Before taking off for the Munich Security Conference on Thursday, Marco Rubio was asked what European officials needed to hear from him. “Honestly, they want to know where we’re going,” Donald Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser said. “We live in a new era in geopolitics,” he added. “And it’s going to require all of us to sort of re-examine what . . . our role is going to be.”
Last year Trump dispatched JD Vance to the German gathering. America’s closest allies were stunned as the vice-president accused European societies of repressing freedom of speech and cast the “threat from within” as the continent’s greatest challenge.
Rubio is likely to strike a less combative tone. “He’s very good at showing up and reassuring them,” says Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.