The 62nd edition of the Munich Security Conference, which opened on Friday, February 13, chose a wrecking ball as its symbol. The organizers of this major event in transatlantic relations said it was a metaphor for a world order “under demolition” due to Donald Trump’s brutality and his disregard for rules. Just one year after the shock caused by a speech from US Vice President JD Vance, political leaders from across Europe were expected to deliver their response to an America that shows them contempt, and to carve out their place in this new world.
But Vance was not in the room to hear the European response. It was US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who spoke on Saturday on behalf of the United States at the Art Deco Bayerischer Hof hotel. Rubio is considered less hostile toward Europeans, but his assessment was the same as that of Trump and the vice president. The secretary of state described, as Vance had done a year earlier, the West as plagued by two scourges, “mass migration” and “deindustrialization,” which must be fought in order to restore pride to a Western civilization in peril.
You have 83.3% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
date: 2026-02-14 11:52:00
The post Munich Summit: France, Germany, and Rubio’s Vision for Europe appeared first on Archynewsy.