WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s choice to serve as the next U.S. secretary of state is Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who has been in the Senate since 2011 and serves on the chamber\u2019s foreign relations and intelligence committees. Trump, in a statement Wednesday, called Rubio a highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for freedom who \u201cwill be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries.\u201d Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, is regarded as intelligent, ambitious and well-liked by Senate colleagues of both parties. If Rubio, who is 53 and the son of Cuban immigrants, is confirmed by his Senate colleagues, he would become the first Latino secretary of state. In that role, he would be tasked with helping to implement Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d foreign policy. After Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Rubio was a vocal supporter of Kyiv. More recently, he has called for negotiations to end the conflict and voted in April against a $95 billion military aid package for the Ukrainians. Rubio is a strong supporter of Israel, in line with Trump\u2019s stance. He has exhibited a tough stance toward authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as toward the communist leadership in Beijing. In response, China has banned the senator from entering the country \u2014 something that likely will change if Rubio is confirmed as secretary of state. Some leading Democrats in Congress, who will be the opposition party in January, are making positive comments about the Republican. \u201cI’ve got a good relationship with Marco, and I think Marco is very capable,\u201d Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who has served on the intelligence committee with Rubio, told VOA after Rubio\u2019s name was circulated in media reports. On social media, Democratic Senator John Fetterman called Rubio \u201ca strong choice,\u201d adding that he looks forward to voting for his confirmation. \u201cCompared to some of the other names that were floating around, people who really don’t have any experience in foreign policy, I think this is a pretty good one,\u201d former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said on CNN before Trump\u2019s official announcement. In choosing members for his Cabinet and senior White House staff, Trump is generally emphasizing loyalty rather than experience. Rubio campaigned for Trump during this year\u2019s presidential election. The two had been rivals in the Republican presidential primary eight years ago. Trump had repeatedly belittled the senator, while Rubio questioned the New York real estate investor\u2019s qualification for the presidency, calling Trump \u201ca con man,\u201d deemed him dangerous and someone who could not be trusted with the launch codes for nuclear weapons. After Trump won the party\u2019s nomination and the presidency, the relationship warmed. But Rubio did not side with Trump when he refused to accept defeat at the hands of Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden four years ago. After Trump\u2019s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Rubio condemned the violence, calling the attackers \u201cunpatriotic\u201d and \u201cun-American\u201d \u201clow-lives.\u201d Earlier this year, Trump considered Rubio, a behind-the-scenes campaign foreign policy adviser, as his running mate before selecting Republican Senator JD Vance. Should Rubio take the job, he would have to vacate his Senate seat. A successor would then be selected by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Among the candidates being promoted by influential Republicans for the Senate seat is Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump\u2019s daughter-in-law. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s choice to serve as the next U.S. secretary of state is Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who has been in the Senate since 2011 and serves on the chamber\u2019s foreign relations and intelligence committees. Trump, in a statement Wednesday, called Rubio a highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":25390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}