In a speech at the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the United States and Europe "belong together."
"America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity and we want to do it together with you our cherished allies and oldest friends," Rubio said in his February 14 keynote address at Munich's luxury Bayerischer Hof hotel.
Acting together with Europe, he said, "will help restore a sane foreign policy."
Rubio's speech has been widely anticipated amid a frayed transatlantic alliance and after last year's speech by US Vice President JD Vance who lambasted European leaders for their role in what he described as the erosion of democracy on the continent.
Addressing talk of a possible transatlantic divorce, Rubio said that "this is neither our goal nor our wish."
“We don't need to dismantle the global institutions of the old order that together we built -- but these must be reformed,” Rubio told the conference. The US under Trump, he said, wants to lead world "restoration."
Rubio is leading the US delegation -- the largest ever, comprising more than a quarter of the US Senate -- to the three-day annual event, which features hundreds of prominent European leaders, lawmakers, military officials, academics, and others.
'Child Of Europe'
The US secretary of state hailed Europe's rich cultural legacy, saying that "us Americans...will always be a child of Europe."
A report written by the organizers and published ahead of the conference spoke of the advent of "wrecking ball politics" and declared, "The most powerful of those who take the axe to existing rules and institutions is US President Donald Trump."
The conference comes amid worldwide upheaval, including the possibility of US air strikes on Iran and Russia's war in Ukraine nearing its fourth anniversary.
'Hardest Questions' On Ukraine
On the conflict in Ukraine, Rubio said that "the issues to end to war have been narrowed but the bad news is that now it's down to the hardest questions."
Trump has prioritized halting Russia's full-scale war, yet Moscow has displayed little willingness to compromise, leaving the latest two rounds of US-Russia-Ukraine talks stalled.
Rubio is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later on February 14 on the sidelines of the conference.
In a brief question and answer with Wolfgang Ischinger, the chairman of the Munich Security Conference, after his speech, Rubio said "what we can’t answer and [what] we are going to continue to test is whether there is a outcome that Ukraine can live with and that Russia will accept and I would say that has been elusive up to this point."
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg after his conference speech, Rubio said that "I don't think it's possible for Russia to even achieve whatever initial objectives they had at the beginning of this war."
"I think now it's largely narrowed down to their desire to take 20 percent of Donetsk they don't currently posses. And that's hard," Rubio said.
