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Secretary of State Marco Rubio took aim at open borders and globalism Wednesday in a sweeping speech in Athens, Greece that at times sounded more like a campaign stump speech than a foreign policy address.
“We opened our borders and outsourced our industry and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay,” Rubio said against the backdrop of the sun setting on the ancient citadel in Athens.
“The word nationalism became a dirty word. And so we tore down our monuments, we condemned our own history, and in too many places we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit,” he continued. “And with every passing year, we seemed to outsource more of our sovereignty, transferring our decisions to global bureaucracies far beyond the reach of our control.”
Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have both been widely discussed as potential successors to Trump in 2028, with the president himself repeatedly fueling speculation over which of the two could inherit his political mantle.
Rubio argued the consequences were now playing out in an increasingly dangerous world.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the Pnyx hill, where ancient Athenians held democratic assemblies, with the ancient Parthenon temple atop the Acropolis seen in the background, in Athens,on October 7, 2026. (Mark Schiefelbein / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
“As the West’s confidence faltered, its adversaries and rivals only grew more assertive,” he said.
Rubio called the current moment an “inflection point,” warning that the threats facing the West are “every bit as real as they were during antiquity.”
“And now there is war again. There is competition between great powers again,” he said.
Rubio singled out Iran as he drew a sharp distinction between Western values and those of its adversaries.
“Fanatics like the radical mullahs of Iran, whose cult of death hails child suicide bombers as national heroes and portrays martyrdom as an end to itself,” Rubio said.
“Our heroes may be willing to die for their cause, but our heroes do not worship death,” he went on. “It is precisely because we value life, that we come to recognize the heroism in those who would sooner sacrifice it than to betray their principles.”
The secretary of State delivered the address from the Acropolis, using the birthplace of Western civilization to trace America’s own inheritance from Ancient Greece.
“For twenty-five centuries since, the Parthenon has stood. Empires have risen and fallen beneath its shadow,” Rubio said.
“Two and a half centuries after the founding of the American republic halfway across the world from where I stand now, I stand here today – as the Secretary of State of that republic, and as the great-grandson of settlers who arrived in the new world from Spain – I stand here to testify to a debt that no lapse of time, no distance of space, can ever extinguish.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis on Oct. 7, 2026, in Athens, Greece. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)
Rubio said he saw signs that Europe was beginning to reverse the trends he described.
“We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago,” Rubio said. “There are already signs. Across this continent, we are witnessing the beginning of what we hope will be a generational shift.”
During his visit, Rubio announced a new counterterrorism partnership between the U.S. and Greece.
He emphasized the strategic importance of Greece on Wednesday, calling it a “source of stability in an unstable world.”
“As you see a world that faces these destabilizing events, you recognize how important this alliance with Greece is to the United States,” Rubio said. “It is a source of stability in an unstable world.”
At the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February, Rubio delivered a speech on the topic that earned him a standing ovation from European leaders, and racked up millions of views online. One popular X user described it as “one of the greatest” speeches by a Secretary of State in decades.
Many others insisted the speech upped Rubio’s potential 2028 presidential chances.
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Rubio described the five centuries before the end of World War II, a time when the West had expanded across the globe, building “vast empires.” But, he said, after the war, Europe was in ruins, and “godless communist revolutions” in Europe caused people to believe that the West’s dominance was forever finished.
“Against that backdrop, then, as now, many came to believe that the West’s age of dominance had come to an end, and that our future was destined to be a faint and feeble echo of our past. But together, our predecessors recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make,” he said.
Rubio urged the European leaders to reinvigorate that spirit.
“This is why we do not want out allies to be shackled by guilt and shame,” he continued. “We want allies that are proud of our culture and our heritage, and understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization and who together with us, are willing and able to defend it.”
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“And this is why we don’t want allies to rationalize the broken status quo, rather than what is necessary to 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 revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history.”
