(NEW YORK) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a bluntly worded, but ultimately conciliatory, speech Saturday to leaders of Western nations, saying the Trump administration does not want to dismantle its traditional alliances.
However, during his speech at the Munich Security Conference, he called on European countries to adopt the administration’s right-wing polices on mass migration and do more for their own defense.
“Our destiny is and always will be intertwined with you,” Rubio said to prolonged applause. “We do not seek to separate but to reinvigorate an old friendship.”
His speech’s message appeared to be a greatly moderated version of the one given by Vice President JD Vance last year, where he attacked European countries as oppressive.
Rubio repeated many of the same political criticisms that Vance made, telling European countries they and the United States previously had fallen victim to a liberal “dangerous delusion.”
He told them they must get control over mass migration, stop being ashamed of their colonial histories and give up on what he called a “climate cult.”
But he repeated the message that the U.S. wanted to reinvigorate the power of the West “together.”
“And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe,” Rubio said.
Rubio defended the administration as seeking to unapologetically reinvigorate the West, speaking nostalgically of “great western empires.”
“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker. We do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame,” he said. “We do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo.”
He said the U.S. has “no interest in being the polite caretaker of managed decline.”
The chairman of the conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, later thanked Rubio for his “message of reassurance.”
“I’m not sure you heard the sigh of relief in this hall,” Ischinger told Rubio on stage.
During an interview with Bloomberg TV directly after the speech, Rubio said he thought he gave the “same message” that Vance delivered at the conference last year.
“I think what the vice president said last year, very clearly, was that Europe had made a series of decisions internally that were threatening to the alliance and ultimately to themselves, not because we hate Europe or we don’t like Europeans, but because, what is it that we fight for? What is it that binds us together?” Rubio said in the interview.
“And ultimately, it’s the fact that we are both heirs to the same civilization, and it’s a great civilization, and it’s one we should be proud of,” Rubio added.
The secretary continued to moderate that message, however, saying his own remarks were meant to explain that, “when we come off as urgent or even critical about decisions that Europe has failed to make or made, it is because we care.”
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