Sigh of relief: Inside America’s European clean up operation

  It was the speech Europe had been hoping for.

In his much anticipated address at the landmark Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempted to reset transatlantic relationships, emphasising historic and cultural ties between the US and Europe, and describing Europeans as “our cherished allies and oldest friends”.

It was a far cry from the Trump administration’s previous rhetoric towards Europe.

Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has battered transatlantic relations, attempting to seize territory from a European ally, nearly imploding the Nato military alliance and insulting European contributions to the war in Afghanistan.

The White House has wavered in support for Ukraine, publicly humiliating its president in a jaw-dropping Oval Office spat, temporarily pausing military aid to Kyiv and repeating Russian disinformation about the war.

Rubio’s speech indicated it may finally have recognised that it had gone too far, describing the US as a “child of Europe” and saying the two “belong together.”

Mike Sfraga, former US Ambassador to the Arctic, said the speech did not stray from Trump’s policy agenda but communicated it in a totally different way, and would trigger a “sigh of relief” among allies.

“There was applause when he spoke about Europe coming with the US, and sighs of relief,” he told The i Paper.

“When the Secretary of State was saying Americans were ‘children of Europe’, that was a palpable moment. You could see the audience rise to that moment. Choosing to go ‘with Europe’… using those words meant something. The message [about the US’s direction] was received but the US is not looking to decouple from Europe.”

Sfraga, who is now based at the American Arctic University, has spoken to many in Greenland unnerved by the US threats. This rhetoric – of diplomacy and friendship – is “far more helpful”.

But another European diplomatic source said the messaging from the US was confusing, lurching from a hostile speech from Vance last year, to warmth from Rubio today.

“But this administration is not known for keeping their word anyway,” they added.

A warmer approach for Rubio

The change in tone isn’t wholly surprising; the deployment of Rubio to deliver the keynote speech, rather than JD Vance, had been read as a potential olive branch, and one European diplomatic source said last night they had been expecting a more conciliatory tone.

Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte also said he was not taken aback by the tone of the speech.

“I didn’t need to make a sigh of relief, because I knew the US was committed to Europe,” he said in a small briefing with press including The i Paper, insisting that Nato was stronger than at any time since the Cold War.

The Trump administration, however, is notoriously unpredictable, and few European diplomats here would be drawn into making predictions about the content of the speech before it was delivered.

Ahead of the conference, European insiders said they weren’t expecting congratulations from the US on their defence spending increases and support for Ukraine, but said they were confident that the White House was committed to its offer of providing a security backstop for Kyiv in the event of a peace deal.

They said that Europe’s leadership on post-war plans for Ukraine, with France and the UK spearheading plans for a peacekeeping force in the country – showed that they were listening to the US and taking initiative on security.

Europe has ‘closed ranks’

Another European diplomatic source said that Europe had pulled closer together than ever before. This galvanised after Davos, when the continent “closed ranks” after Trump said he should be allowed to seize Greenland as a “small ask” and wrongly claimed that “the United States was paying for virtually 100 per cent of Nato”.

They said that Europe had been successfully managing an increasingly volatile US and keeping it engaged with the war in Ukraine.

Read Next: Nato will never recover from Trump’s threats, says ex-Pentagon official

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former Prime Minister of Ukraine, told The i Paper that Rubio’s speech was undoubtedly a more positive note from the US – but had one glaring ommission.

“It was better than last year,” he said wryly. “There was a clear signal of cooperation on transatlantic relations. But I was disappointed that there was no mention of Ukraine in his speech. That was deliberate without a doubt.”

“We were happy when Rubio joined the negotiations, and his personal perspective seems to be quite realistic.”

Rubio did not explicitly mention the conflict until asked directly about it after his address, to which he replied it was still unclear whether Russia was serious about peace.

But does anyone believe the US?

The speech triggered a standing ovation from the world’s top policymakers and sighs of relief across Europe – but won’t heal the wounds inflicted by the White House overnight.

Rachel Ellehuus, a former Pentagon and Nato official who is now director general of defence at think tank RUSI, said that while the messages “were more pragmatic, reflecting a traditional Republican view of alliances as beneficial to the US, I’m not sure anyone believes it.”

“Important questions remain around the meaning of ‘flexible realism’; whether the US would turn up to defend Europe in a crisis; and whether the US sees Russia as a threat,” she said.

In his speech, Sir Keir Starmer, remained steadfast in his belief that the US was an indispensable ally that has made an unparalleled contribution to Europe’s security, but said that a more European Nato would help reduce the continent’s overdependence on Washington.

Demonstrating his belief, the Prime Minister said the UK will deploy its carrier strike group to the North Atlantic and the Arctic this year, operating alongside US, Canadian and other Nato allies in a show of Euro-Atlantic security commitment.

Such a commitment may even represent a cooling in tensions over Greenland, but whether Rubio’s speech has healed the wounds of the last 12 months remains to be seen.