One analyst called the US secretary of state’s address “one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I’ve ever seen a senior American official make, and that’s saying something.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio receives a standing ovation after his speech during the 62nd Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2026 in Munich, Germany.
(Photo by Alex Brandon/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Feb 16, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s defense of Western colonialism and imperial power at the Munich Security Conference and the applause his remarks received from attendees were seen as deeply unsettling in the context of the Trump administration’s brazen trampling of international law, including the recent kidnapping of the president of a sovereign nation.
While Rubio gave lip service in his remarks to multilateral cooperation with Europe in what he called the global “task of renewal and restoration,” he made clear the US would carry out its agenda alone if needed and accused European allies of succumbing to a “climate cult,” embracing “free and unfettered trade,” and opening their doors to “unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies,” echoing the rhetoric of his boss, US President Donald Trump.
Rubio lamented the decline of the “great Western empires” in the face of “godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come”—and made clear that the Trump administration envisions a return to “the West’s age of dominance.”
“We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” said Rubio. “We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history.”
Attendees at the Munich conference—which notably did not include representatives of Latin America at a time when the Trump administration is embracing and expanding the Monroe Doctrine—gave Rubio a standing ovation:
“Standing ovation for Rubio in Munich. Standing ovation for Netanyahu in Washington,” wrote Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler, referring to the Israeli prime minister’s visit to the US capital last week. “We are ruled by a transatlantic clique of criminals and midwit minions who clap like seals when their white supremacy is laundered by the language of ‘Western values.’ Sick stuff.”
Critics viewed the US secretary of state’s speech—both the explicit words and its undertones—as a self-serving interpretation of the past and a dangerous vision of the future, and expressed alarm at the celebratory response from the Munich crowd.
Geopolitical analyst Arnaud Bertrand called Rubio’s address “one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I’ve ever seen a senior American official make, and that’s saying something.”
“Basically the man is openly saying that the whole post-colonial order was a mistake and he’s calling on Europe to share the spoils of building a new one,” Bertrand wrote on social media. “When an imperial power is speaking to you of sentiments, of how much they like you and how they want to partner with you—the much weaker party—that’s cause for worry, not applause.”
Nathalie Tocci, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Europe, compared Rubio’s address to US Vice President JD Vance’s openly hostile attack on European nations during his Munich speech last year.
“Rubio’s message was more sophisticated and strategic than Vance’s. But it was just as dangerous, if not more so, precisely because it lowered the transatlantic temperature and may have lulled Europe into a false sense of calm,” Tocci wrote in a Guardian op-ed on Monday. “As Benjamin Haddad, France’s Europe minister, said in Munich, the European temptation may be to press the snooze button once again.”
“If Europeans were comforted by a false sense of reassurance as they walked away from the packed Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich,” Tocci added, “they risk walking straight into the trap that MAGA America has laid for them.”
‘Wake Up Before It’s Too Late,’ Says AOC as Rubio Embraces Autocrat Orbán
“It’s time to take the gloves off and fight for our future,” the democratic socialist congresswoman asserted.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio leave the podium after a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary on February 16, 2026.
(Photo by Alex Brandon/Pool AP/AFP via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
Feb 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio heaped praise upon Viktor Orbán as he seeks a sixth term as Hungary’s increasingly autocratic prime minister, progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday implored democracy defenders to “take the gloves off and fight for our future.”
Visiting Budapest, the Hungarian capital, on the last leg of a three-country tour of Europe, Rubio pressed the Trump administration’s thumb on the proverbial scale of Hungary’s April election with a ringing endorsement of Orbán, telling him that President Donald Trump “is deeply committed to your success.”
That’s a glaring departure from a 2019 warning from lawmakers including then-Sen. Rubio (R-Fla.) to Trump that democracy had “significantly eroded” in Hungary as Orbán consolidated control over the electoral process, judiciary, and press. Now, Rubio says Orbán’s success is “essential and vital” to US national interests.
“From Orbán to Trump, the rise of far-right movements is tightly coordinated and transcends borders,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Facebook in response to Rubio’s visit. “So too should be our international defense of democracy and the fight for working people. From policy to tactics, it’s time to take the gloves off and fight for our future.”
Although Hungary openly flouted a US ban on importing oil, natural gas, or coal from Russia amid President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion and occupation of Ukraine, Trump recently granted Budapest a one-year exemption from sanctions.
And while Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s pursuit of an independent foreign policy—which included close relations with Russia and China—was cited as a reason for the US invasion of Venezuela and abduction of Maduro, Rubio said that Orbán’s increasingly close ties with Moscow and Beijing are a matter of Hungarian sovereignty.
“We’re not asking any country in the world to isolate themselves from anybody,” Rubio said, although that’s exactly what the Trump administration reportedly ordered Venezuela’s interim government to do to China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba.
“There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I’m going to be very blunt with you,” Rubio told reporters Monday, adding that Trump and Orbán “have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship, and I think it has been incredibly beneficial to the relationship between our two countries.”
Speaking Friday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Ocasio-Cortez accused Trump of trying to usher in an “age of authoritarianism.”
“We have to have a working-class-centered politics if we are going to succeed,” she said, “and also if we are going to stave off the scourges of authoritarianism, which provides political siren calls to allure people into finding scapegoats to blame for rising economic inequality, both domestically and globally.”
Ocasio-Cortez—whose increasingly high profile has sparked speculation of a possible run for higher office—also slammed the “hypocrisies” of US foreign policy, “whether it is kidnapping a foreign head of state, whether it is threatening our allies to colonize Greenland, whether it is looking the other way in a genocide, hypocrisies are vulnerabilities, and they threaten democracies globally.”
“This is a moment where we are seeing our presidential administration tear apart the transatlantic partnership,” she added. “What is happening is indeed very grave, and we are in a new era, domestically and globally.”
“It’s time to take the gloves off and fight for our future,” the democratic socialist congresswoman asserted.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio leave the podium after a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary on February 16, 2026.
(Photo by Alex Brandon/Pool AP/AFP via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
Feb 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio heaped praise upon Viktor Orbán as he seeks a sixth term as Hungary’s increasingly autocratic prime minister, progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday implored democracy defenders to “take the gloves off and fight for our future.”
Visiting Budapest, the Hungarian capital, on the last leg of a three-country tour of Europe, Rubio pressed the Trump administration’s thumb on the proverbial scale of Hungary’s April election with a ringing endorsement of Orbán, telling him that President Donald Trump “is deeply committed to your success.”
That’s a glaring departure from a 2019 warning from lawmakers including then-Sen. Rubio (R-Fla.) to Trump that democracy had “significantly eroded” in Hungary as Orbán consolidated control over the electoral process, judiciary, and press. Now, Rubio says Orbán’s success is “essential and vital” to US national interests.
“From Orbán to Trump, the rise of far-right movements is tightly coordinated and transcends borders,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Facebook in response to Rubio’s visit. “So too should be our international defense of democracy and the fight for working people. From policy to tactics, it’s time to take the gloves off and fight for our future.”
Although Hungary openly flouted a US ban on importing oil, natural gas, or coal from Russia amid President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion and occupation of Ukraine, Trump recently granted Budapest a one-year exemption from sanctions.
And while Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s pursuit of an independent foreign policy—which included close relations with Russia and China—was cited as a reason for the US invasion of Venezuela and abduction of Maduro, Rubio said that Orbán’s increasingly close ties with Moscow and Beijing are a matter of Hungarian sovereignty.
“We’re not asking any country in the world to isolate themselves from anybody,” Rubio said, although that’s exactly what the Trump administration reportedly ordered Venezuela’s interim government to do to China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba.
“There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I’m going to be very blunt with you,” Rubio told reporters Monday, adding that Trump and Orbán “have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship, and I think it has been incredibly beneficial to the relationship between our two countries.”
Speaking Friday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Ocasio-Cortez accused Trump of trying to usher in an “age of authoritarianism.”
“We have to have a working-class-centered politics if we are going to succeed,” she said, “and also if we are going to stave off the scourges of authoritarianism, which provides political siren calls to allure people into finding scapegoats to blame for rising economic inequality, both domestically and globally.”
Ocasio-Cortez—whose increasingly high profile has sparked speculation of a possible run for higher office—also slammed the “hypocrisies” of US foreign policy, “whether it is kidnapping a foreign head of state, whether it is threatening our allies to colonize Greenland, whether it is looking the other way in a genocide, hypocrisies are vulnerabilities, and they threaten democracies globally.”
“This is a moment where we are seeing our presidential administration tear apart the transatlantic partnership,” she added. “What is happening is indeed very grave, and we are in a new era, domestically and globally.”
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