When President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, it may be easy to convince senators that he can lead American diplomacy at an unusual time. global confusion.
A more difficult task may be convincing them that he can credibly represent a president who has long had personal and political differences.
As a third-term senator with generally mainstream foreign policy views, Mr. Rubio, 53, is expected to be confirmed with relative ease later this month, once Mr. Trump formally nominated him to replace Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken.
Unlike a number of Mr. Trump’s other top Cabinet picks, Mr. Rubio has a good relationship with his Democratic colleagues in the Senate and is free of scandalous allegations about his personal conduct and relevant policy experience. He serves as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and is a member of the committee that will question him.
Even senior officials in the Biden administration believe that Mr. Rubio can be a responsible leader of the State Department at a time when the Trump administration is facing a turbulent Middle East, the war in Ukraine and threats from China.
Bigger questions revolve around Mr. Rubio’s relationship with the incoming president.
The two battled for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 in a duel that began with political differences and turned into personal taunts. Mr Rubio branded Mr Trump a “fraud” unfit for office and even mocked his manhood, accusing his rival of having “small hands”. In response, Mr. Trump derided Mr. Rubio as a scripted establishment politician and derided him as “Little Marco.”
Mr. Rubio, a Miami native, law school graduate and former Florida state lawmaker, has since worked for Mr. Trump. The Florida native was reportedly among the finalists to serve as Mr. Trump’s running mate last year.
But some prominent Trump supporters still distrust Mr. Rubio. Despite Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud, they remember his vote to officially certify the results of the 2020 election. And they see Mr. Rubio’s foreign policy record as dangerously interventionist.
The son of Cuban immigrants, Mr. Rubio has long been a hawk on national security issues, often at odds with Mr. Trump’s views.
Mr Rubio has opposed the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan launched by the Trump administration. He has criticized Mr. Trump’s efforts to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria in 2019 and has supported U.S. efforts to topple dictators in Syria and Libya, which Mr. Trump called foolish.
Mr. Rubio also denounced Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a “gangster” for the 2018 killing of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi; Mr. Trump downplayed the episode. Mr. Rubio also described Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, whom Mr. Trump openly admires, as a “murderer” and a war criminal.
Those differences, plus his battle with Mr. Trump in 2016, have raised questions about whether Mr. Rubio can convince foreign officials that he is truly speaking for his president — an important credential for a top diplomat.
Rex Tillerson, one of the former oil executives who served as Mr. Trump’s first secretary of state, has been widely seen as ineffective after it became clear that he lacked the president’s trust. (Mr. Trump fired Mr. Tillerson less than 14 months later.)
Democrats are likely to interest Mr. Rubio in his views on Mr. Trump’s most divisive foreign policy positions, leading to potentially awkward results.
One likely theme is Mr. Trump’s long-standing criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including threats to withdraw from the military alliance. In 2023, Mr. Rubio publicly responded to Mr. Trump’s comment by sponsoring a measure that would require either two-thirds approval of the Senate or separate congressional legislation to make it happen.
Then there’s the third rail of Trump World: Mr. Putin.
Mr. Rubio is a long-time Russia hawk who has insisted that the Russian leader be “accounted for” for crimes in Syria and Ukraine. Mr. Trump will not allow such a conversation.
At Mr. Tillerson’s Senate confirmation hearing in January 2017, then-questioning Mr. Rubio pushed Mr. Tillerson to declare Putin a war criminal for Russia’s military operations in Syria and the killing of Russian dissidents. When Mr. Tillerson objected, Mr. Rubio called his response “disappointing.”
Mr. Rubio warned that any impression abroad that America is withdrawing its support for “democracy and freedom” is disconcerting to people around the world.
A similar scenario could play out on Wednesday if Mr. Rubio is cornered by Russia hawks on the committee. Like Mr. Tillerson, Mr. Rubio knows that Mr. Trump wants a friendly dialogue with Mr. Putin and could end up meeting the Russian leader.
On at least one key issue regarding Mr. Putin and Russia, Mr. Rubio appears to have softened his views. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Rubio accused Mr. Putin of war crimes and supported a massive U.S. aid package to Kiev.
Mr. Rubio recently suggested that the war is deadlocked and peace talks begin, in line with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Rubio, who was floated as a possible Trump nominee last April, was one of 15 Republican senators who voted against a new aid package for Ukraine.
It is not clear how central Mr. Rubio may play in the Ukraine talks. Mr. Trump’s White House appointment of a special envoy for the conflict, as well as for the Middle East and vaguely defined “special missions,” raises questions about how much important work Mr. Rubio will have left.
On other key issues, there is little daylight between Mr. Rubio and Mr. Trump. Mr. Rubio calls on the governments of Cuba and Venezuela to give them no quarter and cannot be trusted with any promises of political reform they may make. Mr. Trump said the same thing.
Mr Rubio is also a vocal critic of Beijing’s authoritarian government in a recent report: “Communist China is the most formidable enemy the United States has faced in living memory.”
Mr Trump has used similar rhetoric and vows to confront China – although Mr Trump also enjoyed talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his first term.
