Live Updates: Rubio Emphasizes Shared History With Europe at Munich Security Conference

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Updated

Feb. 14, 2026, 3:47 a.m. ET24 minutes ago

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/14/world/munich-security-conference-rubio

 

Live Updates: Rubio Emphasizes Shared History With Europe at Munich Security Conference

Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed the Trump administration’s talking points on the threat of Western decline but also seemed to strike a constructive tone.

 

Jim Tankersley

Updated

Feb. 14, 2026, 3:43 a.m. ET28 minutes ago

Jim TankersleyReporting from Munich

 

Here’s the latest.

Europe and America “belong together,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday on the second day of the Munich Security Conference, in a speech that echoed the Trump administration’s talking points on the threat of Western decline but that also seemed to strike a constructive tone and that underlined the deep friendship between the two continents.

 

“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” — a line that elicited applause from the crowd.

 

“Because we know that the fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our own,” Mr. Rubio said.

 

As Vice President JD Vance did last year at the same conference, Mr. Rubio issued dire warnings about the threats of mass migration and “civilizational erasure,” and about the decline of the rules-based order — “an overused term,” he said. He depicted post-World War II institutions like the United Nations as in need of deep reform.

 

“We in America have no interest in being polite, and orderly caretakers of the West‘s managed decline,” he said.

 

But unlike Mr. Vance, who scolded the Europeans for sidelining far-right parties, Mr. Rubio emphasized centuries of shared history between Europe and America, and said the United States wanted to work with Europeans, not against them.

 

“Under President Trump, the United States will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration,” he said. “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.”

 

At the end of the speech, which was met with a brief standing ovation, Wolfgang Ischinger, the chairman of the conference said, “I’m not sure you heard the sigh of relief” from the crowd — a sign that Mr. Rubio had largely delivered on the friendly address that European leaders were hoping for.

 

European leaders had spent the first day of the conference sketching new visions for the trans-Atlantic alliance, one that relies less on America for defense and commerce, and acknowledges that Europe and the United States no longer share some core values. That day felt at times like a late rebuttal of Mr. Vance.

 

Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany, issued a call for an overhauled intercontinental friendship, while suggesting Washington had in some regards lost its way. Under President Trump in his second term, the United States’ claim to global leadership “has been challenged, and possibly squandered,” he said.

 

Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, complained in an evening speech that Europe had been unfairly “vilified” as a place of uncontrolled immigration and repression of free speech — a thinly veiled reference to Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance.

 

The next speakers at the conference include Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.

 

Here’s what else to know:

 

Ukraine: Mr. Rubio skipped a meeting of European leaders with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the conference on Friday, as negotiations between Ukraine and Russian officials are set to resume next week in Geneva. Talks thus far have made little progress.

 

Greenland: The prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland are set to address the conference on Saturday evening, a day after they met with Mr. Rubio in Munich. The Trump administration is trying to negotiate an expanded U.S. presence in Greenland or a greater official American control of the territory, which is an autonomous part of Denmark, and which Mr. Trump has repeatedly said the United States should own.

 

Nuclear weapons: American and European officials stressed this week that the United States remains committed to its decades-long posture of providing a nuclear shield for its NATO allies in Europe. But Europe is making a backup plan, just in case. Mr. Merz said Friday that Germany had begun talks with France, a nuclear power, on establishing a nuclear deterrent for Europe that would not depend on America.