Rubio Visits NATO Amid European Alarm Over Trump’s Agenda

by · NY Times

Rubio Visits NATO Amid European Alarm Over Trump’s Agenda

The secretary of state’s trip comes amid an abrupt shift in relations between the United States and Europe after close cooperation during the Biden era.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He told NATO members that President Trump “has made clear he supports” the alliance, while also reiterating calls for more military spending.
Credit...Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times

By Michael Crowley

Michael Crowley traveled to Brussels aboard Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s government plane and is covering his NATO meetings there.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Brussels on Thursday for a gathering of NATO foreign ministers amid high anxiety over the Trump administration’s approach to Europe, including the war in Ukraine, relations with Russia and President Trump’s growing trade war with the continent.

Mr. Rubio’s visit to the alliance’s headquarters comes as relations between the United States and Europe have abruptly shifted from the close cooperation of the Biden era to mistrust and acrimony under Mr. Trump.

At the same time, NATO officials may welcome a chance to confer with Mr. Rubio, whom many consider the most pro-alliance member of Mr. Trump’s national security team.

As a senator in 2023, representing Florida, Mr. Rubio cosponsored legislation requiring any president to seek the Senate’s advice and consent before withdrawing from the organization. Former aides say Mr. Trump has privately mused about taking that step, which would shatter the 32-nation military alliance formed to counter Russia.

Foreign officials who have dealt with Mr. Rubio since he became Mr. Trump’s top diplomat have described him as downplaying some of Mr. Trump’s wilder ideas and translating them into more realistic policy approaches, although they also question whether he truly speaks for a president with whom he does not have a close personal relationship.

In that vein, Mr. Rubio arrived in Brussels on Thursday with some reassurances about Mr. Trump’s views on the alliance.

“President Trump has made clear he supports NATO. We’re going to remain in NATO,” he said in remarks alongside the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte. But Mr. Rubio also reiterated the president’s call for NATO members to boost their military spending to make the alliance less dependent on the United States.

And Mr. Rubio can do only so much to sugarcoat Mr. Trump’s agenda, which is driven by a view that Europe economically exploits the United States, is culturally out of sync with the values of Mr. Trump’s political movement and must do business with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.

Mr. Rubio’s visit to NATO’s headquarters came a day after Mr. Trump announced 20 percent tariffs on imports from the European Union. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said of the E.U.: “They rip us off. It’s so sad to see. It’s so pathetic.”

In meetings with NATO ministers, Mr. Rubio is expected to press Mr. Trump’s call for a swift end to the war in Ukraine, an approach that alarms many European leaders, who overwhelmingly support Kyiv and fear that Mr. Trump will appease Mr. Putin.

Mr. Rubio’s fellow ministers will do their best to shape the Trump administration’s efforts to broker a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, which have stalled over wide gaps between the warring parties, and to urge the United States not to abandon Ukraine.

Mr. Rutte, a strong supporter of Ukraine, he has taken care to avoid antagonizing Mr. Trump.

“I commend President Trump for breaking the deadlock and I fully support the efforts undertaken by the U.S. to bring this terrible war to a just and lasting end,” Mr. Rutte told reporters on Wednesday.

In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Rubio said he hoped to leave Brussels “with an understanding that we are on a pathway” for every NATO member to increase military spending to 5 percent of their gross domestic product. Mr. Trump has set that goal even as many NATO nations struggle to meet the current target, 2 percent.

That was made painfully clear to European officials by the discussion among top Trump administration officials last month on the Signal app that inadvertently included a journalist. In one message about a U.S. plan to bomb Houthi militants in Yemen, Vice President JD Vance complained that America would “again” be “bailing out” Europe by defending shipping lanes from Houthi attacks.

“I fully share your loathing of European freeloading,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded. “It’s PATHETIC.”

Mr. Trump has warned that he may not come to the defense of NATO members that fail to meet the alliance’s spending targets.

Another friction point is Mr. Trump’s determination to acquire Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. Mr. Trump has shocked Danish and other NATO officials by declining to rule out taking Greenland by force, although Mr. Vance said on a recent visit to the island that military action was not under consideration.

Notably, the only NATO minister with whom Mr. Rubio met one-on-one on Thursday was his Danish counterpart, Lars Lokke Rasmussen. A summary from the State Department said the men “reaffirmed the strong relationship” between their countries. It did not mention Greenland.

The new U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matthew G. Whitaker, whom the Senate narrowly confirmed on Tuesday, joined Mr. Rubio in Brussels.

NATO officials are unsure what to make of Mr. Whitaker, who served as a chief of staff and then acting attorney general at the Justice Department during Mr. Trump’s first term but has no significant foreign policy experience. His official biography notes his travel to six countries while at the Justice Department, adding that his “extensive leadership and policy experience make him a well-qualified candidate to be U.S. ambassador to NATO.”

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