When Marco Rubio first launched his presidential marketing campaign in 2015, the then-senator championed a tricky stance on Russia and decried earlier efforts by United States officers to reset and bolster ties with Moscow.
Ten years later, Rubio – now America’s prime diplomat – sat throughout from his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia this week in a bid to revive relations between Washington and Moscow.
A overseas coverage hawk who as soon as known as Russian President Vladimir Putin a “thug”, Rubio is now overseeing seismic shifts within the US method to the world below President Donald Trump.
Rubio is seen as a traditional politician, with conventional conservative views. He’s now serving in an administration whose public face is a tech billionaire with no earlier political expertise who’s trying to radically hole out federal businesses.
The brand new secretary of state, in the meantime, finds himself pushing Trump’s unconventional worldwide agenda: opening as much as Russia, taking on the Panama Canal, buying Greenland, and “proudly owning” Gaza.
As the previous senator spearheads Trump’s overseas coverage, who’s the highest US diplomat and what drives him?
World stage, ambition
Analysts say Rubio is motivated by a conviction that the US ought to play the main function on the world stage in addition to private ambitions that noticed him search the presidency within the 2016 elections and rise by the ranks of the Republican Social gathering.
“He has a really conventional, hawkish view of America’s function on this planet, however we’ve additionally seen methods during which he’s merely disbursed with long-held views since changing into secretary of state,” mentioned Michael Hanna, US programme director on the Worldwide Disaster Group suppose tank.
Approving the gutting of worldwide assist programmes and the US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID) is one evident instance of Rubio’s personal shifts.
Rubio has lengthy been an advocate of assist programmes, selling them as a aspect of American smooth energy on this planet.
However Rubio, like different Republicans named to key positions within the Trump administration, has fallen in lockstep with the president, embracing his “America First” coverage.
Hanna urged that Rubio, 53, might finally have his eyes on the White Home after Trump leaves workplace.
“I believe it’s ambition. Being a high-profile senator is one factor, and being the secretary of state is one other when it comes to your profile, significantly on a world stage,” he advised Al Jazeera.
‘The trauma of exile’
The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio comes from humble beginnings. His father was a bartender, his mom a cashier and lodge cleaner.
Though his mother and father moved to the US earlier than Fidel Castro’s revolution within the Fifties, he grew up in Miami’s Cuban neighborhood alongside exiles who fled the communist authorities.
The staunchly anti-Castro constituency has been veering to the suitable of the US political spectrum over the a long time, serving to flip Florida right into a Republican stronghold.
In his 2012 memoir, An American Son, Rubio means that he acquired his early political orientation and sense of patriotism from the Cuban immigrants he grew up round.
“I knew how the trauma of exile – disbelief, guilt, a way of loss – had formed their lives and my very own,” he wrote.
“I knew that their love, born of gratitude for the nation that had welcomed them and inspired their aspirations, and the loss that had introduced them right here, had made them vigilant of their look ahead to something that they thought might threaten America … That is the tradition that formed my youth.”
Writer Manuel Roig-Franzia writes in his 2012 e-book, The Rise of Marco Rubio, that his household’s roots and rising up in Miami’s Cuban neighborhood formed “his political id”.
All through his profession, Rubio has advocated adversarial insurance policies, together with sturdy sanctions, in the direction of left-wing Latin American leaders who he views as autocrats or hostile to the US.
In the course of the administration of US President Barack Obama, Rubio was a vocal opponent of the detente with Cuba.
Rubio has additionally been a supporter of extra hardline insurance policies in opposition to the federal government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
In 2019, he appeared to subject a blunt “regime change” menace to Maduro.
Amid a spike of tensions between the US and Venezuela, Rubio posted a sequence of photographs of slain and imprisoned dictators to social media after addressing the Maduro authorities.
One submit featured a bloody picture of late Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi, who was executed by rebels in 2011.
Rubio, a first-year senator in 2011, had known as for an much more forceful US intervention in opposition to Gaddafi in the course of the Libyan rebellion as US and NATO fighter jets bombarded authorities positions there.
Pax Americana
Stephen Zunes, a world research professor on the College of San Francisco, mentioned Rubio’s hawkish worldview of “would possibly makes proper” has develop into outstanding amongst Republicans who got here of age within the Nineteen Eighties in the course of the Ronald Reagan years with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“I believe he desires to see a Pax Americana,” Zunes says, referring to the idea of worldwide peace ushered in by American dominance.
Rubio urged as a lot himself in 2015, writing about his imaginative and prescient for US overseas coverage in Overseas Affairs. “The primary and most vital pillar of my overseas coverage shall be a renewal of American power. That is an concept based mostly on a easy reality: the world is at its most secure when America is at its strongest,” he wrote.
A presidential candidate on the time, Rubio outlined three pillars for his overseas coverage: Navy power, defending free commerce and “ethical readability” in “defending freedom”.
Such language harkens again to the presidency of George W Bush within the 2000s when Rubio was in his early political profession.
The Florida politician has all the time expressed fondness for Bush. He wrote in his memoir that the primary congratulatory telephone name he acquired after being elected to the US Senate in 2010 was from the previous president.
In 2015, Rubio defended the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq at a time when there was close to consensus in Washington that it was a mistake.
“The world is a greater place as a result of Saddam Hussein just isn’t there,” he advised Fox Information.
The opposite Bush
Rubio was simply 27 when he was first elected to public workplace as a West Miami commissioner in 1998.
In lower than 13 years, he lept from municipal politics to the US Senate. In between, he served for eight years within the Florida Home of Representatives, main the chamber between 2006 and 2008.
All through his meteoric rise, Rubio had a robust ally – Florida’s then-Governor Jeb Bush.
Jeb – the brother of former President George W Bush and son of former President George HW Bush – noticed Rubio as a gifted younger politician.
When Rubio grew to become State Home speaker, Jeb gifted him a golden sword that he held up in entrance of his fellow lawmakers with a broad smile. Jeb proverbially anointed Rubio as a “conservative warrior”.
Accounts differ on whether or not the 2 had been shut buddies or mere allies, however publicly, they’ve expressed admiration for each other through the years. And Bush noticed one thing in Rubio early on; he contributed to his first native election marketing campaign.
However it wasn’t simply Bush. Florida politicians who interacted with Rubio when he was beginning to forge his means in politics say it was obvious that he was going locations.
Congressman Carlos Jimenez advised NPR final month that the primary time he heard Rubio converse early in his profession, he knew that he “has it” – referring to one thing particular.
“Marco Rubio not solely exemplifies the American dream. I’d inform you that he exemplifies the Republican Social gathering,” Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart added.
2016 presidential run
From the second he burst onto the nationwide stage, Rubio – a younger, eloquent, combative politician with a compelling private story from a rising demographic base – appeared to tick all of the containers for a rising star within the Republican Social gathering.
Rubio made it to the Senate with such fanfare that lower than two years after his election, the marketing campaign of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney thought of him for the vice presidential spot in 2012.
When 2016 got here round, Rubio threw his personal hat right into a crowded ring of Republican candidates searching for the presidency.
His interactions with two rivals – his ally, Bush, and his future boss, Trump – stood out.
Rubio put previous political ties apart when he tried to occupy the institution lane within the major that was seen as reserved for Bush.
The 2 exchanged assaults on the talk stage and marketing campaign path, however Rubio’s blows got here off as extra environment friendly, exhibiting his willingness to dispense with outdated allies to get forward.
“I thank God daily that George W Bush was president, however Jeb has no overseas coverage expertise,” Rubio mentioned in February 2016.
Bush’s marketing campaign was already struggling on a number of fronts, and Rubio might have helped end it off.
The Floridian additionally got here after Trump at a time when different candidates had been avoiding confrontations with the sharp-tongued businessman.
Rubio known as out the now-president for lack of overseas coverage expertise as effectively. He described him as a “con artist” and mocked his “small palms”.
The actual property mogul already had Rubio, at one level his closest rival within the primaries, in his crosshairs.
He branded him “Little Marco Rubio” and ridiculed him at each flip, charging that the then-senator wore an excessive amount of make-up, drank water excessively and sweated loads – amongst different insults.
Regardless of the non-public nature of the rivalry, Rubio endorsed Trump when he grew to become the nominee and backed him once more early within the 2024 marketing campaign season regardless of his authorized troubles.
By endorsing Trump, Rubio appeared to acknowledge the president’s Republican takeover and selected to work inside the celebration system.
The distinction between his method to Bush and Trump exhibits Rubio’s pragmatic facet, being keen to assault outdated allies and work with earlier foes.
Requested this week after the talks with Russian diplomats whether or not he thinks Moscow desires peace, Rubio urged that the world is extra advanced than the premise of the query.
“I don’t view diplomacy that means. I believe diplomacy finally is predicated on actions. It’s based mostly on commitments which are saved,” he mentioned.
Professional-Israel advocacy
Whereas Rubio urged that the trail ahead for US coverage on Russia and its invasion of Ukraine is advanced, days earlier, he painted a black-and-white picture of the Center East battle.
Whereas assembly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Rubio heaped reward on Israel, calling it a “free enterprise democracy”.
“If there have been extra Israels within the Center East, extra international locations like that, the world could be a safer and a greater place,” he mentioned.
Conversely, the highest US diplomat known as Iran the “single best supply of instability within the area”.
He additionally praised Trump’s proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza as “daring”.
Zunes, the professor, mentioned Rubio has “excessive” views on Israel-Palestine and different areas of the world, however he was nonetheless seen as an inexpensive choose within the Trump administration. The Senate confirmed Rubio in a 99-0 vote in January.
“If another individual was president, [Rubio] could be thought of fairly excessive. It’s simply that compared to a few of these different appointees, he’s seen as pretty affordable,” Zunes mentioned.
Rubio has an extended historical past of pro-Israel advocacy. He has launched measures to penalise firms that boycott Israel over its mistreatment of Palestinians and rebuked Latin American leaders essential of the US ally as “pro-Hamas”.
Revering and centring Israel has develop into an almost unquestionable tenet within the fashionable Republican Social gathering.
Conservatives have lengthy seen Israel as an extension of US energy within the Center East, particularly in the course of the Chilly Warfare when the Soviet Union sided with Arab governments within the battle.
The rise of evangelicals – who again Israel for theological causes – as a significant Republican constituency cemented right-wing assist for Israel over the previous a long time.
Altering views
Whereas Rubio might share Trump’s views on Israel-Palestine, his historical past of advocacy for internationalism, overseas assist and a number one US world function might not bode effectively with what Trump appears to wish to obtain – a nationalistic withdrawal from the world stage and unilateral pursuit of perceived US pursuits.
Nonetheless, the secretary of state seems to have been revising his views.
Rubio was as soon as a stalwart advocate of assist to Ukraine, however final yr – as scepticism across the US function within the struggle grew in right-wing circles – he proclaimed that “the US is funding a stalemate in Ukraine”.
Not too long ago, he even spoke of an inevitable “multipolar world” – which seems to contradict his earlier statements in regards to the want for the US to be the supreme world energy.
It stays unclear whether or not Rubio is within the midst of an ideological transformation or simply doing what the job requires.
As secretary of state, Rubio should channel Trump. He doesn’t set overseas coverage; he conducts it on behalf of the president.
Zunes mentioned Rubio knew coming into the job that he needed to advocate for positions he doesn’t imagine in.
“I believe he felt that he might have at the least some affect in that place, that he might persuade the president on just a few issues, might steer the coverage in a path that he thought could be higher,” he mentioned.