Security Conference Focuses on Tensions02/13 06:13

   

   MUNICH (AP) -- An annual gathering of top international security figures 
that last year set the tone for a growing rift between the United States and 
Europe opens Friday, bringing together many top European officials with U.S. 
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others.

   The Munich Security Conference opens with a speech by German Chancellor 
Friedrich Merz, one of 15 heads of state or government from European Union 
countries expected to attend.

   The many other expected guests at the conference that runs until Sunday 
include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Chinese Foreign Minister 
Wang Yi. In keeping with the conference's tradition, there will also be a large 
delegation of members of the U.S. Congress.

   "Trans-Atlantic relations have been the backbone of this conference since it 
was founded in 1963 ... and trans-Atlantic relations are currently in a 
significant crisis of confidence and credibility," conference chairman Wolfgang 
Ischinger told reporters earlier this week. "So it is particularly welcome that 
the American side has such great interest in Munich."

   At last year's conference, held a few weeks into U.S. President Donald 
Trump's second term, Vice President JD Vance stunned European leaders by 
lecturing them about the state of democracy on the continent.

   A series of statements and moves from the Trump administration targeting 
allies followed in the months after that, including Trump's threat last month 
to impose new tariffs on several European countries in a bid to secure U.S. 
control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. The 
president later dropped that threat.

   With Rubio heading the U.S. delegation this year, European leaders can hope 
for a less contentious approach more focused on traditional global security 
concerns.

   Rubio is expected to meet with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and 
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on the sidelines of the 
conference, according to officials from both sides, one of many meetings going 
on in and around the hotel that hosts the event.

   Rubio also met China's Wang ahead of Trump's planned visit to China in 
April. They shook hands in front of Chinese and U.S. flags before sitting down 
with their delegations, but neither of them spoke.

   Before departing for Germany on Thursday, Rubio had some reassuring words as 
he described Europe as important for Americans.

   "We're very tightly linked together with Europe," he told reporters. "Most 
people in this country can trace both, either their cultural or their personal 
heritage, back to Europe. So, we just have to talk about that."

   But Rubio made clear it wouldn't be business as it used to be, saying: "We 
live in a new era in geopolitics, and it's going to require all of us to 
reexamine what that looks like."

   Rubio arrived in Munich Friday and is due to address the conference on 
Saturday morning.

   Since last year's Munich conference, NATO allies have agreed under pressure 
from Trump to a large increase in their defense spending target.

   NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said there has been a "shift in mindset," 
with "Europe really stepping up, Europe taking more of a leadership role within 
NATO, Europe also taking more care of its own defense."