Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Brussels on Thursday for a gathering of NATO international ministers amid excessive nervousness over the Trump administration’s strategy to Europe, together with the struggle in Ukraine, relations with Russia and President Trump’s rising commerce struggle with the continent.
Mr. Rubio’s go to to the alliance’s headquarters, the primary by a senior Trump administration official this 12 months, comes as relations between america and Europe have abruptly shifted from the shut cooperation of the Biden period to distrust and acrimony beneath Mr. Trump.
On the similar time, NATO officers could welcome an opportunity to talk to Mr. Rubio, whom many think about probably the most pro-alliance member of Mr. Trump’s nationwide safety staff.
As a senator in 2023, representing Florida, Mr. Rubio cosponsored laws requiring any president to hunt the Senate’s recommendation and consent earlier than withdrawing from the group. Former aides say Mr. Trump has privately mused about taking that step, which might shatter the 32-nation army alliance fashioned to counter Russia.
International officers who’ve handled Mr. Rubio since he grew to become Mr. Trump’s high diplomat have described him as downplaying a few of Mr. Trump’s wilder concepts and translating them into extra sensible coverage approaches, though additionally they query whether or not he actually speaks for a president with whom he doesn’t have an in depth private relationship.
And there’s solely a lot Mr. Rubio can do to sugarcoat Mr. Trump’s agenda, which is pushed by a view that Europe economically exploits america, is culturally out of sync with the values of Mr. Trump’s political motion and should do enterprise with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Rubio additionally arrives only a day after Mr. Trump introduced 20 % tariffs on imports from the European Union. On the White Home on Wednesday, Mr. Trump stated of the E.U.: “They rip us off. It’s so unhappy to see. It’s so pathetic.”
In conferences with NATO ministers, Mr. Rubio is anticipated to press Mr. Trump’s name for a swift finish to the struggle in Ukraine, an strategy that alarms many European leaders who overwhelmingly assist Kyiv and concern that Mr. Trump will wind up appeasing Mr. Putin.
Mr. Rubio’s fellow ministers will do their finest to form the Trump administration’s efforts to dealer a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, which have stalled over huge gaps between the combatants, and to induce america to not abandon Ukraine.
Mr. Rubio can also be prone to reiterate Mr. Trump’s demand that NATO nations improve their army spending to five % of their gross home product, at the same time as a lot of them battle to satisfy spending objectives of two % that the alliance set years in the past. Mr. Trump and different high American officers imagine that the alliance depends too closely on america for defense.
That was made painfully clear to European officers by a dialogue amongst high Trump administration officers final month on the Signal app that unwittingly included a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic journal. In the course of the textual content chain, a couple of U.S. plan to bomb Houthi militants in Yemen, Vice President JD Vance complained that America would “once more” be “bailing out” Europe by taking unilateral motion to guard worldwide transport lanes that the Houthis have attacked.
“I totally share your loathing of European freeloading,” Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth responded. “It’s PATHETIC.”
Mr. Trump himself has warned that he could not come to the protection of NATO nations that he feels usually are not spending sufficient on their militaries, regardless of the alliance’s dedication to mutual self-defense. “In the event that they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them,” the president advised reporters final month.
A further level of rigidity is Mr. Trump’s willpower to amass the island of Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a NATO member. Mr. Trump has shocked officers from Denmark and different NATO nations by declining to rule out taking Greenland by drive, though Mr. Vance stated on a current go to to the island that army motion was not into account.
Denmark’s international minister will attend the gathering in Brussels, though it’s unclear whether or not he and Mr. Rubio will talk about Greenland. Danish officers say they can’t negotiate Greenland’s destiny on their very own as a result of the island has the correct of self-determination.
Mr. Rubio will likely be joined in Brussels by the brand new U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matthew G. Whitaker, whom the Senate narrowly confirmed on Tuesday.
NATO officers are uncertain what to make of Mr. Whitaker, who briefly served as performing lawyer normal throughout Mr. Trump’s first time period however has no international coverage expertise. Throughout his affirmation listening to, Mr. Whitaker assured senators that america’ dedication to NATO was “ironclad.”
