US President Donald Trump has recently tapped U.S. Senator Marco Rubio as his Secretary of State. Trump has put the Florida-born politician on track to be the first Latino to serve as the United States’ top diplomat.
Fifty-three years old Rubio was the most aggressive option on Trump’s shortlist for Secretary of State. The senator has in past years advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to U.S. geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba. However, he has expressed favorable views about India.
As per inputs from various agencies, 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.”
Over the last several years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump’s views. The president-elect accuses past U.S. Presidents of leading the U.S. into costly and futile wars, and has pushed for a less interventionist foreign policy.
It is strange that 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 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 and more.
Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants, who were later naturalized 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. 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 Organization (NATO), by requiring two thirds of the Senate to ratify withdrawal.
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 dollars military aid package for Ukraine, passed in April.
It is on China that Rubio recently has been the toughest. 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.
Rubio had also demanded a security review of popular Chinese social media app TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly, prompting an investigation and a divestment order. He has also been sanctioned by China for his comments on Hong Kong.
Educationist/Administrator/Editor/Author/Speaker
Commencing teaching in his early twenties, Prof Aggarwal has diverse experience of great tenure in the top institutions not only as an educationist, administrator, editor, author but also promoting youth and its achievements through the nicest possible content framing. A revolutionary to the core, he is also keen to address the society around him for its betterment and growth on positive notes while imbibing the true team spirit the work force along with.
Comments