Marco Rubio

PinnedUpdated Reporting from MunichHere’s the latest.European leaders spent the first day of the annual Munich-security-conference" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="16334" data-entity-type="event">Munich Security Conference sketching new visions for the trans-Atlantic alliance, one that relies less on America for defense and commerce, and acknowledges that Europe and the United States no longer share some core values.On Saturday, they’ll hear what the Trump administration makes of all that.Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, will speak to open the second day of the conference, after meeting with several leaders in Munich on Friday.European leaders are hoping for a relatively friendly address from Mr. Rubio, whom they largely praise as a constructive partner in security matters, despite Mr. Trump’s differences with Europe. The leaders are not bracing for anything like the scolding they received last year at the gathering from Vice President JD Vance, who criticized Europeans for sidelining far-right parties.But Mr. Rubio will have no shortage of European claims to respond to from this year’s conference, which at times during its first day felt like a late rebuttal of Mr. Vance — and an early prebuttal to whatever Mr. Rubio might have to say.Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany, started the conference with a call for an overhauled intercontinental friendship, while suggesting Washington had in some regards lost its way. Under Mr. Trump in his second term, the United States’ claim to global leadership “has been challenged, and possibly squandered,” he said.Mr. Merz listed the ways in which Mr. Trump’s policies had broken with the values Germans and other Europeans once believed they shared with Americans, including opposition to hate speech, the fight against climate change and support for free trade. “The culture war of the MAGA movement is not ours,” he said.Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, complained in an evening speech that Europe had been unfairly “vilified” as a place of uncontrolled immigration and repression of free speech — a thinly veiled reference to Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance.“Everyone should take their cue from us, instead of criticizing us or trying to divide us,” Mr. Macron said.Still, Mr. Macron, Mr. Merz and others expressed some optimism for the partnership and the continued mutual dependence of the United States and Europe. Kaja Kallas, the top European Union diplomat, said on a panel with Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations that Russia does not have strong allies when it goes to war, but the United States has Europe.“You also need us, to be this superpower,” she said.Here’s what else to know:Ukraine: Mr. Rubio skipped a meeting of European leaders with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the conference on Friday, as negotiations between Ukraine and Russian officials are set to resume next week in Geneva. Talks thus far have made little progress.Greenland: The prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland are set to address the conference on Saturday evening, a day after they met with Mr. Rubio in Munich. The Trump administration is trying to negotiate an expanded U.S. presence in Greenland or a greater official American control of the territory, which is an autonomous part of Denmark, and which Mr. Trump has repeatedly said the United States should own.Nuclear weapons: American and European officials stressed this week that the United States remains committed to its decades-long posture of providing a nuclear shield for its NATO allies in Europe. But Europe is making a backup plan, just in case. Mr. Merz said Friday that Germany had begun talks with France, a nuclear power, on establishing a nuclear deterrent for Europe that would not depend on America.