AOC accuses Trump of trying to usher in ‘age of authoritarianism’ at Munich conference | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned the Trump administration’s foreign policy in front of her allies’ top policymakers at the Munich Security Conference, accusing Donald Trump of tearing apart the transatlantic alliance with Europe and trying to usher in an “age of authoritarianism.”
Speaking at a panel on populism on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez outlined what she called an “alternative vision” for a leftist U.S. foreign policy and challenged the Trump administration’s shift to the right before an audience of U.S. allies increasingly wary of the United States’ increasingly nationalist and militaristic global stance.
In her speech, Ocasio-Cortez said that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are “trying to pull the United States away from the rest of the world so that we can turn into an age of authoritarianism,” trying to “create a world where Donald Trump can rule the Western Hemisphere and Latin America as his personal sandbox, where Putin can swing his sword around Europe and bully our own allies there.”
He also condemned the US capture of Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, and US support for Israel’s Gaza war.
Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent progressive figures in US national politics, traveled to Munich as an apparent counterweight to Rubio, who will address a high-profile gathering of leaders and top ministers on Saturday, saying she would tell them “the old world is gone… and we are living in a new era of geopolitics.”
Vice President JD Vance stunned the meeting last year by launching an all-out attack on Europe for “stepping back from its core values” and then meeting with the leader of the far-right German party Alternative für Deutschland.
Appearing on a panel called “Vox Populi? Responding to the Rise of Populism,” Ocasio-Cortez condemned the US-led war against Iraq and the development of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and instead called on foreign countries to engage in a “working-class-centered policy” that would help “ward off the scourge of authoritarianism.”
“I believe we are seeing across the world, including in the United States, that extreme income inequality in the economy leads to social instability and authoritarianism, right-wing populism and very dangerous domestic politics,” Ocasio-Cortez said during the panel, which included Czech President Petr Pavel as well as European and Latin American lawmakers.
Ocasio-Cortez also said she and her fellow Democrats are calling for a return to a “rules-based order” without the “hypocrisies” of U.S. foreign policy that have dominated past and current administrations.
“Whether it’s kidnapping a foreign head of state, threatening our allies to colonize Greenland, or turning a blind eye to genocide, hypocrisy is a weak point and threatens democracies globally,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s visit to Munich took place at a time when the US government was shut down and some US lawmakers canceled their travel plans.
Ocasio-Cortez was later scheduled to participate in a panel discussion on the “future of foreign policy.” During his speech, he said that the international wave of authoritarianism stems “not just from income inequality, but from the failure of democracies for decades to deliver, to provide higher wages, to rein in corporations.”
“This is a moment where we see our presidential administration tearing apart the transatlantic partnership,” he said. “What is happening is truly dire, and we are in a new era both domestically and globally… But that does not mean that the majority of Americans are ready to walk away from the rules-based order and that we are ready to walk away from our commitment to democracy.”
