Rubio to visit Iceland, Greece and Portugal as US steps up Arctic push

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Iceland, Greece and Portugal next week for talks on economic and security cooperation and other issues, the State Department said in a statement on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Rubio begins his October 5–8 trip in Reykjavik with talks with Icelandic officials on “economic and security collaboration,” according to the statement.

In Athens, he will lead the US delegation for the sixth session of the US-Greece Strategic Dialogue, a high-level diplomatic forum on deepening cooperation on defence, energy, regional security and other areas.

He then flies to Lisbon for talks with Portuguese officials “to advance defense, economic and technology cooperation.”

The Iceland stop comes as Washington deepens its Arctic presence. It follows a security agreement on Greenland reached in New York, under which the United States plans to establish two new military bases there, drawing the autonomous Danish territory further into the US orbit after President Donald Trump’s threats to annex it, Agence France-Presse reported via The Manila Times.

Iceland, which has no army, relies heavily on the US and NATO for its security.

In early September, Trump sparked controversy with a map showing North America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Greenland and Iceland covered by the US flag. Iceland summoned the US ambassador in Reykjavik to denounce the image.

The visit also follows a late-August referendum in which Icelanders voted 52.8 per cent to 47.2 per cent against resuming negotiations on joining the European Union, talks that have been frozen since 2013.