Rubio tries to sell Iran war to skeptical G7 diplomats after Trump
insults allies
[March 27, 2026]
By MATTHEW LEE
VAUX-DE-CERNAY, France (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in
France meeting his Group of Seven foreign minister counterparts on
Friday, after President Donald Trump attacked NATO countries over a
reluctance or refusal to take part in the Iran war, a conflict that some
of America’s closest allies have met with deep skepticism.
Rubio will have a hard time trying to sell the other top diplomats from
G7 countries on the U.S. strategy for the Iran conflict, to which almost
all nations have raised objections. On his arrival at the meeting venue
at a historic 12-century abbey in Vaux-de-Cernay outside of Paris, Rubio
posed for a group photo with his fellow foreign ministers but none of
them spoke.
Trump’s vitriolic comments about NATO during a Cabinet meeting on
Thursday will likely make it an even tougher task. Of the G7 nations —
besides the U.S. — Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy are
members of the trans-Atlantic military alliance. Japan is the only one
that is not.
Rubio left Washington for the G7 meeting just hours after Trump
complained bitterly about NATO countries not stepping up to help the
U.S. and Israel in the Iran war.
“We are very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely
nothing,” Trump said.
Rubio has work to do to smooth things over with allies like those in
Europe that have faced criticism or outright threats from Trump and
others in his administration. The Europeans are still smarting over
Trump's earlier demands to take over Greenland from NATO ally Denmark
and are concerned about U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
The conflict in the Middle East has added another point of tension.
“Frankly, I think countries around the world, even those that are out
there complaining about this a little bit, should actually be grateful
that the United States has a president that’s willing to confront a
threat like this,” Rubio said at the Cabinet meeting.
Trump has complained about lack of support from allies
Asked by reporters about the reception he was expecting to get, Rubio
said before his flight to France that he was looking forward to
gathering with his G7 counterparts and that “we’re going to have great
meetings.”
“I’m not there to make them happy,” he said. “I get along with all of
them on a personal level, and we work with those governments very
carefully, but the people I’m interested in making happy are the people
of the United States. That’s who I work for. I don’t work for France or
Germany or Japan.”
“What we need is a partnership, including the diplomacy, including some
of the discussions that we will have today because frankly, Iran cannot
be able to just hold the global economy hostage,” British Foreign
Secretary Yvette Cooper said Friday as she headed into the meeting.
Trump has complained that he has not been able to rally support behind
his war of choice in Iran and that NATO and most other allies have
rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran's
chokehold has disrupted oil shipments and pushed up energy prices.
“We’re there to protect NATO, to protect them from Russia. But they’re
not there to protect us,” Trump said Thursday. He later added: “I never
thought we needed them. I was more doing a test.”
Before the U.S. leader's comments, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte
reiterated the increase in defense spending by alliance members — which
Trump has urged — saying Europe and Canada had been “overreliant on U.S.
military might” but a “shift in mindset” has taken hold.
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From bottom centre to left: EU High Representative and
Vice-President for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas,
Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, South Korea's Foreign
Minister Cho Hyun, Britain's Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper,
India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, U.S. Secretary of
State Marco Rubio, France's Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel
Barrot, Canada's Foreign Minister Anita Anand, Saudi Arabia's
Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio
Tajani, Brazil's Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and Japan's Foreign
Minister Toshimitsu Motegi attend talks during a G7 Foreign
Ministers' meeting with Partner Countries in Cernay-la-Ville outside
Paris, Friday, March 27, 2026. (Stephanie Lecocq/Pool Photo via AP)
Rutte said NATO has been clear that Iran cannot have a nuclear
weapon and has “long recognized the threat Iran’s missile program
posed to allies and their interests. And what the United States is
currently doing is degrading those capabilities, both the nuclear
and the missile.”
G7 host France has been skeptical of the Iran war
France is hosting the G7 meeting near Versailles and has been highly
skeptical of the war. The chief of the French defense staff, Gen.
Fabien Mandon, complained this week that U.S. allies had not been
informed about the start of hostilities.
“They have just decided to intervene in the Near and Middle East
without notifying us,” Mandon said. “We acted immediately, surprised
by an American ally, who remains an ally, but who is less and less
predictable and doesn’t even bother to inform us when it decides to
engage in military operations. This affects our security. This
affects our interests.”
However, 35 countries joined military talks hosted by Mandon on how
to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “once the intensity of hostilities
has sufficiently decreased,” France’s Defense Ministry said in a
statement.
Rubio said that with Iran threatening global shipping, countries
that care about international law “should step up and deal with it.”
Similar sentiments to Mandon's have been expressed by other allies
that also worry about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine as the Iran war
closes in on four weeks.
“We must avoid further destabilization, secure our economic freedom
and develop perspectives for an end of and the time after the
hostilities,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Thursday.
“Our joint support for Ukraine ... must not crumble now. That would
be a strategic mistake with a view to Euro-Atlantic security.”
Wadephul said he expected “that we can define a joint position” on
the Middle East.
“Of course, this is about ending this conflict as quickly as
possible, but also ending it sustainably, and that means bringing
about security in the Strait of Hormuz and ensuring overall that the
Iranian regime, which in the past has behaved negatively enough, is
also curtailed in the future,” Wadephul said.
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Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, John Leicester in
Paris and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
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