US and Europe ‘will always be intertwined’, Rubio tells security gathering

Marco Rubio has hit out at the mistakes of Western nations over the past 40 years, but sought to reconcile ties between the US and Europe after recent turmoil in the transatlantic relationship.

The US Secretary of State’s address at the Munich Security Conference was a drastic contrast with that made by vice president JD Vance who, in 2025, launched a blistering attack on America’s European allies.

Mr Rubio, instead, insisted the fate of the United States and Europe “will always be intertwined”, as he said that Donald Trump “demands seriousness and reciprocity from our friends here in Europe” because “we care deeply about your future and ours”.

He also, however, hit out at the United Nations, and warned that the “rules-based global order” which grew out of the end of the Cold War had been a “dangerous delusion”.

European defence and the future of the transatlantic relationship are on the agenda at the conference, at a time when America’s commitment to Nato has been called into question.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to call for European powers to step up their defence spending and no longer rely on America for their security in his speech on Saturday.

Ukraine’s allies held a meeting at the conference on Friday as they continue to rally around the war-torn country while the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion nears.

Mr Rubio failed to attend the meeting.

US officials reportedly blamed scheduling conflicts but his absence may have been seen by Europeans as a sign of the White House’s dwindling interest in including them in its bid to end the conflict.

In his speech to the conference, Mr Rubio said: “We want Europe to be strong.

“We believe that Europe must survive because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that, ultimately, our destiny is and will always be intertwined with yours.

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

Elsewhere, he suggested the Western victory in the Cold War had led to complacency, telling the conference: “The euphoria of this triumph led us to a dangerous delusion that we had entered, quote, The End of History, that every nation would now be a liberal democracy, that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood, that the rules-based global order – an overused term – would now replace the national interest, and that we would now live in a world without borders, where everyone became a citizen of the world.”

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

He also claimed that the UN was among the global institutions which need to be rebuilt and reformed, adding: “We cannot ignore that today, on the most pressing matters before us, it has no answers and has played virtually no role.”

Wolfgang Ischinger, the chairman of the Munich Security Conference who acted as a moderator for Mr Rubio as he took questions, claimed there had been a “sigh of relief through this hall” during the speech, in reference to its contrast with the address by Mr Vance in 2025.

Sir Keir Starmer will tell the summit that Europe must relinquish its overdependence on the United States in his speech on Saturday morning.

The Prime Minister will also argue for the UK to move closer to the European Union, saying turning inwards such as in the Brexit years would amount to a “surrender” of control in a perilous era for geopolitics.

He is also expected to hit out at the Green Party and Reform UK in the speech, claiming either party would be bad for the UK’s national security should they win power.

Sir Keir is rubbing shoulders with about 50 world leaders at the Munich Security Conference, where he has already met with Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, and joined the Ukraine meeting alongside its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.