Florida Senator Marco Rubio is emerging as a leading candidate for Secretary of State in the next Donald Trump administration. If confirmed, Rubio would take charge of U.S. foreign policy as a staunch hawk on Iran and China, two nations that have sanctioned him since July 2020.
However, Rubio also advocates for stronger ties with Europe and was instrumental in promoting legislation to protect the America’s NATO membership. And he would likely be the Secretary of State with the most personal interest in Latin America in decades. As the son of Cuban immigrants and a fluent Spanish speaker, Rubio has been vocal about left-wing authoritarian regimes in the region, such as those in Cuba and Venezuela, pushing for greater sanctions against the countries.
While multiple media outlets have reported Rubio’s appointment, it has yet to be officially confirmed by Trump’s team. If picked, he would join other key appointments, including Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as the next U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and Congressman Michael Waltz, a war veteran, as National Security Adviser. Together, they would form a hardline team tasked with shaping U.S. foreign policy in the Trump 2.0 administration.
However, as former ambassador to several Middle Eastern countries Ryan Crocker noted during a recent teleconference hosted by the Middle East Institute, the influence of these figures on key issues like Iran relations may be limited. “The decisions will be made in the White House. The system will be centralized, not dispersed among various centers of power. What will matter most are Trump’s positions. He will be the one to decide,” Crocker stated.
Even so, Rubio’s appointment would likely be welcomed by foreign ministries around the world. A seasoned expert in international relations, Rubio has served on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and is the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Intelligence. Throughout his time in Washington, he has built relationships across party lines and with representatives from governments around the globe.
Rubio, who clashed bitterly with Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries — where Trump famously mocked him as “Little Marco” and Rubio ridiculed Trump’s “small hands” — would inherit a much more complex and volatile world than the one the Republican president found upon taking office in 2017. He will be faced with two wars, in Ukraine and the Middle East, which Trump has vowed to end swiftly: the first, in a single day, and the second, at full speed.
Throughout his career, the 53-year-old Miami-born senator has been a strong proponent of U.S. interventionism abroad. However, that stance appears to have evolved, especially after his deep differences with Donald Trump eight years ago. Those differences have since shifted into a cordial entente, and ultimately, a genuine affinity between the two. In fact, Rubio has become one of the most visible politicians alongside Trump during the Republican’s campaign. He was even one of the top three contenders considered for the vice presidency, though Trump ultimately selected J.D. Vance.
Initially, Rubio was highly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but this year he voted against U.S. military and economic aid to Ukraine. He has also publicly declared that the war in Ukraine needs to be “brought to a conclusion” — a position that aligns with Trump’s approach. Trump has promised that, upon returning to the White House, he would force both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to sit down and negotiate, a position that does not bode well for Kyiv.
Rubio has also taken a hawkish stance on the Middle East. Regarding the war in Gaza, he said the radical Palestinian militia Hamas is “100 percent to blame” for the conflict, which has claimed over 42,000 Palestinian lives, many of them women and children. He has been a vocal critic of Iran, advocating for tough sanctions against the Islamic regime. Rubio supported Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, which had lifted some sanctions in exchange for a freeze on Iran’s nuclear program. Rubio has since criticized the unsuccessful attempts to revive that agreement during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Rubio’s main legislative focus, however, has been countering the rise of China. He has introduced numerous measures to curb Chinese influence. As a member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, he has investigated human rights abuses in the Asian giant and has been one of the sponsors of a law to prevent Chinese products manufactured with forced labor from the Uyghur minority from entering the U.S.
He has also pushed to ban electric vehicles produced using Chinese technology from receiving U.S. subsidies and supported other policies aimed at strengthening American industrial policy and reducing U.S. dependence on Chinese supply chains. Notably, he backed a new 25% tariff on Mexican steel to block Beijing from using Mexico as a backdoor to U.S. markets under the USMCA. In congressional hearings, Rubio has also been a loud critic of the Chinese government’s influence on ByteDance, the multinational owner of the popular social network TikTok.
In Latin America, Rubio has been particularly vocal on Venezuela and Cuba. When defending the strict U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, he said it was “just a matter of time” before the Nicolás Maduro regime collapsed: “The only thing we don’t know is how long it will take — and whether it will be peaceful or bloody.” After the July elections in Venezuela, Rubio issued a series of statements in August in which he recognized Edmundo González Urrutia, now exiled in Spain, as the legitimate winner.
Rubio also played a key role in the passage of a December 2023 law, co-sponsored with Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, that prevents any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO, as Trump threatened to do during his first term. This bipartisan legislation requires a two-thirds Senate majority or separate congressional approval to exit the alliance.
“The bipartisan attempt to add checks and balances highlights the lengths Congress is willing to go to protect the U.S.-NATO relationship amid ongoing Russian aggression and after years of criticism of the military alliance during Trump’s presidential tenure,” said Kaine.
Rubio, for his part, declared: “The Senate should maintain oversight on whether or not our nation withdraws from NATO. We must ensure we are protecting our national interests and protecting the security of our democratic allies.”
During the campaign, Trump revealed that he had told a leader from a “big country” that if they failed to meet the NATO defense spending target of 2% of GDP, the U.S. would not fulfill its mutual defense obligations. Rubio downplayed these comments, arguing that “virtually every American president” has made similar complaints about NATO members’ defense spending.
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Publish date : 2024-11-12 20:46:00
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