Rubio may be Trump's 'good cop' — but their goal is the same: analysis

During Donald Trump's first presidency, views on foreign policy were often described as "isolationist." And he was sometimes compared to paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan, whose 1992 presidential campaign championed America First themes and drew scathing criticism from neocons.

Yet during his second presidency, Trump has taken a much more interventionist and imperialistic turn — from the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to calling for Greenland to become part of the United States

In a blistering op-ed published by The Guardian on February 17, progressive journalist Mehdi Hasan argues that Trump is obsessed with "empire" — a theme that Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized during his speech at the recent 2026 Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany.

"Fresh from toppling the president of Venezuela and taking control of the world's largest oil reserves," Hasan explains, "the Trump Administration's top diplomat arrived at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, (February 14) with a rather new and very disturbing message for European governments: Empire is great. Empire is back. Empire is American. The U.S. secretary of state delivered what can only be described as a 22-minute ode to empire. A love letter to conquest and colonialism. A proud defense of the West's territorial expansion."

The former MSNBC (now MS NOW) host adds, "That secretary of state was, of course, Marco Rubio, the longtime foreign-policy hawk who is now one of the most influential voices in a MAGA-dominated Republican Party that once pretended it wanted to end 'forever wars'…. (Rubio) issued a full-throated endorsement of empire — and he did it at exactly the moment the United States, under his boss Donald Trump, is openly engaging in the kind of territorial and extractive imperialism that most Western European governments spent the last 80 years renouncing."

Hasan argues that although Rubio "may be good cop to Trump’s bad," their mutual "goal" is to "make empire great again."

"The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said on Saturday that Trump is still intent on acquiring Greenland," Hasan observes. "'I think the desire from the U.S. president is exactly the same,' Frederiksen told reporters in Munich, on the same day Rubio gave his speech at the conference. 'He's very serious about this.' Yes, he is."

Hasan continues, "Astonishingly, Trump has refused to rule out the use of military force against Denmark, a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ally. He has dismissed concerns about international borders and national sovereignty. And, this weekend, he sent his secretary of state to a conference in Europe that was supposed to be about collective security to deliver a speech that amounted to: America must dominate. Trump must lead. And Europe must get onboard — or else."