Rubio Stresses Need for U.S. Security Work With Greece on Migration and Terrorism

Edward Wong is traveling with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Europe.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed the need for American allies in Europe to increase their military spending as President Trump has demanded, using remarks in Greece on Wednesday to highlight that issue and also call for cooperation to restrict migration.

Mr. Rubio's remarks on the Athens stop of a European tour come as administration officials have been discussing how to punish NATO members that do not meet Mr. Trump's demands to spend at least 5 percent of their annual gross domestic product on defense. At the same time, some U.S. officials have praised European nations that are trying to increase such spending quickly.

That was the tack Mr. Rubio took in his opening remarks at a news conference in Athens on Wednesday alongside George Gerapetritis, the Greek foreign minister.

"One thing we agree on, for example, is that the nations of Europe need to take on a greater share of the burden defending their continent, and Greece is doing just that," Mr. Rubio told reporters after a closed-door meeting with Mr. Gerapetritis.

He added that Greece was on track to have its defense budget reach the 5 percent benchmark set by Mr. Trump.

Greece has been a longtime defense and security ally of the United States, and lets the American military as well as other NATO member nations use sites on its territory for a range of operations. Some Greek political figures, especially those from left-wing parties and groups, have criticized the military ties between the two nations.

Mr. Rubio said the United States and Greece had agreed to increase that type of cooperation, including by putting in place a program for sharing intelligence on terrorist threats and by having Greek troops work with National Guard units from Florida.

The secretary of state also said the United States and Greece should work together to tightly restrict global migration and immigration, a core policy drive of the Trump administration.

"Greece is also a very close strategic partner on border security and the fight against mass migration," Mr. Rubio said, adding that the Greek government was trying to help crack down on transnational crime groups.

Mr. Rubio went on to link such issues to what he deemed the erosion of traditional culture and society in Greece, and by extension in the rest of Europe and the United States.

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"What we do not wish to see under any circumstances is that the birthplace of the West is threatened by bad decisions, by actions, by failure to address challenges," he said.

Mr. Gerapetritis told reporters that Greece was trying to address "challenges" from "mass migration," and was seeking to cooperate with the United States on that and other issues.

The remarks from Mr. Rubio in some ways echoed lines he delivered to European leaders in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, in which he spoke of the possible "civilizational erasure" of Europe and the United States and advocated stricter limits on immigration.

Later on Wednesday, Mr. Rubio is scheduled to deliver a speech against the backdrop of the Acropolis and the Parthenon on the theme of Western civilization and its foundations in Greece.

Excerpts from the prepared text, provided to The New York Times and other news organizations, show that Mr. Rubio is expected to link the intellectual, philosophical and political pursuits of ancient Greece to "the architects of European Christendom" who designed soaring cathedrals and colonial settlers who embodied "the American frontier spirit."

The text praises Alexander the Great and his conquest of the "entire known world" (an exaggeration of the size of the territory he ruled), as well as Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and Cortés -- a reference to Hernan Cortés, the Spanish conquistador whose troops violently toppled the Aztec empire in Mexico.

The prepared speech goes on to say that decisions by governments in the next decade -- including on industrialization, artificial intelligence and the development of weapons -- would "determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, servitude and decline."

Mr. Rubio is scheduled to fly to Portugal on Thursday to meet with officials there -- his third stop on a tour that started in Iceland and then came to Greece.

After the news conference in Athens, he visited the U.S. Embassy in the city, where he was introduced at a building dedication ceremony by Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former romantic partner of Donald Trump Jr., a son of the American president.

Recent reports -- notably an investigative article in The Wall Street Journal -- have raised questions about potential conflicts of interest in Ms. Guilfoyle's involvement in energy deals in Greece. Democratic Congressional leaders are calling for an inquiry.

Mr. Rubio was asked at the news conference about the reports, but said he would not discuss that in public in front of the Greek foreign minister.

"Suffice it ⁠to say, our embassy here is doing a great job," he said at the news conference, where Ms. Guilfoyle was in the audience. "Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here."