What does Donald Trump’s foreign policy chief Marco Rubio stand for?

Marco Rubio was called “Little Marco” and “a choke artist” by his 2016 Republican primary rival Donald Trump, but the Florida senator finally hit back at a debate in Houston. Trump was a huckster who would be “selling watches in Manhattan” if he hadn’t inherited a real estate fortune, Rubio charged.

Rubio’s presidential bid ended less than a month later. Prolonged bitterness from bare-knuckle quarrels.

Last month, however, within weeks of returning to the White House, Trump tapped his one-time rival for one of the most senior posts in his incoming presidential administration: secretary of state.

The look is so grim that even foreign allies have expressed surprise — and some relief. Like a known quantity Rubio Contrast that with the president-elect’s more controversial national security picks, such as former Fox commentator Pete Hegseth for defense and his nominee for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who has been criticized for her pro-Russian stance.

“Honestly, some of Trump’s nominations make our jaws drop — but not Rubio,” said a senior official in a NATO country. “Rubio has strong foreign policy experience and understands the added value of strong coalitions.”

He needs experience. Trump and his foreign policy team will inherit a tough task list from outgoing US President Joe Biden, including wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and the possibility of further unrest in Syria. Geopolitical conflicts with China in the Asia-Pacific region, and even trade disputes with allies like Canada, Mexico and the EU, will inevitably find their way into Rubio’s files.

A veteran of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the top Republican on its Intelligence Committee, Rubio is best known on Capitol Hill for his taunting of China. He was one of the first and loudest on the world stage to warn of security threats posed by President Xi Jinping’s aggression.

While this has endeared him to some of Trump’s inner circle, his more conventional views on national security have put him at odds with the Republican Party’s conservative wing. That includes Donald Trump Jr., who publicly argued against choosing Rubio as a running mate because of his father’s “establishment” credentials.

Trump Jr. also pushed his friend and mega ally Richard Grenell for the top diplomatic job. Instead Grenell is given a vague “envoy on special mission” role.

Despite anger in some Maga quarters, the selections of Rubio and Congressman Mike Waltz as national security advisers have reassured many allies.

“They are clearly right-wing, but good thinkers,” said one European diplomat. “They’ve made statements that I don’t necessarily agree with, but they’re not outside the parameters of normal policymaking options. They are pro-alliance and pro-NATO.

Both foreign diplomats and Washington’s foreign policy establishment have questioned how influential Rubio and Waltz will be and how they will cooperate with more unconventional or radical picks like Hegseth, Gabbard or Sebastian Gorka, the deputy national security adviser who has been criticized. Islamophobic.

A senior official from a NATO country played down his optimism about Rubio, saying “a lot will depend on who his deputy is and how strong his position is on the National Security Council”.

“There are a lot of moving pieces and I’m not sure people know their roles now. It’s going to take time to sort out, and it’s going to be very messy,” said Aaron David Miller, who has advised several Republican and Democratic secretaries of state and is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Rubio was born in Miami but spent part of his childhood in Las Vegas, where his father was a bartender at a casino and his mother was a housekeeper at a hotel. Later her mother worked in a factory and looked after her four children full-time. He played American football for a short time at Tarquio College in Missouri but later transferred to a community college and then to the University of Florida, where he graduated in 1993 with a degree in political science.

The son of Cuban immigrants who was elected to the Senate in 2011 before launching an unsuccessful presidential bid, Rubio has become increasingly skeptical of U.S. foreign entrapment.

“We are entering an era of pragmatic foreign policy where the world is changing rapidly. Opponents are uniting in North Korea, Iran, China, Russia. They are increasingly coordinating,” he said in an interview with CNN the day after the election. “It requires us to be very realistic and wise in how we invest abroad and what we do and how we approach things.”

His derision of China has been a recurring theme.

In the Senate, Rubio cited Beijing’s persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, repression of democracy activists in Hong Kong and pressure on Taiwan. In 2020, China imposed sanctions on Rubio, among other American officials, for his “appalling” record in Hong Kong. While in Congress, he wrote two reports on China’s threat to the US economy and technological prowess.

Rubio was considered a neoconservative when he sought the presidential nomination in 2016 when he described the United States as an “indispensable power.” Two days after Trump’s re-election, however, Rubio spoke instead of the United States’ “limited resources.”

“Some really bad things are happening in the world. But we cannot engage with all of them. We have to choose the things that are most important to America and to our security,” he said in a Nov. 7 interview with Catholic channel EWTN.

Some Democrats and foreign diplomats are reassured, however, that he does not argue for retreat. “We must engage with the world,” he wrote in his book 2023 decade of declineAdding that the temptation for Americans to step back from the world stage while maintaining its security is “foolish.”

He sees a role for the United States in Europe but, like Trump, wants Europe to provide more for its own defense.

“While America will remain engaged in Europe, we will need our European allies to step up to the plate and shoulder the bulk of this burden,” he wrote. decade of declineA survey of what he describes as the years of American decline.

Rubio is “someone who wants to have good relations with our allies and the world,” said Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Rubio was initially a strong supporter of Ukraine’s fight against full-scale Russian aggression, but earlier this year voted against additional funding for Kiev and described the conflict as a “stalemate.”

“We I want to see an end to that conflictAnd it’s going to require some very hard choices,” he said.

But like Trump, Rubio remains hawkish on Iran, seeing it as a source of instability in the Middle East. A staunch supporter of Israel, he wants the US ally to “destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on”, blaming the group for the huge death toll in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its offensive.