In 2025, President Donald Trump's newly minted Vice President JD Vance launched a stark attack on European policies on immigration, populist parties and free speech, saying that freedom of expression was "in retreat" across the continent.

Vance also seemed to embrace the views of far-right parties such as Germany's AfD.

But this year, the vice president -- who just finished a visit to Armenia and Azerbaijan -- is staying home.

Rubio, who is seen as less of an ideologue, will lead the US delegation to the annual security and defense talks, which run through Sunday in the Bavarian capital.

But even if the secretary of state is more... diplomatic than Vance, the United States nevertheless intends to push its European allies, who are still reeling from the political crisis over Trump's demands to acquire Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory.

- Crisis of confidence -

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump -- who has said the European Union was created to "screw" the United States -- has had the continent in his sights.

In his new National Security Strategy, published in December, Trump slammed Europe as an over-regulated continent lacking in "self-confidence" and facing "civilizational erasure" due to immigration.

In Munich on Friday and Saturday, Rubio is expected to keep pushing Europe to share the burden, especially on matters of common defense.

But his trip comes amid a major breakdown in trust between Washington and European capitals in the wake of the Greenland drama, which rattled transatlantic relations.

What was once seen as inconceivable -- a NATO country threatening to seize territory from an ally -- became reality, forcing European nations to stand firm in protest.

The unpredictable Republican US president backed off his threats of seizure and tariffs at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, instead touting a framework deal with NATO for security in the Arctic.

But the incident left a trail of collateral damage, several European diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

For Philip Gordon, an expert at the Brookings Institution think tank and veteran of former Democratic administrations, Trump "doesn't see a unified Europe as a partner of the United States, but a threat to the United States."

"The more unified it is, the more he doesn't like it," Gordon told journalists last week including AFP.

A poll conducted by Politico showed that more than 50 percent of German respondents do not see the United States as a "reliable" ally.

- Free speech -

Besides Greenland, the agenda will also include the durability of transatlantic unity, the US security umbrella and the war in Ukraine -- as well as ties with Moscow.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is making the trip to Germany, has said he hopes for a resumption of talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

For now, such talks are only being held between Washington and Moscow.

The Munich meetings will take place just a few days before Trump convenes the inaugural session of his so-called "Board of Peace" on February 19 in Washington.

Trump initially set up the board to manage postwar Gaza, but it appears now that its purview may extend beyond the Palestinian territory. Some have criticized it as an apparent rival to the United Nations.

Even without Vance in town, the sensitive issue of free speech in Europe will be on the agenda in Munich, as Rubio will be accompanied by Sarah Rogers, his undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and a sharp critic of EU policies.

The United States has fought Europe on its moves to regulate Big Tech and fight disinformation, calling both a means of crippling free speech.

Rubio will head from Munich to Slovakia and then Hungary. Both are run by nationalist leaders who have earned Trump's support.