Donald Trump continues his casting. The US president-elect plans to appoint Republican Senator from Florida Marco Rubio as secretary of state, the New York Times said on Monday, citing “three people familiar with his thinking”. The influential senator of Cuban origin, vice-chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, had at one time been tipped to become Donald Trump's vice-president, indicates the daily according to which the future president “could still change his position”. 'last minute notice'.
If this appointment is confirmed, it would mark a spectacular turnaround on the part of Marco Rubio. In 2016, while facing Donald Trump in the Republican primaries, he called the billionaire a “con” and “the most vulgar person who has ever aspired to the presidency”. The senator said last week on CNN that he was “always interested in serving this country.”
Senator from Florida since 2010, Marco Rubio is presented by CNN as someone with “great experience in foreign policy”. Notably because he has served on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the American upper house since 2017 and because he is a member of the Special Intelligence Committee in the Senate.
His line on foreign policy is “tough,” according to the New York Times. With regard to China and Iran, two adversaries of the United States on the international level, but also with regard to Ukraine and the conflict against Russia. On this last point, he seems to agree with the speech of Donald Trump, who had promised during the campaign to end the war “in 24 hours”.
“The Biden administration is not publicly admitting it, but the United States is funding the Ukraine standoff. It’s time to show common sense,” he notably wrote on the social network Last April, he opposed a package of American spending aimed in particular at supporting kyiv and Israel.
On the Chinese question, Marco Rubio sees Beijing's influence – including within the United States itself – as a “threat”. In 2020, he was sanctioned by China for “behaving badly on issues related to Hong Kong” alongside other lawmakers, recalls the New York Times. American officials cited by the famous daily believe that Beijing will have to lift these sanctions in order to collaborate with Marco Rubio. Asked about the question by the New York Times, the Chinese embassy in the United States had not responded at this stage.
If Donald Trump seems to have set his sights on Marco Rubio despite the disagreements of 2016, it is also because he became a “key ally” of the president-elect during his first term, as Politico notes. In 2020, the Florida senator also informally helped him prepare for his first debate against Joe Biden.
