BRUSSELS — NATO chief Mark Rutte on Wednesday declined to address Donald Trump’s latest warning he could reconsider the U.S. role in the alliance after berating allies for not backing his war in Iran. The U.S. president on Tuesday branded NATO countries “very foolish” for snubbing his demands for military support in securing the critical Strait of Hormuz trade artery. As a result, rethinking the U.S. role in the alliance it founded was “certainly something we should think about,” he said. But asked about the latest broadside, Rutte demurred. “When it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, I have been in contact with many allies. We all agree, of course, the strait has to open up again,” he said. “What I know is that allies are working together discussing how to do that,” he told reporters during a visit to a NATO military exercise in Norway. “What is the best way to do it? They are working on that collectively to find a way forward.” The remarks underscore the high-wire act facing Rutte as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drags into its third week. The secretary-general wants to placate Trump — a longtime NATO skeptic — while avoiding a full embrace of a war which is out-of-area for NATO and has been widely criticized by other allies. Yet the latest comments also mark a change in tack from Rutte, after countries like Spain hit out at the alliance boss for his claim earlier this month that the war enjoyed “widespread support” from NATO allies. The former Dutch prime minister on Wednesday avoided praising the war effort, and did not allude to European support for the conflict. The U.S. has so far not issued specific requests for help from NATO, but individual allies like Estonia have offered to send equipment and vessels to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open after Iran effectively shut off shipping in the chokepoint through which around a fifth of the world’s oil passes.

WARSAW — The EU’s €150 billion SAFE loans-for-weapons program was supposed to boost Poland’s rearmament, but instead it’s fueling a political war between the president and the prime minister. While the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants a €44 billion SAFE loan, aiming to continue the country’s rapid military buildup in a way that doesn’t worsen already strained public finances, nationalist President Karol Nawrocki is hunting for an alternative that involves financing armaments expenditures through the National Bank of Poland (NBP). The two men are sparring ahead of a crucial parliamentary election next year, where the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party aligned with Nawrocki hopes to unseat Tusk’s liberal coalition. The president and prime minster are battling over everything from ambassadorial nominations to undoing PiS’s judicial reforms, economic policy, foreign affairs, Ukraine, the EU and how to approach Nawrocki’s ally Donald Trump. Now the Polish president is turning on SAFE. Nawrocki this week met with central bank chief Adam Glapiński — who is sympathetic to PiS — to put forward a “concrete Polish alternative that will not involve interest payments or loans lasting until 2070,” to create a program worth around 185 billion złoty — equivalent to the SAFE cash the government is aiming for. Nawrocki faces a political decision over the next two weeks on whether to sign off on government legislation laying out rules for spending the Security Action For Europe money or to veto it. The spat in Poland is dismaying the European Commission, which wants member countries to rapidly boost defense spending to fend off the threat from Russia and to continue supporting Ukraine. “Who will lose if Poland doesn’t approve SAFE? Saying no to SAFE is saying no to jobs for Polish people,” Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said in Warsaw on Friday. “If Poland decided to use taxpayers’ money to buy weapons from somewhere else, that will mean Polish taxpayers money will create jobs elsewhere.” Nawrocki and PiS claim that euro-denominated SAFE loans will saddle Poland with decades of debt, create an exchange rate risk and could see Brussels imposing political conditions on the money’s availability. They also warn that contracts funded by SAFE could benefit Western European defense firms — especially those from Germany — rather than domestic producers, despite the government insisting 80 percent of the cash will stay in Poland. Embracing SAFE could also anger the U.S., Poland’s main ally and arms supplier, which has expressed displeasure at the program’s provisions limiting participation of non-EU countries. Nawrocki is allied with Donald Trump while Tusk has voiced doubts over Washington’s reliability and predictability. “Part of it is about signaling to the U.S. that they still have allies in Poland, part about stirring tensions with Germany, and part about creating difficulties for Donald Tusk ahead of the election,” said Ben Stanley, a political scientist at the SWPS University in Warsaw. PiS has been trending lower in POLITICO’s poll of polls since September, not long after Nawrocki won the presidential election, which was supposed to give the party a new powerful momentum. Nawrocki and PiS claim that euro-denominated SAFE loans will saddle Poland with decades of debt. | Jakub Porzycki/Anadolu via Getty Images Trailing by 9 percentage points to Tusk’s Civic Coalition, PiS also has to fight challenges from the far-right Confederation and the even more extreme antisemitic Confederation of the Polish Crown. However, polls do show that Tusk’s party and the other members of his coalition currently would fall short of winning another term in power. “My suspicion is that President Nawrocki will eventually sign, but not before making a great deal of noise and trying to frame the government as having blocked a more pro-Polish solution,” Stanley said. However, Nawrocki could also go for broke and try to block the SAFE loan by pushing his domestic alternative, wrote political scientist Marek Migalski. “The president’s initiative on ‘Polish SAFE’ is politically astute. It justifies the veto and gives his supporters an argument against the government, which not only wants to burden us with debt, but also wants to do so through the evil and deceitful EU,” he wrote on social media. Glapiński said Thursday he intends to propose “measures” that would not cut the country’s foreign currency reserves while securing “tens of billions of złoty” each year for the state-run Armed Forces Support Fund, a vehicle to finance military modernization. Glapiński is hemmed in by legal restrictions limiting the central bank’s ability to finance the budget, but his messaging suggests the NBP is readying a large-scale gold selloff. With 550 tons of gold stored in domestic and foreign vaults, the NBP is one of Europe’s top gold hoarders. “[The NBP] signals a sell–buyback operation involving the central bank’s gold reserves. Although it would formally comply with central bank accounting rules, it could in practice be viewed as risky from the perspective of Poland’s credibility in financial markets,” ING Bank wrote in an analysis of the proposal. “There’s nothing else [the NBP] can do,” a high-ranking government official told POLITICO, speaking on condition of anonymity, when asked if the plan involves selling gold.  Tusk on Thursday called on Nawrocki to sign the SAFE law without delay. “Poland, Polish companies, the employees of those companies and Poland’s security are waiting for money from the SAFE program … There is no room for any political games,” the PM said in a video on X.

LONDON — Donald Trump’s German grandparents may have known the word for what some European officials now feel, as they watch him complain that America’s traditional allies have let him down: Schadenfreude.  Having spent a year criticizing, insulting and threatening European leaders, Trump now sees the value of having friends in strategically important places — if they have military assets he can use, anyway. The U.S-Israel war against Iran would have been a lot easier in its opening days if British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hadn’t denied American bombers permission to take off from U.K. airbases, Trump complained this week.  Starmer, however, is standing his ground, refusing to authorize anything more than “defensive” operations from Royal Air Force facilities in the U.K. and overseas.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is also playing hardball with Trump, condemning what he regards as a law-breaking operation in the Middle East and similarly refusing to let American planes take off from airfields under his control. Sánchez incurred Trump’s rage as a result.  And French President Emmanuel Macron — ever the critical friend — called the Iran war dangerous, warning it doesn’t comply with international law and couldn’t be supported.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez leaving an International Women’s Day event in Madrid. Sánchez is also playing hardball with the U.S. president, incurring Donald Trump’s rage as a result. | Cesar Vallejo Rodriguez/Europa Press via Getty Images The rift now threatens to escalate into a major trade confrontation between the United States and the European Union, while the mythologized “special relationship“ between the U.K. and America is on life support, as the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence approaches.  “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said, as he explained his particular frustration with Starmer.  On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said “the President expects all Europe — all of our European allies, of course — to cooperate in this long-sought-after mission, not just for the United States, but also for Europe, to crush the rogue Iranian regime that not only threatens America, but also threatens our European allies as well.” She told reporters that Spain had now “agreed to cooperate” with the U.S. military — but the Spanish government immediately hit back with a denial. The hardening position of European leaders on Iran marks a watershed moment, just as U.S. President George W. Bush’s doomed and divisive invasion of Iraq in 2003 undermined transatlantic trust for years. The tensions over such a consequential new conflict in the Middle East may even prove existential for the Western alliance, after 12 months that had already strained U.S.-European relations to the breaking point.  “I presume President Trump hasn’t tried to get NATO support for the war in Iran — perhaps he didn’t think it was worthwhile,” Emily Thornberry, chair of the U.K. Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of Starmer’s Labour Party, told POLITICO. “I suspect he may now be learning a lesson about the value of having a broad base of allies.” GHOSTS OF IRAQ Trump’s belligerent approach since returning to office in January 2025 has been hard for many officials in Europe to swallow. He has slashed U.S. support for Ukraine and moved to push Kyiv toward an unwelcome and unbalanced peace deal; castigated “weak” EU leaders for failing to get a grip on immigration; demanded Greenland be handed to America; and is now attacking Iran without so much as consulting key NATO allies.  Now that those allies are alarmed and unwilling to join in, Trump and his MAGA lieutenants are clearly no more forgiving than Bush’s Republicans were when France refused to back the Iraq War two decades ago.  On Tuesday night the president slammed Sánchez’s government as “terrible” and “unfriendly” over its decision to bar U.S. military planes from using Spanish air bases to attack Iran, before threatening to cut all trade with the EU’s fourth-biggest economy. Sánchez hit back on Wednesday, insisting he would not budge.  “We are not going to take a position that goes against our values and principles out of fear of reprisals from others,” Sánchez said during a televised address to the nation.  American air-refueling tankers that had been stationed in Spain left for other military bases in Europe after the Iran war began, according to Reuters. One official told POLITICO that some U.S. tankers had been moved to France on a temporary basis.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent piled on against Spain Wednesday morning during a TV interview. Madrid’s “highly uncooperative” attitude toward American use of the bases would affect the U.S. military’s ability to carry out operations against Iran, he said. “The Spanish put American lives at risk.”  A U.S. Navy ship docked at Naval Station Rota in Spain on March 4. Trump has criticized Spain for refusing to allow American forces to use jointly operated military bases in Rota and Morón to launch attacks on Iran. | Juan Carlos Toro/Getty Images Some Europeans remain in Trump’s good books. During a visit to the White House this week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz received a glowing review from the U.S. president after the Ramstein airbase in Germany was made available to U.S. forces. “Germany’s been great. He’s been terrific,” Trump said. “They’re letting us land in certain areas, and we appreciate it.”  Trump stressed that Washington didn’t want direct German participation in the fighting. “We’re not asking them to put boots on the ground or anything,” he said. WHAT ABOUT UKRAINE? Even if Sánchez, Starmer and Macron — three of Europe’s leading centrists — maintain their stand in the face of American anger, European officials know that ultimately they still need the United States for their security.  Without the president’s pressure, Russia is unlikely to come to the negotiating table to strike a peace deal with Ukraine; without American-made weapons, Ukraine will be in danger of defeat on the battlefield anyway.  A European diplomat from another country said they hoped more EU leaders would follow Spain’s example. “If we want international law, rule-based order and any form of multilateralism to prevail, we must be able to express worry about the American actions,” the diplomat said. “What will our leverage be for Putin’s war in Ukraine if Europe cannot express any objections over the U.S. war on Iran? We would lose credibility.” In the U.S., some saw the risks coming. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly warned Trump that going to war with Iran would be more dangerous without the support of key allies, according to the Washington Post. In private, EU government officials agreed. “Trump needs Europe for this,” one said.  Before the military offensive began, America’s allies in the Gulf were also reported to have urged Trump not to go to war against Iran. He ignored them too.   NOT WORRIED According to a senior White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about diplomatic relationships, Trump’s expectation of full European support is not as unrealistic as some Europeans believe. That’s because the U.S. is still critical to NATO.  “They acknowledged that he was right about the spending,” the official said, referring to last year’s pledge by NATO members to boost defense budgets, driven largely by pressure from Trump. “We still do a lot for Europe.” The official also downplayed the impact of Trump’s Greenland gambit on the broader transatlantic relationship, stating that “it’s no longer an issue for us.” But European reliance on America has not been in doubt. What may be new is an appreciation in Washington that America is not as strong without its traditional alliances.  HMS Dragon docked in Portsmouth, England, on March 4 ahead of deployment to Cyprus. Britain is among several European nations now sending military assets towards the Middle East. | Peter Nicholls/Getty Images “A power that is secure in the reality and legitimacy of its own power does not treat people or other powers like that,” said Constance Stelzenmüller, an expert on Germany and transatlantic relations at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “What Europeans are really worried about when we look at all this is American bluster and overstretch,” Stelzenmüller said. “The thought that we might be witnessing the self-destruction of American power — that is what I think is really putting fear into the minds of even the most critical of allies.”  And there is plenty to be afraid of. Britain, France and Germany are among the European nations now sending their warships and other assets toward the Middle East. Their motive is to protect their own interests, for example by reinforcing the defense of Cyprus, where an Iranian drone hit a British airbase.  But any military deployment to the edge of an escalating war carries the risk that even “defensive” forces could be drawn into the shooting. Then it won’t just be American or Israeli lives on the line, one European diplomat said. “And that’s a big decision.”  Laura Kayali, Chris Lunday and Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting.  

Norway is willing to start talks with Paris on how French nuclear weapons can contribute to the continent’s security, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said on Tuesday. “We are ready to discuss this within the framework of a partnership agreement with France. But our nuclear policy remains firm. We will not have nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil in peacetime,” he told the Norwegian parliament . Oslo’s willingness to start talks is yet another example of how European countries are shifting their security strategies in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and worries about relying on the U.S. following Donald Trump’s reelection. The statement comes after French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Greece agreed to engage with France on the country’s nuclear deterrent. Macron said France will set up “exchange bodies at the political level” in the coming days with the seven nations. Cooperation will include allowing European allies into French “strategic locations,” joint exercises and, ultimately, potentially deploying French nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets in other countries on a temporary basis. Eide said nuclear talks would be part of negotiations on a strategic defense agreement with France. He said Norway — one of Europe’s most U.S.-friendly countries — would also cooperate more closely with other countries, including the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. “This is part of our hedging strategy,” he said.

The U.S. pulled its warplanes from Spanish bases after Madrid prohibited their use against Iran, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said today. Missions involving the bases must “operate within the framework of international law,” the minister said during a press conference at the Armilla Air Base, adding that military installations on Spanish territory would be prohibited from “providing support except if it is necessary from a humanitarian perspective.” Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 recorded over a dozen U.S. aircraft — among them, several Boeing KC-135 aerial refueling tankers — leaving the Morón de la Frontera and Rota airbases this weekend, with seven deploying to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Robles said the U.S. had “likely made those moves because they knew the aircraft could not operate” from Spain. A 1953 agreement with the U.S. gives Madrid a say over how American forces stationed on its territory are used. Robles said that the bases had not participated in last Saturday’s attack on Iran and would not be used for “maintenance and support operations.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is the main EU leader condemning Washington’s attack on Iran, which he described as a “violation of international law.” Robles said that Madrid’s policy on the use of Spanish bases did not reflect any support for the Islamist regime in Tehran, which she characterized as “terrible and dictatorial.” But, she added, “the solution can never be the use of violence.”

The U.K. will allow Washington to use British bases to destroy Iran’s missiles and its ability to fire them at Britain’s allies in the gulf, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Sunday night. “The only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source or the launchers that are used to fire [them],” he said in a video posted on X. “The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose. We have taken the decision to accept this request.” The U.S. and Israel launched strikes Saturday on Iran that killed the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and hit dozens of targets in at least 18 of Iran’s 31 provinces, killing and injuring hundreds. In retaliation, Iran fired missiles and drones at targets in at least nine countries in the region, including U.S. military bases in host countries. Starmer said he had authorized the U.S. to use British bases to “prevent Iran firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians, putting British lives at risk and hitting countries that have not been involved.” “We have at least 200,000 British citizens in the region,” Starmer added. “Our armed forces, which are stationed across the region, are also being put at risk by Iran’s actions,” while “our partners in the gulf have asked us to do more to defend them.” The decision will allow the U.S. to use Britain’s bases at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, and RAF Fairford in the U.K., for the purposes approved by Starmer, a person familiar with the discussions who was granted anonymity to talk about the sensitive topic told POLITICO. U.S. President Donald Trump named the two bases in February as sites the U.S. may need to use to “eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous regime.” Britain had previously refused to let the U.S. use British bases to bomb Iran. A second person familiar with the discussions said Washington’s fresh request to the U.K. was less broad than what the U.S. had previously asked for, and was now focused specifically on stopping Iran’s retaliation against allies in the gulf. The U.K. government published a summary of legal advice on Sunday night which insisted the action “does not signal the U.K. having any wider involvement in the broader ongoing conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran.” In a joint statement earlier Sunday evening, Germany, France and the United Kingdom had opened the door to “enabling” military action against Iran alongside the U.S. and “allies in the region.” In a statement, the leaders of the so-called E3, the three largest European economies, said: “We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.” The communiqué called on Iran to immediately stop its attacks on Western-allied countries and military bases in the Middle East. British, German and French troops have all been put at risk by Iranian counterattacks against primarily U.S. and Israeli targets. The E3 statement stopped short, for now, of announcing the countries will join in American and Israeli strikes on Tehran and sites across Iran. “We are not joining these strikes but will continue with our defensive actions,” Starmer said. “We all remember the mistakes of Iraq, and we have learned those lessons. We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran, and we will not join offensive action now. But Iran is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy, so we are supporting the collective self-defense of our allies and our people in the region.” Following several initial waves of U.S. and Israeli missile and drone attacks on Iran on Saturday, European capitals had scrambled to respond, with some capitals, like Paris, admitting they hadn’t even been looped in by Washington ahead of the attacks. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday declined to criticize U.S. President Donald Trump over the strikes, saying Europe needed Washington’s support to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and that Brussels had itself ultimately failed to contain Tehran through diplomacy. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, had previously lambasted the U.K., France and Germany for not supporting the U.S. strikes more vocally. “You collectively are the ones that are wrong by refusing to come to the Iranian people’s aid,” he wrote on X. The three countries said they had now agreed to work together with the U.S. and allies in the Middle East “on this matter.” “E3 leaders are appalled by the indiscriminate and disproportionate missile attacks launched by Iran against countries in the region, including those who were not involved in initial US and Israeli military operations,” the statement said. “Iran’s reckless attacks have targeted our close allies and are threatening our service personnel and our civilians across the region.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to visit the Arctic region in March, including Greenland, highlighting the importance of the region for the EU. Von der Leyen will also be underlining EU support for Greenland amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s designs on the Danish territory. “President von der Leyen will be visiting the Arctic region, and that will also include Greenland,” Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho told journalists on Thursday. “The visit should take place in March, but we don’t have an exact date at the moment.” The Arctic has become a strategically important region for global powers. Melting ice due to climate change is opening new shipping routes. The EU’s Arctic special envoy, Claude Véron-Réville, has said the region is undergoing “profound changes,” marked by “growing geo-political tensions and geo-economic competition driven by its strategic location.” Von der Leyen’s visit comes just weeks after Trump renewed interest in acquiring Greenland, triggering heightened tensions between the EU and Washington. In January, von der Leyen stressed: “Territorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law. … The EU stands in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland.” NATO has recently started a mission in the region in an effort to keep Trump onside. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said: “Security in the Arctic and the Far North is essential for us as NATO, as Europeans, but also for North America.” Greenland is the biggest financial benefiter under the EU’s Overseas Country and Territory scheme. The European Commission proposed to double financial support for the island starting in 2028.

BRUSSELS — Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken criticized European leaders for speaking too much about nuclear weapons. “Regarding nuclear deterrence, I really don’t understand why European leaders are so loose-lipped. Not wise. Please keep your mouth shut,” he posted on X, in reply to a podcast interview by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. In the interview, the German leader ruled out the development of a German homegrown nuclear deterrent but said German fighter jets could potentially carry French and U.K. nuclear weapons. Germany and Belgium are both part of the U.S. nuclear sharing agreement and their air forces can carry American nuclear bombs. Merz and Francken’s comments come as the conversation about a European nuclear deterrent heats up ahead of a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron on the role of France’s atomic weapons in Europe’s security expected on March 2. The Belgian defense minister also interpreted Merz’s negative comments on the Future Combat Air System fighter jet being developed by Germany, Spain and France as a death sentence for the program. “FCAS is dead, according to the German chancellor in this podcast. There will be no Franco-German sixth-generation fighter jet. Belgium was an observer in the program. We will reassess our position,” Francken said.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music At this year’s Munich Security Conference, the U.S. struck a softer tone — but Europe remains wary. Back in Brussels, as finance ministers gather for a Eurogroup meeting, a new informal format — the so-called E6 — is drawing attention. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland — Europe’s biggest economies — are coordinating more closely, reigniting questions about whether the EU is drifting toward a multi-speed future. Not everyone is comfortable with it. Meanwhile, after 613 days without a fully empowered executive, Brussels finally has a new regional government. Host Zoya Sheftalovich is joined by Nick Vinocur, POLITICO’s chief foreign affairs correspondent. As always, we’d love to hear from you. Send us a line or a voice note with your thoughts — or ideas for topics we should cover. You can reach us at our WhatsApp number, +32 491 05 06 29. **A message for Amazon: Today's episode is presented by Amazon. Sixty percent of sales on Amazon come from independent sellers. Across Europe, over two hundred and eighty thousand Small and Medium Enterprises partner with Amazon to grow their business. Learn more at Aboutamazon.eu. **

MUNICH — European and American leaders spent three days pledging cooperation and offering to slap a new coat of paint on the façade of the transatlantic relationship. But the cracks are still showing. The United States was less combative than a year ago in its showing at the Munich Security Conference, when Vice President JD Vance launched a scorching attack on Europe. But the gathering showed that while the alliance continues to function, the old order that bound the two sides of the Atlantic for decades has broken down. There is no consensus on how the relationship can move forward given the regular seismic shocks the Trump administration revels in delivering to the system.  The list of injuries is a long one. Donald Trump has called to annex Greenland while imposing tariffs on European allies who pushed back; the continent has been bumped down to third place after the Western hemisphere and China on the administration’s list of priorities; new U.S. aid to Ukraine has shriveled to almost nothing; and Europe has been subjected to constant attacks over free speech and digital regulation. Meanwhile, the continent is fighting the rise of MAGA-backed far-right parties at home and a wounded but dangerous Russia on its doorstep that Trump insists on bringing back into the global order.  “I don’t think we will be doing business as usual,” Evika Siliņa, the prime minister of Latvia, a country on the frontline of a potential Russian attack and which depends on allies for its security, told POLITICO. One European CEO said it would take “a generation” to rebuild the trust that has been lost over the past year. SMOOTH TALK That’s despite a clear attempt by top U.S. officials speaking at the stately 18th century hotel in central Munich to tone down recent attacks and pledge a continuing American presence in NATO. “For the United States and Europe, we belong together,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who replaced Vance at this year’s conference, to relieved applause from the gathered leaders. But he framed his appeal in terms of blood and soil familiar to Make America Great Again supporters, based on common (often economic) interests and not the common values of democracy and rule of law that had held the alliance together in past decades. “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir,” Rubio said. The response from European leaders was polite — no one wants to break the remaining bonds with an increasingly unpredictable United States, whose troops, nuclear weapons and military capabilities still give the continent crucial security against Russia. Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very much reassured by the speech of the secretary of state.” | Thomas Kianzle/AFP via Getty Images But on the sidelines of the event, multiple officials compared the current state of affairs to an abusive relationship in which the abuser blames the victim while vacillating between violence and sweet talk. U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, said the past year has been a “roller coaster of emotions” for European policymakers. “I feel like the toxic girlfriend or toxic boyfriend right now … and Europe just wants us to be better.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very much reassured by the speech of the secretary of state,” calling him a “good friend” and a “strong ally.” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer stressed that ties with Washington remain very strong as “we are working with the U.S. on defense, security and intelligence 24-7.” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte echoed in an interview at the POLITICO Pub: “I would argue that NATO is the strongest it has been since the fall of the Berlin Wall.” PULLING AWAY But European leaders are increasingly looking to themselves for their long-term defense. “The international order based on rights and rules … no longer exists in the way it once did,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in Munich, though like other European leaders he didn’t call for a break with the U.S. French President Emmanuel Macron — who didn’t mention NATO once in his speech — told the audience that “Europe has to become a geopolitical power. We have to accelerate and deliver all the components of a geopolitical power: defense, technologies and de-risking from all the big powers.” France, Germany and Sweden are breaking a taboo and starting tentative talks about how France’s atomic arsenal could contribute to the continent’s security — driven by concern about the reliability of America’s nuclear umbrella. Other leaders are thinking the same way. Poland’s pro-MAGA President Karol Nawrocki — who was not at Munich — said on Sunday that Warsaw developing nuclear weapons “is the path we should take” to repel an “aggressive, imperial Russian Federation.” Even Starmer, the most pro-American major European leader, is looking to the continent. “There is no British security without Europe, and no European security without Britain,” he said. Other pro-U.S. leaders are similarly unmoored by what’s happening in Washington. “American foreign policy has changed,” said Alexander Stubb. | Gints Ivuskans/AFP via Getty Images “American foreign policy has changed,” Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland and occasional golf buddy of President Donald Trump, told POLITICO, calling the new approach a blend of MAGA and “America First.” GREENLAND IS A PROBLEM While the past year has seen a host of challenges from Trump to the old security relationship, the most profound break was caused by the U.S. president’s repeated calls to annex Greenland, a Danish territory. U.S. officials in Munich tried to move past the turmoil created by Trump, with Republican Senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham proclaiming: “Who gives a shit who owns Greenland?”  At Munich it was clear that Europeans still care very much. “Everyone is quite confused” by the Trump administration’s signals on taking control of the island, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said on the sidelines of the summit.  Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the continuing U.S. pressure “unacceptable” and warned: “Let me put it this way: If one NATO country attacks another NATO country, then NATO ends. Then it’s game over.” Natalia Pouzyreff, a French lawmaker who sits on the National Assembly’s defense committee, declared a “crisis of confidence” on the continent amid a resigned acceptance that more American provocations are still to come. “We know the issue of Greenland will come back, as will pressure on Canada. Europeans are not ready to take over from the U.S. now: Optimists think it’ll be easy, but realists know it’ll take a few years.” That has Europeans boosting their defense spending to levels not seen since the Cold War — fulfilling a long-standing American demand. But this time, a lot of that cash is being hemmed in with restrictions aimed at focusing much of the spending on Europe’s own military industrial complex in order to minimize reliance on outsiders, including the U.S. Von der Leyen advocated dusting off the EU’s own common defense pact alongside the NATO version, while EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius reiterated his idea of creating a European rapid reaction force of up to 100,000 troops to replace American soldiers if they’re ever withdrawn from the continent. Despite the warmer words from administration officials, there’s no consensus on the continent over how to view the U.S. and where it is heading, even if elections restore a friendlier leadership to Washington. One thing is widely accepted — the post-war alliance as it once stood is gone.  There are few illusions left, as underscored by Rubio’s boarding a plane from Munich to Russia-friendly Hungary and Slovakia. It also wasn’t lost on Europeans that Rubio barely mentioned Russia and Ukraine during his address, several officials told POLITICO. “We know there will be more volatility in the transatlantic relationship,” French Deputy Defense Minister Alice Rufo told reporters. The ties “will never be like before. The shift began a long time ago.” Jack Detsch, Joe Gould, Felicia Schwartz, Chris Lunday, Victor Jack, Esther Webber and Jacopo Barigazzi contributed to this report.