Secretary of State Marco Rubio will depart this week for a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Sweden, the State Department said Tuesday, as European allies confront deepening uncertainty about U.S. troop commitments and President Donald Trump’s reliability as a partner. The meeting in Helsingborg on Friday is one of the final senior-level gatherings before NATO leaders meet for a summit in Ankara, Turkey, in July.
As Main Street Independent previously reported, Rubio’s attendance at the meeting follows weeks of European anxiety about the administration’s approach to the alliance, including surprise troop reduction announcements. Read more.
Rubio will then travel to India, where he plans to visit Kolkata, Agra, Jaipur and New Delhi. He is expected to meet with his Indian, Australian and Japanese counterparts — the three other members of the Quad, a strategic grouping of Indo-Pacific democracies. The trip comes as the administration grapples with fallout from the war in Iran and volatile energy prices that have compounded economic pressure on NATO allies and Asian partners alike.