Rubio brings G7 tour to Paris days after Washington ran Abu Dhabi track alone

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio lands in Paris on Monday for two days of talks with his G7 counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — four days after Washington's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner convene the Russians and Ukrainians in Abu Dhabi on their own.

The agenda covers the Russia-Ukraine war, the Iran conflict, energy and artificial intelligence, with the French hosts adding sessions on AI and support for Ukraine. France has also invited Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine into parts of the discussion. What the meeting will not produce, French hosts have signalled, is a joint communique — the document that traditionally records what allies agreed on.

The sequencing is the message. Rubio travels to consult Europe on Ukraine's post-war security architecture after the terms of engagement were set in Washington: he told reporters in Florida that "there's been some advances made in what that architecture could look like post-conflict" and that "nothing's been finalized yet, and maybe some progress can be made in Abu Dhabi." Europe's questions about Ukraine's future will be answered after the meeting that shapes it.

On Iran, Rubio ruled out any imminent breakthrough, saying diplomacy has "not been very productive because the Iranian demands are simply not just unacceptable" — a construction that gets both the grammar and the substance confused. The conflict has sent fuel prices soaring through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, costs that land on European consumers regardless of what Paris concludes. The meeting follows a larger G20 foreign ministers gathering Rubio hosted in Atlanta just over a week ago, which produced little consensus on any major global issue.

The trip is Rubio's first foreign venture since the midterms cost Trump's Republican Party control of Congress — losses attributed in part to deeply unpopular policies such as the Iran war. Rubio, often cast as the gentler face of the administration, noted that the countries he is meeting "understand American politics" and have "experienced divisions in their own system." Trump's first major post-election personnel decision installed Stephen Miller as chief of staff. There has been speculation that Rubio might leave early to prepare a 2028 presidential run; he denies it.

The meetings run alongside major protests across Europe, including in the French capital, where the national assembly has just rejected the first part of the 2027 budget.