News that President-elect Donald Trump nominated Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to be his secretary of state is causing heartburn among U.S. adversaries because Rubio is known for his hawkish stand towards China, Cuba, and Iran. If confirmed, Rubio’s nomination could significantly shape U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding these countries.
Rubio, the son of a Cuban exile, has been a U.S. senator since 2011. His personal journey, often described as an American Dream coming true, resonates with many.
After losing to Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, Rubio shifted his focus to U.S. foreign policy, serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee and Foreign Relations Committee. His hardline approach to U.S. adversaries, particularly China, has been a defining feature of his career.
Rubio was instrumental in introducing bills to address the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. Beijing was so upset by Rubio’s outspokenness that it first imposed sanctions against Rubio and a few other Republican legislators in July 2020. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sanctioned Rubio again a month later, along with ten other U.S. citizens, in what they claimed was retaliation for the U.S. sanctions against 11 senior CCP and Hong Kong officials for their human rights abuses in Hong Kong.
Rubio tweeted in response: “Last month China banned me. Today they sanctioned me. I don’t want to be paranoid but I am starting to think they don’t like me.”
Taking a Stand
Undeterred by Beijing’s sanction, Rubio continued to introduce several bills “to protect American consumers, workers, and investors from exploitation by the Chinese Communist Party.” One such bill was to block Ford from using technology from Chinese battery company CATL to build a battery plant in Michigan, saying Ford’s deal would “only deepen U.S. reliance on the Chinese Communist Party for battery tech, and is likely designed to make the factory eligible for Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax credits.”
During a Senate hearing, Rubio grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray about TikTok, a popular app made in China. Rubio argued that TikTok presents “a substantial national security threat for the country of a kind that we didn’t face in the past.”
In September this year, Rubio’s office issued the report “The World China Made: ‘Made-in-China 2025’ nine years later,” a follow-up to his 2019 report. Rubio said, “This report should serve as a wake-up call to lawmakers, CEOs, and investors. We need a whole-of-society effort to rebuild our country, overcome the China challenge, and keep the torch of freedom lit for generations to come.”
Most recently, Rubio sent a letter to PwC Global, one of the world’s major accounting and financial services firms, stating:
Simultaneous engagements with foreign adversaries are unacceptable. PwC’s apparent deep connections with CCP-controlled entities raise questions about conflicts of interest that could preclude PwC from executing any contract for U.S. federal and state government agencies with fidelity … Global firms, such as PwC, who have grown prosperous from a free and democratic order governed by American values, can no longer seek to cater to, and profit from, both sides of this conflict.
China is clearly anxious about Rubio’s likely confirmation. China’s state media describes Rubio as the “anti-China vanguard” who “has seized the domestic demand for ‘anti-China’ in the United States and jumped up and down in various ‘anti-China issues’ concocted by the US government to gain political capital.” Should Rubio be confirmed as the secretary of state, he will become the first to hold that senior Cabinet position while being banned by Beijing from traveling to China (China imposed sanctions against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after he left the office). This will create a diplomatic embarrassment for Beijing. The CCP will have no choice but to walk back and remove the sanctions against Rubio if the party wishes to maintain any diplomatic contact with the world’s most powerful nation.
Israel and Russia
Beijing isn’t the only U.S. adversary wary of Rubio’s nomination. In a viral video circulating on social media, when pro-Palestinian protestors cornered Rubio in a hallway and demanded he denounce Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, he wasn’t intimidated. Instead, he declared that he wanted Israel to “destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people [Hamas] are vicious animals, who did horrific crimes.” Rubio’s morally clear response and unwavering support of Israel is a refreshing departure from President Joe Biden’s cowardly response to pro-Palestinian protestors by claiming, “They [protestors] have a point.”
Rubio is a known hawk toward Russia too. In the early days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Rubio referred to Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin as a “killer” in a tweet. But Rubio demonstrated his pragmatism and flexibility this year by shifting away from unconditionally committing American resources to foreign wars. In April, he joined 14 other Republican senators to vote against a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine. In a recent interview, Rubio also urged Ukraine to seek “a negotiated settlement” with Russia.
By naming hawkish Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., as national security advisor and nominating Rubio for secretary of state, President-elect Trump signals the direction of his foreign policy approach for his second term: No more of the Biden-Harris administration’s appeasement; the Trump administration will project America’s strength and protect America’s interests without squandering America’s resources on endless wars; and the administration will intensify its focus on strategic competition against China, a key aspect that will shape the next four years of U.S. foreign policy.
