United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Washington wants to revitalise its friendship with Europe in a speech at the annual Munich Security Conference, offering some reassurance to European countries after more than a year of turmoil in transatlantic relations.

But the speech, which drew a standing ovation on Saturday, was short on concrete commitments, made no mention of Russia, and criticised Europe’s values, including the continent’s approach to migration and climate change.

“In a time of headlines heralding the end of the transatlantic era, let it be known and clear to all that this is neither our goal nor our wish, because for us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe,” Rubio said. “For the United States and Europe, we belong together.”

While praising Europe’s cultural achievements – ‌from Michelangelo to William Shakespeare – Rubio was firm about the US President Donald Trump’s administration’s intent to reshape the transatlantic alliance and push its priorities.

He argued that the “euphoria” of the Western victory in the Cold War led to a “dangerous delusion that we had entered ‘the end of history’,” where every nation would be a liberal democracy and “live in a world without borders, where everyone became a citizen of the world”.

This was a “foolish idea” that resulted in Western nations outsourcing their sovereignty to international institutions and opening “doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people”, he said.

To appease a “climate cult”, he added, “we have imposed energy policies on ourselves that are impoverishing our people”.

“We made these mistakes together, and now, together, we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward to rebuild.”

Rubio acknowledged that “we have bled and died side-by-side on battlefields from Kapyong to Kandahar”, and said he was in Munich to “make it clear that America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity… and that once again, we want to do it together, with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends”.

‘Not a departure’

Rubio addressed the conference a year after US Vice President JD Vance stunned the same audience by dressing down European allies and arguing that the greatest danger to Europe came from censorship rather than external threats like Russia.

A series of Trump administration statements and moves targeting allies followed, including Trump’s short-lived threat last month to impose new tariffs on several European countries in a bid to secure US control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of fellow NATO member Denmark.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union’s executive commission, said Rubio’s speech was “very reassuring”, but noted that “in the administration, some have a harsher tone on these topics”.

In her speech to the conference, she stressed that “Europe must become more independent”, including in defence. She also insisted on Europe’s “digital sovereignty”, or its approach to hate speech on social media.

Others struck a more cautious tone.

“I am not sure that Europeans see the announced civilisational decline, supposedly caused mainly by migration and deindustrialisation, as a core uniting interest. For most Europeans, the common interest is security,” said Gabrielius Landsbergis, a former foreign minister of NATO member Lithuania.

“This was not a departure from the general position of the administration. It was simply delivered in more polite terms,” he said on X.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Munich, said that while the difference in the US’s tone was “very noticeable”, the “policies of the Trump administration are unlikely to change”.

“Over the last year, there has been numerous problems between Europe and the US, including Trump’s tariffs, wrangling over defence and [the] US’s bid to take over Greenland. But the biggest issue of all is Ukraine.

Russia’s war on Ukraine

On Ukraine, European allies have long worried about Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin trying to ram through a deal on Moscow’s terms, which would force Kyiv to cede land to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

US-brokered peace talks resume next week in Geneva, after Russia’s sustained bombardment of Ukrainian cities during one of the coldest winters in years killed civilians and left hundreds of thousands of people without power and water.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed hope at the conference on Saturday, but said he was feeling “a little bit” of pressure from Trump, who had said Zelenskyy should not miss the “opportunity” to make peace ⁠soon.

“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions, and too often, those concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia,” Zelenskyy said.

The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, echoed the sentiment.

“Putting the pressure on the victim is, of course, hope for a quick win. Because if you just surrender and give the aggressor what they want, then the war would be over, wouldn’t it?” she told Al Jazeera.

“But actually, the war would be over only temporarily. Because the aggressor got what it want, the appetite only grows. It has a pause that it needs and then continues,” she added.

Donald Jensen, a former US diplomat and a professor of Russian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, said serious issues remain between Washington and Europe, despite Rubio’s conciliatory tone.

“He’s reaching out for Europe to join the Trump administration’s view of the world, view of international security. And in that regard, I think it will not do much to attain that goal,” he said.

He added that Rubio was “one of several voices on the Ukraine issue”, and not “always on the same page” with Vance or other administration officials, making it difficult for European partners to understand what they are dealing with.

“The problem remains on the Washington end, how to have a more consistent view of that worldview that Trump is extending towards the Europeans, because often, internally, the US administration also is not consistent,” Jensen said.

This makes it difficult for the Europeans to know what they’re dealing with, he said. “The changes of US policy back and forth on some issues also makes it difficult for the European partners to know what they’re dealing with.” (Al Jazeera)

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