{"id":931,"date":"2026-05-23T08:03:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southfloridamovingguides.com\/?p=931"},"modified":"2026-05-23T08:03:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:03:57","slug":"rubio-aims-to-ease-tensions-with-nato-allies-as-trump-confounds-them-with-abrupt-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southfloridamovingguides.com\/?p=931","title":{"rendered":"Rubio aims to ease tensions with NATO allies as Trump confounds them with abrupt decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Secretary of State Marco Rubio already faced a difficult task in soothing NATO allies anxious about President Donald Trump\u2019s often-abrupt announcements. Then Trump did it again.<\/p>\n

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Just hours after Rubio departed for Friday\u2019s NATO foreign ministers meeting in Sweden, Trump stunned virtually everyone by announcing he would send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland, a country that recently was told it would not be getting an expected deployment.<\/p>\n

At the meeting, Rubio tried to calmly explain the situation to Europeans who have been unnerved by Trump\u2019s constant unpredictability: The U.S. remains committed to NATO but will adjust its military footprint in Europe, which eventually will mean fewer American troops on the continent.<\/p>\n

Rubio and NATO chief Mark Rutte insisted that the U.S. is consulting with allies. Yet the announcements have blindsided some countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, I think it\u2019s well understood in the alliance that the United States\u2019 troop presence in Europe is going to be adjusted,” Rubio told reporters. \u201cThat work was already ongoing, and it\u2019s been done in coordination with our allies. I\u2019m not saying they\u2019re going to be thrilled about it, but they certainly are aware of it. It shouldn\u2019t be a surprise to anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio insisted that \u201cnone of this is surprising, although obviously I understand why it creates some nervousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

America’s top diplomat has often been called on to offer a calmer, less antagonistic presence from the Trump administration. Rubio has been dispatched on several such missions this year, including to the Munich Security Conference in February and, more recently, to Italy, where he met with Italian officials and Pope Leo XIV after Trump criticized the American pontiff for his stances on crime and the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Lack of clarity remains about US troop drawdowns in Europe<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s meeting in the city of Helsingborg, which precedes a NATO leaders\u2019 summit in Turkey in July, also came amid great uncertainty over how the war in Iran will play out and whether stalled U.S. efforts to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict will resume. Resentment also still simmers on the continent over Trump\u2019s criticism of allies and his interest in taking over Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark.<\/p>\n

Still, it was the abrupt reversal of the Poland decision and an earlier announcement about drawing down thousands of U.S. troops in Germany that attracted the most attention.<\/p>\n

Rubio said \u201cthis is not a decision that was made on the back of a napkin\u201d and that the Germans \u201cdidn\u2019t freak out about it\u201d because the reduction brought the numbers back to where they were three years ago.<\/p>\n

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With details about the Poland deployment still unknown a day later, Dan Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland and assistant secretary of state for Europe, slammed the Trump administration for its initial decision and an inability to explain the reversal.<\/p>\n

He called it the result of a \u201cbad process or lack of process\u201d and said it created \u201can absolute mess\u201d with America\u2019s European allies. \u201cIt was a poorly managed decision \u2014 people were appalled,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fried, who was traveling throughout Europe for three weeks before returning home Friday, said he had been doing a live TV interview in Poland on Thursday night when Trump announced the surprise reversal. He said he and the host had to laugh when they saw the news.<\/p>\n

Although Fried welcomed the step, he said it pointed to larger issues that raise major concerns about the administration\u2019s commitment to NATO and its seriousness about demanding reforms, such as spending more on defense, that most members have already agreed to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration\u2019s seriousness about that policy is now in serious question,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are so haphazard and chaotic that they can\u2019t take yes for an answer. The administration needs to pull itself together.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the second day in a row, Rubio declined to discuss any further changes to the American military presence in Europe, including a possible reduction in the number of troops that the U.S. will commit under the NATO Force Model, which is a contingency plan for European defense in the event of serious security concerns.<\/p>\n

Rubio reiterates criticism of NATO over the Iran war<\/p>\n

Rubio repeated that he is a \u201cstrong supporter\u201d of the transatlantic military alliance and called it important. But he reiterated complaints that some NATO allies, notably Spain, had refused to allow access to U.S. bases for the Iran conflict and others had been reluctant, if not resistant, to join a coalition to reopen and protect the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping route that Iran largely has closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen some of those bases are denied to you during a conflict that we\u2019re involved in, then you question whether that value is still there,\u201d he said Friday. \u201cSo that\u2019s going to have to be discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio, who was heading next to India, noted that nearly all NATO allies agree that Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, but few, if any, stepped up when Trump said he would take action to prevent it.<\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Secretary of State Marco Rubio already faced a difficult task in soothing NATO allies anxious about President Donald Trump\u2019s often-abrupt announcements. 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