AOC accuses Trump of trying to usher in ‘age of authoritarianism’ at Munich conference
Congressperson says US president and Marco Rubio are tearing apart transatlantic alliance
Fri 13 Feb 2026 14.10 EST
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused Donald Trump of tearing apart the transatlantic alliance with Europe and of seeking to introduce an “age of authoritarianism”, as she condemned his administration’s foreign policy in front of its allies’ top policymakers at the Munich Security Conference.
Speaking at a panel on populism on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez outlined what she called an “alternative vision” for a leftwing US foreign policy, challenging the Trump administration’s shift to the right in front an audience of US allies who have grown increasingly wary of the US’s increasingly nationalist – and militaristic – global posture.
In her remarks, Ocasio-Cortez said Trump and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, were “looking to withdraw the United States from the entire world so that we can turn into an age of authoritarianism”, as they sought to “carve out a world where Donald Trump can command the western hemisphere and Latin America as his personal sandbox, where Putin can saber rattle around Europe and try to bully our own allies there”.
She also condemned the US capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and the US support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent progressive figures in US national politics, traveled to Munich as an apparent counterweight to Rubio, who is due to address the high-profile gathering of leaders and top ministers on Saturday, and said he would tell them the “old world is gone … and we live in a new era in geopolitics”.
JD Vance, the vice-president, stunned the gathering last year as he delivered a full-on assault on Europe for “retreating from its fundamental values” and then met with the leader of the far-right German party, Alternative für Deutschland.
Appearing at a panel called “Vox Populi? Responding to the Rise of Populism”, Ocasio-Cortez decried the US-led war against Iraq as well as the development of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), calling instead for foreign countries to engage in a “working-class-centered politics” that would help “stave off the scourges of authoritarianism”.
“I believe we’re seeing in economy across economy around the world, including the United States, that extreme levels of income inequality lead to social instability and drives in the sense in authoritarianism, rightwing populism and very dangerous domestic internal politics,” Ocasio-Cortez said during the panel, which also included European and Latin American lawmakers, as well as Petr Pavel, the Czech president.
Ocasio-Cortez also said that she and her fellow Democrats were calling for a return to a “rules-based order” without the “hypocrisies” of US foreign policy that have dominated the past and current administrations.
“Whether it is kidnapping a foreign head of state, whether it is threatening our allies to colonize Greenland, whether it is looking the other way in a genocide, hypocrisies are vulnerabilities, and they threaten democracies globally,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s visit to Munich comes amid a government shutdown in the US that saw some US lawmakers cancel their plans for travel.
Ocasio-Cortez was scheduled to appear later in a panel on the “future of foreign policy”. During her remarks, she said that the international tide in authoritarianism had been fueled “not just by income inequality, but the failure of democracies over decades to deliver, the failure to deliver higher higher wages, the failure to rein in corporations”.
“This is a moment where we are seeing our presidential administration tear apart the transatlantic partnership,” she said. “What is happening is indeed very grave, and we are in a new era, domestically and globally … But that does not mean that the majority of Americans are ready to walk away from a rules-based order and that we’re ready to walk away from our commitment to democracy.”
