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As Donald Trump builds his team for his return as US President, the name of Florida senator Marco Rubio is doing the rounds as the Secretary of State pick. If he is confirmed, Rubio will be the first Latino to hold the Secretary of State position in the US. While he is known for his hawkish approach to China, Iran, etc., he has expressed favourable views about India.
Rubio was one of Trump’s rivals for the Republican Party’s Presidential candidate in the 2016 US elections. The two had heaped attacks and insults on each other then, but their ties have improved since. Rubio was also in the running for Trump’s Vice Presidential candidate this time.
Marco Rubio, 53, is a third-time senator from Florida. He has served in several senior government roles, such as the vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, etc.
Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants, who were later naturalised as US citizens. His father worked as a banquet bartender and his mother as a hotel maid and in a factory.
During his 2016 Presidential candidate bid, Rubio had used his humble origins to mock the millionaire Trump. Accusing Trump of hiring immigrants instead of Americans, he had said, as reported by The NYT, “My mom was a maid in a hotel. And instead of hiring an American like her, you’ve brought over 1,000 people from all over the world to fill in those jobs instead.” In the same debate, he had also said, “If he hadn’t inherited $200 million, you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan?”
Rubio was first elected to the US Senate in 2010. Before that, he was a city commissioner in West Miami, and also speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. He is also a lawyer.
Rubio initially held the traditional Republican position of a muscular, interventionist approach to foreign policy. However, lately, he seems to have aligned more to Trump’s views, who believes that America should not spend its money and resources in solving other people’s problems.
In an example of this change, in Trump’s last Presidency, Rubio co-sponsored legislation that would make it harder for the US to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), by requiring two thirds of the Senate to ratify withdrawal, as reported by Reuters.
However, recently, he said that Ukraine should negotiate for a settlement with Russia to end the ongoing war — in which the US has backed Ukraine heavily — instead of trying to regain all captured territory. He was also one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, passed in April, Reuters reported.
It is on China that Rubio recently has been the toughest. According to the NYT, in 2020, “Rubio sponsored a bill that tried to prevent the import of Chinese goods made with the use of forced labor by China’s ethnic Uyghur minority. President Biden signed it into law the next year.”
In 2019, Rubio demanded a security review of popular Chinese social media app TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly, prompting an investigation and a divestment order, as per Reuters.
He has been sanctioned by China for his comments on Hong Kong.
Rubio has advocated a deeper US-India partnership. In July, he introduced a bill called the US-India Defense Cooperation Act in the Senate. The Bill proposed to “set a Statement of Policy that the US will support India in its response to growing threats to its territorial integrity, provide necessary security assistance to India to deter adversaries, and cooperate with India with respect to defense, civil space, technology, medicine, and economic investments.”
The Bill also said that India should be treated “as if it were of the same status as US allies such as Japan, Israel, Korea, and NATO allies regarding technology transfers”, and that Pakistan should be barred “from receiving security assistance if it is found to have sponsored terrorism against India.”
In 2023, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, Rubio released a statement saying, “…it is crucial that the Biden Administration, and the U.S. Congress, prioritize this incredibly important relationship. Our nations’ economic and security interests overlap on many of the most pressing issues, especially the growing hostility of the Chinese Communist Party in the Himalayas and in the Indian Ocean.”
According to the website of the US Department of State, the Secretary of State is the President’s chief foreign affairs adviser, with duties including conducting negotiations relating to US foreign affairs; advising the President regarding the acceptance, recall, and dismissal of the representatives of foreign governments; negotiating, interpreting, and terminating treaties and agreements, among others.
