U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in France met foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries on Friday (March 27, 2026), hours after President Donald Trump slammed NATO countries over alleged reluctance or refusal to take part in the Iran conflict, which has been met with deep scepticism by some of U.S.’s closest allies.
Mr. Rubio may have to hard sell the U.S. strategy for the Iran conflict to the top diplomats from G7 countries.
Mr. Trump’s vitriolic comments about NATO during a cabinet meeting on Thursday will likely make it an even tougher task. Besides the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy are G7 nations also part of the trans-Atlantic military alliance. Japan is the only one that is not.
On his arrival at the meeting venue at a historic 12th-century abbey in Vaux-de-Cerney outside Paris, Mr. Rubio posed for a group photo with his fellow foreign ministers.
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Mr. Rubio left Washington for the G7 meeting just hours after Mr. Trump complained bitterly about NATO countries not stepping up to help the U.S. and Israel in the Iran war.
“We are very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely nothing,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Rubio has work to do to smooth things with allies like those in Europe, who have faced criticism or outright threats from Trump and others in his administration. Europe is still smarting over Trump’s earlier demands to take over Greenland from NATO-ally Denmark and are concerned over U.S. support to Ukraine in its war with Russia. The conflict in the Middle East has added another point of tension.
“Frankly, I think countries around the world, even those that are out there complaining about this a little bit, should actually be grateful that the US has a president that’s willing to confront a threat like this,” Mr. Rubio said at the Cabinet meeting.
Trump’s complains over ‘lack of support’
Asked by reporters about the reception he was expecting before boarding his flight to France, Mr. Rubio said he was looking forward to gathering with his G7 counterparts, asserting “we’re going to have great meetings”.
“I’m not there to make them happy,” he said. “I get along with all of them on a personal level, and we work with those governments very carefully, but the people I’m interested in making happy are the people of the United States. That’s who I work for. I don’t work for France or Germany or Japan.”
He later posted on X that he would be meeting “world leaders about the security concerns we share around the world and opportunities to address the situation in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war”.
Mr. Trump has complained that he has not been able to rally support over the war on Iran, and that NATO and most other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s chokehold has disrupted oil shipments and pushed up energy prices.
“We’re there to protect NATO, to protect them from Russia. But they’re not there to protect us,” Mr. Trump said Thursday. He later added, “I never thought we needed them. I was more doing a test.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had earlier reiterated the increase in defence spending by alliance members — which Mr. Trump has urged — saying Europe and Canada had been “over-reliant on U.S. military might” but a “shift in mindset” has taken hold.
Mr. Rutte said NATO has been clear that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has “long recognised the threat Iran’s missile programme posed to allies and their interests. And what the U.S. is currently doing is degrading those capabilities, both the nuclear and the missile”.
France sceptical of Iran war
France, the host of the G7 meeting, has been highly sceptical of the war. The chief of France’s defence staff, Gen Fabien Mandon, said this week that U.S.’s allies had not been informed about the start of hostilities.
“They have just decided to intervene in the Near and Middle East without notifying us,” Mr. Mandon said. “We acted immediately, surprised by an American ally, who remains an ally, but who is less and less predictable and doesn’t even bother to inform us when it decides to engage in military operations. This affects our security. This affects our interests.”
However, 35 countries joined military talks hosted by Mr. Mandon on how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “once the intensity of hostilities has sufficiently decreased”, France’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Mr. Rubio said with Iran threatening global shipping, countries that care about international law “should step up and deal with it”.
Similar sentiments to Mr. Mandon’s have been expressed by other allies that also worry about the US commitment to Ukraine as the Iran war closes in on four weeks.
“We must avoid further destabilisation, secure our economic freedom and develop perspectives for an end of and the time after the hostilities,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Thursday.
“Our joint support for Ukraine… must not crumble now. That would be a strategic mistake with a view to Euro-Atlantic security.” Mr. Wadephul said he expected “that we can define a joint position” on the Middle East.
“Of course, this is about ending this conflict as quickly as possible, but also ending it sustainably, and that means bringing about security in the Strait of Hormuz and ensuring overall that the Iranian regime, which in the past has behaved negatively enough, is also curtailed in the future,” Mr. Wadephul said.
Published – March 27, 2026 03:58 pm IST
