Rubio heads to Europe as transatlantic tensions soar

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio heads Wednesday to a NATO meeting in Europe as transatlantic tensions soar, with President Donald Trump slapping tariffs on Europeans and challenging Denmark´s sovereignty over Greenland.

Rubio will join two days of talks among NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, a preparation for a June leaders´ summit in The Hague.

The new US administration has quickly shown itself ideologically at odds with much of Europe. Vice President JD Vance made the Trump team´s European debut in February by calling on Germany to stop shunning the far right. Rubio will arrive hours after Trump is set to implement sweeping tariffs, part of an effort to remake the global economic order and shatter decades of efforts toward freer trade.

Most European allies are expected to respond quickly and strongly, leading to fears of a global trade war with an epicentre in a divided Western bloc.

“The president rightfully states that the state of global trade is completely unfair to America,” Rubio said in a Fox News Radio interview in March.

“So I get why all these countries are unhappy, because they got a great deal going on and they want to keep it going.”

Other than Canada, which Trump has mocked as the 51st US state, perhaps no ally has come under as much fire as Denmark.

Trump covets its Arctic territory Greenland, which is resource rich and strategically located.

Vance flew last week to an American space base there and said: “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland.”

Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who hopes to meet Rubio in Brussels, said that Denmark did “not appreciate the tone” of Vance.