US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was the centre of attention at the Munich Security Summit, as European leaders wondered apprehensively what tone he would strike in his remarks on Saturday.
While his speech did not fully allay their concerns, it has been viewed as a reassurance to allies that while US relations may have frayed under Donald Trump, they will not break.
Rubio’s was not the only American political voice at the security summit, however.
And even if the secretary of state’s remarks had not been so well-received – if he had sharply criticised Europeans the way Vice-President JD Vance did at the conference last year – there were other American politicians doing their best impression of the Persian poet, counselling: “This too shall pass”.
“If there’s nothing else I can communicate today,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said at a conference event on Friday, “Donald Trump is temporary. He’ll be gone in three years.”
Newsom was just one of dozens of American legislators and governors in attendance – including some Democrats, like the Californian, who may contend for their party’s 2028 presidential nomination.
Many emphasised that the US would continue to be a strong partner with Europe – lines similar to those offered by Rubio, but unleavened by his criticism of cultural decline on the continent.
“The reason we’re here is to provide reassurance that we understand how important our European allies are,” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said.
A Republican in attendance, Senator Thom Tillis, echoed her, noting that the US and Europe were not in a “civil war”. He cautioned American allies not to get caught up in the “rhetoric of American politics”.
That has been easier said than done recently, as Trump has imposed steep tariffs on many US trading partners, and he and some of his top aides have been blunt in their desire to reshape the international order, use American military power and refocus American foreign policy on the western hemisphere.
The president’s designs on Greenland – which he repeated before departing the White House for a weekend in Florida on Friday – have been only the most jarring example of the shift in the American outlook.
Trump’s willingness to push boundaries and test the limits of his power has not been limited to foreign affairs. And several Democrats took time in Munich to address more domestic concerns.
