by WorldTribune Staff, February 15, 2026 Real World News

Before boarding a plane on Feb. 12 to the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned reporters that he would be reinforcing President Donald Trump’s doctrine in Europe that has upended globalist foreign policy assumptions:

“The world is changing very fast right in front of us. The old world is gone… We live in a new era in geopolitics.”

Rubio took the Trump Administration’s world view straight to Europe’s leaders, informing them that in the Cold War’s aftermath, the “euphoria of this triumph led us to a dangerous delusion: that we had entered, quote, ‘the end of history;’ that every nation would now be a liberal democracy; that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood; that the rules-based global order – an overused term – would now replace the national interest; and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world.”

That idea, Rubio said, was foolish and “ignored both human nature and it ignored the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history.”

Europe must save itself, Rubio continued, because “we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline.”

He continued:

We increasingly outsourced our sovereignty to international institutions while many nations invested in massive welfare states at the cost of maintaining the ability to defend themselves. This, even as other countries have invested in the most rapid military buildup in all of human history and have not hesitated to use hard power to pursue their own interests. To appease a climate cult, we have imposed energy policies on ourselves that are impoverishing our people, even as our competitors exploit oil and coal and natural gas and anything else – not just to power their economies, but to use as leverage against our own.

And in a pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people. We made these mistakes together, and now, together, we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward, to rebuild.

Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past. And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.

Rubio went on to say that “we can no longer place the so-called global order above the vital interests of our people and our nations.”

He concluded with a welcomed diplomatic tone:

“…America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and that once again we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends. We want to do it together with you, with a Europe that is proud of its heritage and of its history; with a Europe that has the spirit of creation of liberty that sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilization; with a Europe that has the means to defend itself and the will to survive.”

The speech ended with a long standing ovation.

Sarah Anderson noted for PJ Media that Rubio had “assured the Europeans that the United States is not abandoning them, but the old playbook is shelved. If the alliance is to continue, Europe must adapt and defend the true interests of its people and Western civilization unlike ever before.

“You could almost hear a sigh of a relief in the room, but how these European leaders will actually respond remains to be seen. I, for one, am not particularly hopeful.”

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  Rubio urges West to get real: We ‘outsourced sovereignty’ but ‘are connected spiritually’, WorldTribune.com