After speaking at the recent Munich Security Conference, some analysts accused US Secretary of State Marc Rubio of urging the West to revive colonialism. I found it hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would promote 15th-century imperial ambitions in the 21st century. Surely, I thought, these were exaggerated claims. Yet I soon realized that what seems irrational to one observer may, to another, appear perfectly reasonable.
In his speech, Rubio reminisced about an era when the United States and Western Europe shared a common purpose and vision, rising from the ruins of World War II and drawing inspiration from a five-century history of geographic expansion and colonial conquest. He lamented that, for the “first time since the age of Columbus,” this vast sphere of geographic and colonial influence was contracting, blaming godless communists and anti-colonial uprisings. Yet it was precisely those uprisings that preceded the winds of change that swept across Africa and other former colonies, securing independence for millions.
Either ignorant of or deliberately sidestepping the racist exploitation and economic deprivation inflicted on millions who resisted colonial rule, Rubio instead focused on what he described as the West’s economic and industrial decline. He urged European nations to align with the United States in reversing that trajectory — an appeal that, to many who endured colonial subjugation, sounds like a call to rehabilitate an ugly past they fought hard to escape.
It is one thing to campaign for economic and industrial revitalization, and quite another to anchor that ambition in recolonization. That is unacceptable. Rubio himself concedes that much of the decline is self-inflicted, pointing to decades of deliberate de-industrialization through the outsourcing of manufacturing and industrial capacity to foreign markets.
What Rubio does not emphasize is that countless boardroom decisions across the West to relocate production to countries such as China were driven by an unrelenting pursuit of profit — unrestrained capitalism. When domestic production became less profitable, firms shifted operations to China and other emerging economies, prioritizing maintenance of profit margins while gradually hollowing out their own productive base, wealth, and economic independence.
Thus, propelled partly by Western laissez-faire capitalism and China’s managed capitalism, China is projected to become the world’s largest economy by 2035, pushing the United States into second place.
The decline of US and European global influence follows a natural trajectory that all dominant powers have faced — and will face again in the future.
Fortunately, his rallying call appears to have gained little meaningful support across Europe. Rather than attempt to reclaim dominance through recolonization, the wiser course is to manage this transition by accepting a new reality of coexistence grounded in mutual respect.
