Trump expected to tap US Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state as team takes shape

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: Donald Trump is expected to tap US Senator Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, sources said on Monday (Nov 11), putting the Florida-born politician on track to be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat once the Republican president-elect takes office in January.
Trump also picked former army special forces veteran and noted China hawk Michael Waltz for the crucial National Security Advisor post in the White House, reports said on Monday.
Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of state, and he has in years past advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to America’s geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba.
Over the last several years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump’s views. Trump accuses past US presidents of leading America into costly and futile wars and has pushed for a more restrained foreign policy.
While the famously mercurial Trump could always change his mind at the last minute, he appeared to have settled on his pick as of Monday, according to the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Representatives for Trump and Rubio did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The new administration will confront a world more volatile and dangerous than it was when Trump took office in 2017, with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East and China aligning itself more closely with US foes Russia and Iran.
The Ukraine crisis will be high on Rubio’s agenda.
Rubio, 53, has said in recent interviews that Ukraine needs to seek a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than focus on regaining all territory that Russia has taken in the last decade. He was also one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a US$95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, passed in April.
While Rubio was far from the most isolationist option, his likely selection nonetheless underlines a broad shift in Republican foreign policy views under Trump.
Once the party of hawks who advocated military intervention and a muscular foreign policy, most of Trump’s allies now preach restraint, particularly in Europe, where many Republicans complain US allies are not paying their fair share on defence.
“I’m not on Russia’s side – but unfortunately the reality of it is that the way the war in Ukraine is going to end is with a negotiated settlement,” Rubio told NBC in September.
Rubio’s selection holds domestic as well as international significance.
Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov 5 election in part by winning over large numbers of Latinos, who had voted overwhelmingly for Democrats in previous election cycles but have become an increasingly diverse demographic in a political sense, with more and more Latinos voting Republican.
By selecting Rubio for a key policy role, Trump may help consolidate electoral gains among Latinos and make clear that they have a place at the highest levels of his administration.
Rubio was one of three final contenders for Trump’s vice-presidential pick. The president-elect ultimately chose US Senator JD Vance of Ohio, a hard-right figure who is known for his isolationist foreign policy positions.
Some of Trump’s supporters will be sceptical of his decision to tap Rubio, who until recently held muscular foreign policy positions that contradict those of Trump.
During Trump’s 2017 to 2021 term, for instance, Rubio co-sponsored legislation that would make it harder for Trump to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, by requiring two-thirds of the Senate to ratify withdrawal.
Trump has railed for years against NATO member countries that failed to meet agreed military spending targets and warned during the campaign that he would not only refuse to defend nations “delinquent” on funding but would also encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to them.
Rubio is a top China hawk in the Senate.
Most notably, he called on the Treasury Department in 2019 to launch a national security review of popular Chinese social media app TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly, prompting an investigation and troubled divestment order.
As the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, he has also kept up the heat on the Biden administration, demanding it block all sales to Huawei earlier this year after the sanctioned Chinese tech company released a new laptop powered by an Intel AI processor chip.
Rubio, whose grandfather fled Cuba in 1962, is also an outspoken opponent of normalising relations with the Cuban government, a position Trump shares.
The head of the House subcommittee overseeing Latin American affairs, he is also a frequent and fierce critic of Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela.
Besides tapping Rubio as secretary of state, Waltz looks set to be a key advisor in the incoming Trump administration.
The New York Times and CNN reported his impending appointment on Monday, citing unnamed sources.
The Florida congressman delivered a speech praising Trump at the Republican National Convention in July in which he called for “peace through America’s strength”.
Asked about Trump’s plans to end the war in Ukraine, he told CNN on election night last week that there was “a way to drive this war to an end, we can do it economically, we can do it diplomatically”.
He mentioned specifically enforcing sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, having previously dubbed the country a “gas station with nukes”.
“You could win this economically,” he said during an interview to promote his book Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret last month which also suggested flooding the oil market with US crude to drive down prices.
“Just pouring more billions in (to Ukraine) is the definition of insanity at this point,” he told an interviewer at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
On China, he wrote in his book that America faced an “existential struggle” with the Chinese Communist Party.
He expressed concern about what he termed a “1930s-era, Nazi Germany-style military build-up” in China during a talk at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation last month.
In his speech at the Republican Convention, Waltz also focused on his desire to see “accountability” for Washington’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 under President Joe Biden.
He called it “a stain on our national conscience” and praised Trump for promising to release official documents and communications over the withdrawal which could prove to be a major embarrassment for the Biden administration.
Waltz served in Afghanistan during a 27-year career in the army.
He has extensive experience in Congress, sitting on the Armed Services and Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives and the Foreign Affairs Committee.