Secretary of state Marco Rubio travelled 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.
Rubio’s visit to the alliance’s headquarters comes as relations between the US and Europe have abruptly shifted from the close cooperation of the Biden era to mistrust and acrimony under Trump.
Foreign officials who have dealt with Rubio since he became Trump’s top diplomat have described him as downplaying some of 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.
And there is only so much Rubio can do to sugarcoat Trump’s agenda, which is driven by a view that Europe economically exploits the US, is culturally out of sync with the values of Trump’s political movement and must do business with Russia’s President, Vladimir V. Putin.
Rubio also arrives just a day after Trump announced 20 per cent tariffs on imports from the European Union. At the White House on Wednesday, Trump said of the EU: “They rip us off. It’s so sad to see. It’s so pathetic.”
In meetings with Nato ministers, Rubio is expected to press 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 Trump will wind up appeasing Putin.