U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio arrives for the Senate Republican leadership elections at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 13 in Washington, DC. Just how Mr. Rubio will be able to square his principles with Donald Trump’s 'America First' credo now that he has been named secretary of state remains a mystery to most members of the Blob.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The bad blood between Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, who ran against each other for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, went far deeper than the jibes they exchanged during the race about the size, or lack thereof, of each other’s physical attributes.
Mr. Rubio, then still a first-term Florida senator, had emerged as one of his party’s most notorious foreign policy hawks. And he pounced on his GOP rival’s ignorance after a radio interview in which Mr. Trump had been unable to identify the heads of Iran’s Quds force, Hamas or Hezbollah, and confused the Quds with Kurds.
“If you don’t know the answer to these questions, then you are not able to serve as commander-in-chief,” Mr. Rubio charged after Mr. Trump’s interview. “National security is the most important obligation of the federal government. If you are going to be a presidential candidate, you need to take this seriously.”
Even in Washington, few politicians take foreign policy as seriously as Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who worked tending bar and cleaning houses when he was growing up. He is seen as a staunch proponent of the doctrine of American exceptionalism, which sees the United States as a superior civilization with an obligation to spread its values abroad. “Little Marco,” as Mr. Trump once called him, does not have an isolationist bone is his body.
Just how Mr. Rubio will be able to square his principles with Mr. Trump’s “America First” credo now that he has been named secretary of state remains a mystery to most members of the Blob, as the U.S. foreign policy establishment is known. Some see a repeat of Mr. Trump’s first term, when he fired his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, over their irreconcilable differences. (Mr. Tillerson had also made the career-ending move of calling his boss a “moron.”)
To be sure, Mr. Rubio is somewhat less of a foreign-policy ideologue than he was when he ran against Mr. Trump for the GOP nomination eight years ago. And Mr. Trump is somewhat less of a foreign policy ignoramus. Indeed, as president in 2020, he authorized the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the Quds chief whose very name escaped him in 2016.
Still, as a hardliner on U.S. policy toward China, Russia and Iran, Mr. Rubio would seem bound to clash with Mr. Trump, who takes a transactional approach to foreign policy. True, Mr. Rubio is also a skilled politician who likely still harbours presidential ambitions. And he may still think he can outsmart his boss.
Unlike the very Trump-like Pete Hegseth, the president-elect’s widely criticized choice to become defence secretary, Mr. Rubio’s pending State department appointment should be reassuring for most European leaders.
They have been fretting about Mr. Trump’s threats to let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” with NATO alliance members who fail to spend more on defence. Mr. Rubio last year co-sponsored legislation that would require congressional approval before the United States could withdraw from NATO. That legislation was aimed at tying the hands of a future isolationist president.
The European Union is facing a leadership vacuum as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz grapple with their lame-duck status at home. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orban, both like-minded right-leaning populists, will increasingly have the ear of Mr. Trump.
Ms. Meloni has been a vocal backer of Ukraine. But the pro-Russia Mr. Orban has courted Mr. Trump and pushed for negotiations to end the war. Last week, Mr. Orban insisted: “Those who want peace are increasingly numerous and with the U.S. elections, the camp of those who want peace increased manyfold.”
That is no doubt true. Even Mr. Rubio, an ardent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, now calls for a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine.
As a Senate intelligence committee member, in 2022, Mr. Rubio tweeted: “I wish I could share more, but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many of us that something is off with #Putin. He has always been a killer, but his problem now is different & significant.”
But by early this year, he had changed his tune. Mr. Rubio was one of 18 senators who voted against an aid package to Ukraine that passed Congress in April. And last week he told NBC: “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong in standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion.”
Still, the terms of any ceasefire or peace deal will matter as much for the United States as for Ukraine. Any major concessions to Mr. Putin would only lead to bigger national security threats down the road.
Mr. Rubio surely knows that. But does Mr. Trump?