Secretary of State Marco Rubio leads US to Munich Security Conference

Minister of State Marco Rubio He leads the US delegation to the high-level Munich Security Conference – one year after becoming vice president J.D. Vance He took to the German stage in a speech that stunned many in Europe and became one of the defining moments at the beginning of Trump’s second term abroad.

“President Trump has assembled the most talented team in history, including Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio, who are working together to deliver victories for the American people,” White House press secretary Olivia Wells told Fox News Digital before Rubio’s speech.

“The President and his team have flexed their foreign policy prowess to end decades-long wars, secure peace in the Middle East, and restore American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The entire administration is working together to restore peace through strength and put America first.”

The Munich Security Conference is an annual high-level forum in Germany that attracts hundreds of senior decision-makers – including heads of state, senior ministers, military commanders and political influencers – for closed-door and public talks on global security crises.

Vance and Rubio cheer on the US women’s ice hockey team in their opening win at the Winter Olympics

Vice President J.D. Vance took the German stage one year ago in a speech that stunned many in Europe and became one of the defining moments at the start of Trump’s second term abroad. (Matthias Schrader/Associated Press)

Among the prominent Democrats attending the conference were former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Democratic New York State Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and California Governor Gavin Newsom, in addition to Rubio.

Vance became one of the central figures at the Munich 2025 rally after a widely publicized speech that received significant attention and applause from conservatives in the wake of the Biden administration. It also sparked violent reactions among some European officials who considered his statements confrontational.

Rubio’s attendance at the 2026 meeting follows a long history of the secretary of state holding a series of different roles under the second administration, including acting national security adviser, secretary of state, acting archivist of the United States, and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Amid rising trans-Atlantic tensions, the Foreign Secretary issued a warning to Europe as he departed on his trip to Germany on Thursday.

Vance and Rubio welcome US Winter Olympians to Italy

“The old world is over,” Rubio told reporters as he departed for Europe on Thursday. “Frankly, the world that I grew up in, and we’re living in a new era in geopolitics, is going to require all of us to reconsider what that looks like, and what our role is going to be.”

president Donald Trump His administration has repeatedly warned Europe that it has shifted to a culture of political correctness, censorship of speech, and a security system that relies heavily on US funding and military power. Amid the rhetoric about Europe, the administration has continued to emphasize the importance of US-European relations, including in Rubio’s comments on Thursday.

“We are very closely linked to Europe,” he told reporters. “Most people in this country can trace both things, either their cultural heritage or their personal heritage, to Europe. So, we just have to talk about it.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to explain President Donald Trump’s policy toward Venezuela in the wake of the US military raid that ousted then-President Nicolas Maduro, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, January 28, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

Vance used his speech at the Munich Security Conference to deliver a blunt warning to Europe’s political class in 2025, saying the greatest danger on the continent is not Moscow or Beijing, but rather what he described as internal democratic decay exacerbated by political correctness and censorship.

Rubio warns NATO allies that the United States is “not simply focused on Europe” and does not have unlimited resources

He accused European governments and institutions of drifting toward censorship, citing policies that he said included policing speech, restricting religious expression, and pressure on internet platforms. He also said elites were trying to manage the election and debate by dismissing unwelcome results and calling the opposition “disinformation” to marginalize populists and voter backlash.

“What worries me is the threat from within, and Europe’s retreat from some of its core values ​​— values ​​it shares with the United States of America,” Vance said in a 2025 speech that left many European leaders stunned, according to reports at the time.

Vance is also abroad this week, holding meetings with Armenia and Azerbaijan, including the signing of a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with Armenia and a strategic partnership with Azerbaijan.

The trip came after Vance and Rubio joined a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier in February in Italy, and Vance led a delegation that included Rubio during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Milan.

A source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that there were never plans for the vice president to attend the 2026 conference in Munich.

Trump lauds Rubio as diplomatic mentor as secretary of state grows more powerful

Vance’s foreign policy footprint became a subject of political media scrutiny earlier in 2026 when the US military successfully captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Vance was not among the prominent American leaders who joined Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to monitor the operation, unlike Rubio, who was with the president.

The vice president’s office brushed off media alarm about his absence, noting that Trump and Vance are limiting the “frequency and duration” of time they spend together outside the White House due to “heightened security concerns.”

It is by no means expected that the Vice President will attend the Munich Security Conference every year, as former Vice President Mike Pence, for example, attended the conference twice during the first Trump administration, and former Vice President Kamala Harris attended three times during the Biden administration. Former secretaries of state such as John Kerry, Anthony Blinken and Hillary Clinton have attended and addressed the panel in previous years.

Additionally, Vance attended a separate Munich Security Conference event, the Leaders’ Conference, in Washington, D.C., in May 2025.

Trump praised Vance’s 2025 speech as “terrific” in a statement to reporters at the time, noting that they were “losing their wonderful right to free speech” in Europe and that Vance had made a strong case against too many lax immigration policies in Europe.

Since then, Trump’s team has repeatedly echoed the same criticism in official channels, including a State Department campaign that criticized European restrictions on free speech and targeted the European Union’s Digital Services Act as “Orwellian” censorship, along with new visa restrictions targeting foreign officials accused of censoring Americans online.

President Donald Trump holds his signature on the Founding Charter during the Peace Council signing ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 22, 2026. (Chip Somodevila/Getty Images)

Only in December 2025 did Trump criticize European countries for not “recognizing” them at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in what would be another fiery speech from Americans on European soil on Saturday.

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“I don’t want to insult anyone and say I don’t admit it,” Trump said during his special speech in Davos. He added, “This is not in a positive way. It is in a very negative way. I love Europe and I want to see Europe going well, but it is not going in the right direction.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment on the letter on Friday.