Congress hopes to use the Munich Security Conference as a platform to assess the U.S.-European relationship and provide reassurances to long-standing allies that Washington stands behind them.
At least 50 U.S. lawmakers, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are expected to mingle with NATO partners and attend the German summit on Feb. 13 and 14. The high-profile event comes as many NATO members grapple with the repercussions of a distinct shift in the U.S. attitude toward Europe, amplified by Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Conference last year. The realignment was later reiterated in the Pentagon’s 2025 National Security Strategy.
This weekend, Congress will seek to use the conference to crystallize the relationship, even as some congressional leaders have warned against traveling out of the country due to a looming government shutdown. Lawmakers ranging from Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Michael Baumgartner (R-WA), both members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MI) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), are still heading to Germany, after Munich Security Conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger said this week that “transatlantic relations are currently in a significant crisis of confidence and credibility.”
“I hope to work with our European allies and let them know that the United States is still [an ally],” Meeks, a top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told NOTUS.
Baumgartner said on Thursday he would be looking to gauge mood swings in Europe, with an eye toward evaluating whether the move of NATO allies to raise defense spending targets “after decades of underinvestment” marks a move toward strengthening or weakening their relationship with Washington.
“Are our allies building capability to bind themselves more tightly to the alliance — or building national escape hatches in case the alliance frays? That distinction is the real story of 2026,” Baumgartner wrote in a National Review op-ed. “The question now is whether that spending is being converted into usable capability and durable cohesion or whether we end up with a Europe and a West that are better armed but less aligned.”
His words come as top NATO allies have shifted toward building out relationships with other partners, amid Washington’s increasingly mercurial approach to decadeslong alliances. Canada and Great Britain are edging toward China, while French President Emanuel Macron described the Trump administration this week as “openly anti-European” during an interview with the Economist.
“What we should do isn’t bow down or try to reach a settlement,” he said in an interview with several European newspapers. “I think we’ve tried that strategy for months. It’s not working.”
A new poll gauging European attitudes toward the U.S. outlined shifts in how key partners view Washington. In 2026, only 18% of Germans, 20% of the French, 22% of Canadians, and 35% of Britons viewed the U.S. as a reliable ally, according to the Public First survey. Since last year, the number of Germans who view the U.S. as a reliable ally has dropped by 16%, by 22% in France, and by 10% in Great Britain.
Baumgartner said the Munich Security Conference would clarify whether Europe’s increased defense capacity is geared toward producing “Cold War bottlenecks” or a system built for “allied production.”
“Hedging won’t be said out loud, but you’ll hear it: ‘freedom of action’ without reciprocity, politics-first procurement, and independence masquerading as resilience. Convergence is the opposite — common standards, shared production, enforceable timelines, and political commitments that match the war plans. If that’s the signal, Munich won’t just measure anxiety. It will mark a turn for substance, not slogans: an alliance built around interoperability, throughput, timelines that bite, and cohesion that holds,” he wrote on Thursday.
EUROPE SEEKS TO REDUCE RELIANCE ON US FOR ENERGY
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) last week threw cold water on lawmakers attending without a deal on Homeland Security funding being reached, calling it a “non-starter,” a posture echoed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Wicker has vowed to attend either way, as has Coons, known as the top Democrat on the committee that controls defense funding.
“We have a genuine problem in our transatlantic relationship,” Coons told reporters. “And to cancel sending a large delegation to Munich simply so that we can figure out how to actually do policing in a democracy sends exactly the wrong message.”