The “delusion” of globalism and the decision to allow mass migration into the West threaten the future of Europe and its peoples, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told attendees at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday.
Representing the Trump administration at the annual international meeting in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, Secretary of State Rubio stressed that the United States and Europe must remain strong allies, but warned against the arrogant follies that emerged following the end of the Cold War, such as the devotion to free trade, green-inspired de-industrialisation, and the ethos of open borders.
These liberal beliefs, stemming from Francis Fukuyama’s notion of “the end of history”, were “foolish” and fundamentally contradicted the very basis of human nature, Mr Rubio argued. This resulted in the West losing millions of middle and working-class jobs, as well as critical supply chains to competitors like Communist China.
Meanwhile, in an effort to “appease a climate cult”, the West further damaged itself and allowed its rivals to “exploit oil and coal and natural gas and anything else not just to power their economies, but to use as leverage against our own.”
“And in a pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people,” the Secretary said.
Rubio rejected the idea that mass migration is a “fringe concern of little consequence”; rather, he said that it represents a “crisis which is transforming and destabilising societies all across the West.”
“Controlling who and how many people enter our countries, this is not an expression of xenophobia, it is not hate, it is a fundamental act of national sovereignty. And the failure to do so is not just an abdication of one of our most basic duties owed to our people. It is an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilisation itself,” he said.
However, in a more conciliatory tone, the top American diplomat told attendees that the Trump administration’s project of “renewal and restoration” can be done alone by the United States; it is “our preference, and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe. For the United States and Europe, we belong together.”
“America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new,” Rubio said.
“We are part of one civilisation, Western civilisation. 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 civilisation to which we have fallen heir.”
The Secretary said that although America may disagree with its allies across the Atlantic, such disagreements stem from a “profound sense of concern” for a Europe to which the United States is tied economically, militarily, culturally, and spiritually.
“We want Europe to be strong. We believe that Europe must survive. Because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately our destiny is, and will always be, intertwined with yours. Because we know that the fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our own.”
“And this is why we do not want allies to rationalise the broken status quo, rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it. For we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship and renew the greatest civilisation in human history.”