At sunset on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a nearly 30-minute address on the Pnyx hill in Athens — the site of ancient Athens' citizen assembly, with the Acropolis and Parthenon behind him. Some 250 invited guests attended, including Greek government officials, diplomats, and business and education leaders. The State Department billed it as a "major address on democracy and its future."
The speech was the centerpiece of the Greece stop on Rubio's four-day tour of NATO allies (Iceland, Greece, Portugal). Earlier in the day he had chaired the sixth round of the U.S.-Greece Strategic Dialogue, the first sitting secretary of state to personally lead the U.S. delegation.
The speech's through line was to frame ancient Greece as the civilizational root of "America First": the West as one continuous civilization from ancient Greece to modern America, defined by the Greeks' "fierce individuality and relentless ambition" and "a yearning for discovery, for adventure, risk and glory."
The key line: "Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power." That means, in his telling, taking back control of critical supply chains, reindustrializing the economy, rebuilding defense, and fighting for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future.
The tone toward Europe was markedly softer than JD Vance's scolding of Europe in Munich last year. Rubio called on Europe to "awaken from its long slumber" and rekindle the fire lit here millennia ago: "Though passions may, at times, have strained the bonds of affection between the United States and Europe, it must not be allowed to break them." "We must rebuild our institutions and alliances."
He offered a rare defense of NATO while broadly endorsing Vance's thesis of European decline, hailing surging European defense spending and manufacturing expansion as the start of a "generational shift." The speech also criticized open borders, offshored industry, and the fashionable idea that "enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the 'global community' over one's own people."
"Hints at grander ambitions" was the Washington Post's headline, and nearly every outlet read the speech as a 2028 signal. CNN said it "will undoubtedly reignite speculation about his future presidential intentions," implicitly positioning him as heir to and modernizer of the America First movement. The Times said the speech could fuel speculation he might challenge Vance for the nomination. Reuters called him a leading contender for the Republican nomination to succeed Trump in 2028; the Washington Examiner's headline said the Acropolis optics "stoke 2028 embers."
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis gushed: "He is the future of our party and our nation." Rubio himself has publicly downplayed 2028 ambitions, saying he would back Vance if the vice president runs.
Rubio is the central executor of Trump's foreign policy and the consensus No. 2 in the 2028 Republican primary field, behind Vance. Early polling: the RealClearPolling average has Vance at 39.8% and Rubio at 24.3%; a Financial Times/Focaldata poll put it at 43% to 21%; a YouGov poll at 44% to 21%.
The trip also produced substance: the sixth U.S.-Greece Strategic Dialogue yielded a counterterrorism intelligence-sharing memorandum, $4 billion in U.S. support for Greece's long-term defense plans, and expanded U.S. LNG shipments through the Greek port of Alexandroupoli to the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe. Rubio met Prime Minister Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Gerapetritis, calling Greece "a source of stability in an unstable world."