator and, last year, as secretary of state, when Vice President JD Vance led the delegation. I’m waiting in the main hall of the conference hotel for Rubio’s speech. He told us before taking off from Washington that he thinks it will be “well received” by the mainly European audience. Vance’s speech last year, in which he chastised European leaders, was widely disliked here.
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