Marco Rubio pleads with Europe to embrace US agenda

The Munich Security Conference kicked off on Friday with a speech by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who did not hold back in calling out a growing “rift” between Europe and the United States under President Donald Trump.

Merz said the post-World War II order, which had been shaped by US supremacy and Europe enjoying a “vacation from world history” under Washington’s security umbrella, has come to an end.

He said Europe can come together and shape a new order.

“We are not at the mercy of this world, we can shape it,” Merz said, arguing that Europeans can do so if they “step up together with determination and confidence in our own strengths.”

At the same time Merz said the US and Europe need to “repair and revive trans-Atlantic trust together,” while pointing out that the US “claim to leadership has been challenged, and possibly lost,” warning of the rise of Russia and China.

“Merz’s pointed analysis of how isolated Trump’s aggressive take on trade and security has left the US was so blunt that it sounded like an insult,” DW’s Chief Political Editor Michaela Kuefner said at the conference.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is representing the US at the conference, with a much-anticipated speech due for Saturday morning.

Before leaving for Munich, Rubio said ties between the US and Europe are facing a “defining moment.”

“The old world is gone, frankly, the world I grew up in, and we live in a new era in geopolitics, and it’s going ​to require all of us to re-examine what that looks like and what our role is going to be,” he said.

Rubio added that the US is “deeply tied to Europe, and our futures have always been linked and will continue to be. We’ve just got to talk about what that future looks like.”

Rubio met with Merz and a German delegation on Friday for closed door talks. The US top diplomat also met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

French President Emmanuel Macron closed out Friday’s MSC with a speech emphasizing Europe’s strengths, and urging Europeans not to “give in” to Russia’s demands and “exhibit strength and tenacity on Ukraine.”

“This is the right time for audacity. This is the right time for a strong Europe,” Macron said.