Reuters: Rubio will not go to the NATO meeting; Europeans are worried

According to RCO News Agency, American officials have said that “Marco Rubio”, the US Minister of Foreign Affairs, does not plan to participate in the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels next week.

Reuters writes that the absence of the top US diplomat in an important transatlantic meeting is very rare.

An informed official also said that “Christopher Landau”, the assistant secretary of the US, is supposed to represent Washington.

It is not yet clear why Rubio does not intend to participate in the December 3 meeting, but his schedule may change. His possible absence comes as U.S. and Ukrainian officials are scrambling to ease differences over President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine, and some European diplomats are unhappy that they have been left out of the process.

Normally, an official meeting of NATO foreign ministers is held every 2 years, and the absence of the US Secretary of State is extremely rare. The only similar case was in 2017 and Trump’s first term, when “Rex Tillerson” initially planned to boycott the April meeting, but then they changed the date of the meeting to match his schedule.

A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Rubio’s possible absence, but said the NATO alliance has been “completely revitalized” under the Trump administration, noting that Rubio recently met with European officials in Switzerland.

A senior State Department official said: “Secretary Rubio has already attended dozens of meetings with NATO allies, and it would be completely unrealistic to expect him to attend all of them.”

A NATO official said that the absence of some foreign ministers in these meetings is not strange.

Ukrainian and European officials fear being pressured to accept a deal that favors Russian interests too much; These concerns have intensified after the 28-point draft of the end-of-war plan was leaked to the media on November 18.

Rubio’s absence risks deepening doubts about Washington’s commitment to European security.

Washington is the de facto leader of NATO, but Trump has repeatedly questioned the necessity of this alliance and sometimes even said that he might withdraw from the alliance.

Landau, who will go to Brussels instead of Rubio, questioned the necessity of NATO in a post at X in June; A post he later deleted.

At a NATO summit in June, Trump reaffirmed his faith in the alliance, but has continued to press member states for increased defense spending, saying Washington is no longer going to “always bail them out.”

This possible absence occurs at a very sensitive moment for Ukraine. Adding to concerns about peace talks, Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s chief of staff, resigned on Friday, hours after anti-corruption agents raided his home.

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