Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Brussels on Thursday for a gathering of NATO overseas ministers amid excessive nervousness over the Trump administration’s method to Europe, together with the conflict in Ukraine, relations with Russia and President Trump’s rising commerce conflict 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 the USA and Europe have abruptly shifted from the shut cooperation of the Biden period to distrust and acrimony underneath Mr. Trump.
On the identical time, NATO officers might welcome an opportunity to discuss with Mr. Rubio, whom many think about essentially 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.
Overseas officers who’ve handled Mr. Rubio since he turned 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 really 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 the USA, 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 p.c 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 conflict in Ukraine, an method 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 greatest to form the Trump administration’s efforts to dealer a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, which have stalled over broad gaps between the fighters, and to induce the USA to not abandon Ukraine.
Mr. Rubio can be more likely to reiterate Mr. Trump’s demand that NATO nations improve their army spending to five p.c of their gross home product, at the same time as a lot of them wrestle to fulfill spending targets of two p.c that the alliance set years in the past. Mr. Trump and different high American officers imagine that the alliance depends too closely on the USA 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. Throughout the textual content chain, a few 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 delivery 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 might not come to the protection of NATO nations that he feels are usually 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 instructed reporters final month.
A further level of pressure 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 overseas minister will attend the gathering in Brussels, though it’s unclear whether or not he and Mr. Rubio will focus on Greenland. Danish officers say they can’t negotiate Greenland’s destiny on their very own as a result of the island has the best of self-determination.
Mr. Rubio shall 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 legal professional basic throughout Mr. Trump’s first time period however has no overseas coverage expertise. Throughout his affirmation listening to, Mr. Whitaker assured senators that the USA’ dedication to NATO was “ironclad.”
