Trump administration | Marco Rubio takes the reins of diplomacy

(Washington) Republican Senator Marco Rubio became the new head of American diplomacy on Monday after a rare unanimous vote in his favor by the Senate, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Mr. Rubio, 53, becomes the first member of the new Trump administration to be confirmed in his position.

He succeeds Antony Blinken.

“We are pleased to have worked in a bipartisan manner to ensure that one of our own, Senator Marco Rubio, is able to quickly take over the leadership of the State Department,” said shortly before the vote in session plenary senators Republican Jim Risch, who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.

“Given the current uncertainty in the world, it is in America’s interest to waste no time and fulfill this role immediately,” Mr.^me Shaheen.

Marco Rubio will have to work to carry out the diplomacy of President Donald Trump, who, in his inauguration speech on Monday, promised to “take back” control of the Panama Canal, and to ensure that the United States is at new “respected” in the world, while posing as a “peacemaker”.

During his hearing last week before this same committee, Marco Rubio affirmed that China was “the most powerful and dangerous adversary that the United States has had to face” in its history.

He said he wanted to implement Donald Trump’s slogan – “America first” – rejecting the central paradigm in the diplomacy of the outgoing Joe Biden administration, namely giving priority to a world order based on international standards.

According to him, every diplomatic policy and every dollar spent by the United States must make America “safer,” “stronger,” and “more prosperous.”

Cuban origins

Born in Miami, son of Cuban immigrants, Marco Rubio became the first head of American diplomacy fluent in Spanish.

Due to his family history, he spoke out against the communist government in Havana or against other left-leaning Latin American countries, such as Venezuela.

Marco Rubio is also a strong supporter of Israel, fiercely opposing Iran and the rise of its nuclear program.

The influential senator, a regular on television, was once considered the rising star of a more moderate Republican Party, and even ran against the real estate mogul in the 2016 presidential election.

The latter often referred to him as “little Marco”.

But the two men have since buried the hatchet.

On the war in Ukraine, Marco Rubio called for “bold diplomacy” from the United States to end the war.

For his first day on the job, he is expected to meet on Tuesday with his Japanese, Australian and Indian counterparts present in Washington for the inauguration of Donald Trump, according to consistent diplomatic sources.

In the Senate, Mr. Rubio argued for arming Taiwan, through direct deliveries of American military equipment rather than through arms sales.

Marco Rubio quickly rose through the political ranks, winning his first election in 1998, just five years after finishing school. He also served as head of Florida’s lower house from the age of 34.

Father of four daughters, he regularly talks about his modest social origins, with a father who was a waiter in a bar and a mother who was a cashier.

In Donald Trump’s anti-immigration government, Marco Rubio will above all highlight his anti-communist heritage.

“My grandfather did not learn that America was exceptional by reading about it in a book, but by living it and seeing it with his own eyes,” he said in a book in 2012.