Marco Rubio tells Munich security conference US and Europe ‘belong together’

Marco Rubio called for a “reinvigorated” transatlantic alliance in his speech at the Munich security conference on Saturday, as he struck a less contentious tone than JD Vance at last year’s event.

The US secretary of state reassured leaders by declaring that America and Europe “belong together”, while still attacking their policies on immigration, border security and climate change.

He said: “While we are prepared if necessary to do it alone, it is our preference to do it together with you.”

Rubio with Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor LIESA JOHANNSSEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

However, he warned that the US had “no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the west’s managed decline”, criticised the “foolish” concept of a world without borders and suggested that immigration posed a threat to “the survival of civilisation itself”.

Rubio added: “What we want is a reinvigorated alliance, one that is not paralysed into inaction by fear, fear of climate change, fear of war, fear of technology. We want an alliance that boldly races into the future.”