Trump formally nominated Marco Rubio, among others, on January 20, 2025, as one of his first acts as American president on Inauguration Day. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations unanimously approved his nomination, and the Senate quickly confirmed him by a vote of 99 to 0. On January 21, Vice President JD Vance made Rubio swear into office as the 72nd secretary of state.
Rubio has years of experience serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and being a rising voice on international conflicts during his Senate tenure.
He now appears as the nation’s top US diplomat, supervising more than 70,000 federal employees working for the US Department of State. Taking hard-line positions towards Iran and China, Rubio is considered a foreign policy hawk.
Let’s have a look at his stance on major global issues.
End of the Russia-Ukrainian War: Difficult Choice
In his own words, to draw a deadline on the war between Russia and Ukraine will mean ‘difficult choices’.
Rubio has been encouraging a swift conclusion to the two-year-long war between Russia and Ukraine.
“We do want to see that conflict end, and it’s going to require some very difficult choices,” Rubio declared in November 2024, after Trump’s crucial election victory.
In the past, Rubio described it as “hyperbole to believe that the Ukrainians are going to completely crush the Russian military.” Interestingly,
He voted against the $6 billion military aid package for Ukraine last year.
“I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong in standing up to Russia,” he elaborated. “But at the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stagnant war, and it cries for a conclusion, or that country is going to be set back 100 years.”
China: A Dominating Threat to the US
Rubio has demonstrated hardline positions in many regions of the world but nowhere is that truer than in China.
Rubio appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on January 15, 2025. During the hearing, he presented China as “the most potent and perilous near-peer adversary this nation has ever faced” and said the Chinese Communist Party had “lied, cheated, hacked, and stolen their way to global superpower status at our expense.”
“The future of the 21st century is going to largely be defined by what happens in the Indo-Pacific,” Rubio uttered in his November remarks. “And I think China would love for us to be bogged down in Europe in a war and not focused on what’s happening in the Indo-Pacific.”
To confront China’s attempts to upgrade its manufacturing sector, titled “Made in China 2025,” Rubio called for the US to create a new industrial policy that is expected to stop China from “eclipsing the United States entirely in the coming decade.”
“The synopsis is that US policymakers cannot be satisfied having the largest, most advanced adversary America has ever faced,” Rubio wrote on the social media platform.
Rubio took a very hawkish stance regarding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Rubio believes that without a major effort to defeat China, the world is headed to “a new dark age of exploitation, conquest, and totalitarianism.” He believes the U.S. should support democracy, freedom, and true autonomy for the people of Hong Kong.
He also showed a firm defense of Taiwan’s independence by urging the international community to prolong support for Taiwan as they defend their sovereignty and freedom.”
“Communist China is not, and will never be, a friend to democratic nations,” Rubio wrote on X and Twitter. “
On August 28, 2018, Rubio and 16 other members of Congress urged the U.S. to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials liable for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang. However, China sanctioned him in 2020 and banned him from traveling to the country for his support of Hong Kong’s democratic movement. Anyway, he condemned holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in China due to its “evil, genocidal regime,” saying that he would propagate a campaign to ensure that the Olympics are never hosted in the People’s Republic of China again”. In 2022, he introduced the Chinese Communist Party Visa Ban Act, which would essentially prohibit any member of the CCP from visiting the United States. In March 2023, he voiced support for annihilating China’s permanent normal trade relations status.
A ceasefire in Gaza?
Rubio has previously stood against a ceasefire in Gaza. In a reply to a query by activists on Capitol Hill about whether he would support ending fighting there, he straightly said no. “On the contrary … I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they may get their hands on,” Rubio said last year. “These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes,” he rather castigated.
Rubio eulogized that Israel’s intention with its fighting is to annihilate the terrorist organization so that it may never threaten the people of Israel again”.
He also harshly criticized Canada‘s very recent decision to accept Palestinian war refugees. He claimed terrorists and known criminals continue to stream across US land borders, including from Canada”.
Called Iran a ‘terrorist’ regime
He expected a robust armed reaction to Iran following every single attack last year. In a statement, Rubio excerpted, “This is Israel’s right to respond disproportionately to stop this threat.”
“Israel should respond to Iran the way the US would respond if some country launched 180 missiles at us,” Rubio wrote on social media, instigating them.
“And they should act in Lebanon as we would be reckoning our leaders to do if terrorists were launching anti-tank rockets at us from a neighboring country.”
Before swearing for the position of secretary of state, Rubio declared a Trump administration would be “transparent and very firm” in dealing with Iran. He also criticized the Biden administration for treating Iran like “Belgian diplomats at the United Nations.”.
Rubio’s lens on other key events worldwide
He set uniform support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and military intervention in Libya. Rubio voiced support for a Saudi Arabian-led foray in Yemen against Houthi rebels. Regarding Iran, he supports strong sanctions and scrapping the nuclear deal with adversary Iran; regarding the Islamic State, he favors aiding local Sunni forces in Iraq and Syria. Rubio remarks that, because of the inability to check backgrounds under present circumstances, the United States cannot greet more Syrian refugees. He supports working with allies to set up no-fly zones in Syria to protect civilians from Iran-backed Bashar al-Assad.
He is seen as comparatively supportive of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying that the U.S. risks being excluded from global trade unless it is more optimal to trade. On capital punishment, Rubio favors facilitating the appeals process.
Rubio denounced the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar and called for a muscular response to the crisis. Alongside, he condemned Turkey’s wide-ranging crackdown on dissent following a failed 2016 coup. He is a deliberate opponent of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Due to his influence on U.S. policy on Latin America during the first Trump administration, Rubio was popularly known as a “virtual secretary of state for Latin America.”
