His comments came after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a speech in Munich that touched on Make America Great Again themes, highlighting Europe and America’s common heritage and shared Christian values, and also underlined that the U.S. still sees European countries as allies.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker, a close Trump ally, also stressed in an interview with POLITICO: “The Americans are not leaving.”
That was a marked contrast to the overt hostility toward the continent displayed last year by U.S. Vice President JD Vance when he appeared on the Munich main stage.
But Stubb noted that Rubio’s comments on an America that is shifting the burden of conventional defense to Europe while focusing on the Western Hemisphere and Asia is not all that different from Vance.
“I think we brought down the temperature in the transatlantic relationship,” Stubb said, noting he spoke with Rubio for roughly half an hour after the speech, adding: “We respect the sovereign choices of countries.”
Rubio’s comments showed a clear ordering of priorities for Washington, Stubb said: “No. 1 is the Western Hemisphere, No. 2 is the Indo-Pacific, and then No. 3 is Europe.”
