Rubio’s big speech in Greece will supercharge speculation on presidential bid

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In the golden light of an Athens evening, with the Acropolis over his shoulder, Marco Rubio hardly looked like a man planning to ride off into a political sunset.

The secretary of state’s speech in Greece on Wednesday will surely reignite speculation around his future presidential intentions. It implicitly positioned him as both the heir to and the modernizer of the “America First” movement — just weeks before the 2028 race roars into life after the midterm elections.

Rubio depicted the West as a continuous inheritance dating from Ancient Greece to modern America, epitomizing “individuality and relentless ambition, daring exploration and invention” as well as duty and heroism. But he warned that the civilization, ashamed of its achievements and embarrassed by its past, risked “atrophy, servitude and decline.”

“Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power,” Rubio said, giving himself some political cover for the high-profile appearance.

One interpretation is that this was yet another bid to retroactively impose doctrinal coherence on Trump’s erratic foreign policy of Iran war-style gut calls, power grabs and a transactional approach to resources.

And Rubio is just the latest administration official to bemoan Europe’s supposed decline; failure to tackle mass immigration; and prioritization of the “global community” over national interest. This canon was hallmarked by Vice President JD Vance’s stemwinder in Munich last year.

Yet he was seeking something deeper, at times, sketching the framework of a post-MAGA foreign policy in which US sovereignty and action remain paramount, while​ reinvigorating friendships shattered by Trump’s hostility.

“We must rebuild our institutions and alliances” to face new great power rivalries and respond to a “new universe” of threats and attacks, Rubio said.

His comments also reinforced a message to decayed European militaries that the US now expects alliances to offer tangible military multipliers to Washington. It was a hint that while nothing will be the same after Trump, a future Republican president might still value updated transatlantic ties.

Rubio also seemed to be fusing three strands of traditional GOP foreign policy — the muscular internationalism of Ronald Reagan, the realism of Richard Nixon and Trump’s coercive nationalism. He might also have been trying to make sense of his own political evolution from aspirational conservatism to his current, darker worldview. (Rubio’s critics portray his conversion to MAGAism as the cynical act of a political chameleon desperate for power.)

The speech was also jarring and contradictory.

He was the latest Trump acolyte to travel to Europe to explain Europe’s history to Europeans and to adopt an idealized view of Western civilization that fits the needs of America’s Christian nationalist right.

When Rubio laments eroded national sovereignty, like Vance, he seems oblivious to enduring national and cultural differences distinguishing French, German, Italian, and other European citizens. He ignored gruesome history that led late 20th-century leaders to constrain raging nationalism within shared political and economic structures.

And while Trump’s team believes something is rotten in Europe, many Europeans perceive a corrupt and increasingly authoritarian American is most to blame for obliterating Western values. Noting that “passions” have rocked the alliance, Rubio used a deceptive euphemism for Trump’s bullying.

Rubio’s lionizing of the ancient Greeks as foundational to the US also overlooked the founders’ concern that their direct democracy encouraged factionalism and promoted demagogues. Their answer was the Electoral College.

Some Europeans will be offended by Rubio’s speech. But he’s seen by allies as the most conventional and sympathetic Trump foreign policy official, so his comments may be less provocative than rebukes by Vance or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Inevitably, such an ambitious speech using the optics of a major campaign address will stir presidential speculation. Visually, Rubio’s setting recalled then-Sen. Barack Obama’s hilltop speech at the Citadel in Amman, Jordan, in 2008.

A Rubio run in 2028 seems problematic with Vance in pole position as the vice president. But whether he next takes aim at the White House in two years, in 2032, or later, Rubio showed the world Wednesday his ambition is unquenched.

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在雅典傍晚的金色阳光下，肩扛卫城，马可·卢比奥看起来一点也不像是一个即将步入政治生涯暮年的人。

国务卿周三在希腊的演讲无疑将再次引发人们对他未来总统意图的猜测。演讲中，他含蓄地将自己定位为“美国优先”运动的继承者和改革者——而此时距离2028年总统大选在期中选举后正式拉开帷幕仅剩几周时间。

鲁比奥将西方描绘成从古希腊到现代美国一脉相承的遗产，是“个性、不懈的雄心、大胆的探索和发明”以及责任和英雄主义的缩影。但他警告说，如果西方文明对其成就感到羞愧，对其过去感到尴尬，那么它就有可能面临“萎缩、奴役和衰落”。

“在特朗普总统的领导下，美国已经做出了选择。我们选择毫不妥协地追求国家实力，”鲁比奥说道，这番话也为他此次高调露面提供了一些政治掩护。

一种解释是，这是又一次试图追溯性地将教义上的连贯性强加于特朗普反复无常的外交政策之上，这种政策包括伊朗战争式的凭直觉做出的决定、攫取权力以及对资源进行交易式的处理。

鲁比奥只是最新一位对欧洲所谓的衰落、未能解决大规模移民问题以及将“全球共同体”置于国家利益之上而感到不满的政府官员。去年，副总统万斯在慕尼黑发表的慷慨激昂的演讲就体现了这种论调。

然而，他有时也在寻求更深层次的东西，勾勒出后“让美国再次伟大”时代的外交政策框架，在这个框架中，美国的主权和行动仍然至关重要，同时重振因特朗普的敌意而破裂的友谊。

鲁比奥说：“我们必须重建我们的机构和联盟”，以应对新的大国竞争，并应对“新的”威胁和攻击。

他的言论也向日渐衰落的欧洲军队传递了一个信息：美国现在期望盟友能为华盛顿带来切实的军事效益。这暗示着，尽管特朗普之后一切都将改变，但未来的共和党总统或许仍会重视更新后的跨大西洋关系。

卢比奥似乎也在融合共和党传统外交政策的三种元素——罗纳德·里根的强硬国际主义、理查德·尼克松的现实主义以及特朗普的强制性民族主义。他或许也在试图理解自己政治立场的演变，从充满抱负的保守主义到如今更为阴暗的世界观。（卢比奥的批评者将他转向“让美国再次伟大”运动描述为一位渴望权力的政治变色龙的犬儒主义行为。）

这篇演讲也令人感到刺耳且自相矛盾。

他是最新一位前往欧洲向欧洲人解释欧洲历史，并迎合美国基督教民族主义右翼需求，对西方文明抱持理想化观点的特朗普追随者。

当鲁比奥像万斯一样哀叹国家主权受到侵蚀时，他似乎忽视了法国、德国、意大利和其他欧洲国家公民之间根深蒂固的民族和文化差异。他无视了那段惨痛的历史，正是这段历史促使20世纪后期的领导人将高涨的民族主义情绪限制在共同的政治和经济框架之内。

尽管特朗普团队认为欧洲出了问题，但许多欧洲人却认为，腐败且日益专制的美国人才是摧毁西方价值观的罪魁祸首。卢比奥指出，“激情”已经动摇了美欧联盟，他用一个具有欺骗性的委婉说法来指代特朗普的霸凌行为。

鲁比奥将古希腊人奉为美国建国之本，却忽略了建国先贤们的担忧：直接民主制容易滋生派系斗争，助长煽动民粹主义。他们的应对之策便是选举人团制度。

一些欧洲人会对鲁比奥的演讲感到不满。但盟友们认为他是特朗普外交政策官员中最传统、最同情特朗普的一位，因此他的言论可能不如万斯或国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯的谴责那样具有挑衅性。

不可避免地，如此雄心勃勃、以竞选演说形式呈现的演讲，势必会引发人们对总统人选的猜测。从视觉上看，鲁比奥的演讲场景让人想起2008年时任参议员巴拉克·奥巴马在约旦安曼城堡发表的山顶演讲。

如果卢比奥在2028年参选，考虑到万斯很可能成为副总统，这似乎不太现实。但无论他下次是否在两年后、2032年或更晚的时候再次觊觎白宫，卢比奥周三向世人表明，他的雄心壮志依然不减。