Rubio Opens NATO Tour in Iceland Amid Trump Envoy Storms — SkimNews
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- Marco Rubio began his three-nation NATO tour in Iceland on Tuesday, with planned stops in Greece and Portugal before returning to Washington on Thursday, and described all three countries as 'strong allies' on social media.
- Iceland summoned US Ambassador Billy Long last month after Trump posted a map coloring Iceland, Greenland, and North America in US flag colors; Long had earlier joked about Iceland becoming the 52nd US state and himself its governor before apologizing.
- Trump had previously mistakenly named Iceland four times while speaking about Greenland and shared a social media post that alarmed Icelanders by extending US flag imagery across the territory.
- Gregory Meeks, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced he will investigate US Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle over Wall Street Journal allegations she told guests the US could undermine the Greek government and promoted a Greek construction firm's interests.
- Guilfoyle has denied the allegations, while Rubio defended her as 'an incredible advocate for the president's agenda' — particularly on energy, since the Trump administration views Greece as central to exporting US-produced LNG to south-eastern and central Europe.
- During Trump's first term, ambassador Jeffrey Ross Gunter previously triggered complaints in Reykjavik by seeking to hire armed bodyguards, underscoring a pattern of ambassador-related friction that pre-dates the current envoys.
Why it matters: The tour pairs traditional security reassurances with concrete LNG export diplomacy through Greece, but two sitting Trump ambassadors — Billy Long in Iceland and Kimberly Guilfoyle in Greece — are themselves the sources of allied unease, forcing Rubio to repair damage his own envoys created while pitching the trip as routine alliance-building.
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