The cupboard of United States President Donald Trump has began to take form, with its first nominee confirmed to a job: Florida lawmaker Marco Rubio.
On Tuesday, Rubio, 53, was sworn in as secretary of state, the nation’s chief diplomat and the highest-ranking function within the cupboard, second solely to the vice chairman and president.
The ceremony got here after a uncommon unanimous vote within the Senate to raise him to the function.
All 99 members voted in favour: The one vote lacking within the 100-seat chamber was Rubio himself, as he needed to step down as senator to take up his new place.
Talking on the swearing-in ceremony, Vice President JD Vance described Rubio as a “wanted departure from a technology of failed international coverage”.
“He’s a bipartisan solutions-seeker, a man who can really get issues finished, however a conservative of nice precept and imaginative and prescient,” Vance mentioned. “And I feel greater than anyone that I’ve met in Washington over the previous few years, Senator Rubio, I feel, understands the distinctive priorities of President Trump.”
However what has Rubio pledged to do in his new function? And what did Tuesday’s ceremony reveal in regards to the newly-minted diplomat? Listed below are three takeaways.
Rubio defends State Division workers
In his first remarks as secretary of state, Rubio praised the federal workers who conduct day-to-day operations on the US Division of State, the chief company he’s now charged with working.
“That is a unprecedented honour and a privilege to serve on this function, to be right here — frankly, to supervise the best, the best, essentially the most proficient, essentially the most skilled diplomatic corps within the historical past of the world,” Rubio mentioned.
“ I wish to additionally thank the domestically employed workers, the nationals of these nations who work with us,” he added. “With out their assist, with out their assist, it will be unimaginable for us to conduct our mission.”
Rubio’s remarks come at a delicate time for federal civil servants, as Trump sweeps into workplace with a raft of govt actions designed to rein in authorities forms.
Simply someday earlier, on the primary day of his second time period, Trump threatened to fireplace these workers he perceives as loyal to his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.
“To realize instant management of the huge federal out-of-control forms, I’ll implement an instantaneous regulation freeze, which is able to cease Biden bureaucrats from persevering with to control,” Trump informed supporters gathered on the Capitol One Area in Washington, DC.
“Most of these bureaucrats are being fired. They’re gone. Needs to be all of them, however some sneak by.”
Against this, Rubio entered his new function defending the work of the State Division and praising its workers.
“ There’s no different company on the earth, there’s no different company in our authorities, that I’d moderately lead due to the expertise that’s collected right here on this room and people watching all over the world,” he mentioned.
Rubio pledges to advance ‘America First’
Nonetheless, Rubio as soon as once more restated his agency dedication to advancing Trump’s “America First” coverage platform, and warned that modifications would come to the State Division consequently.
“There can be modifications, however the modifications will not be meant to be harmful. They’re not meant to be punitive,” he informed the viewers at his swearing-in, made up largely of State Division workers.
Rubio outlined a imaginative and prescient the place the State Division takes extra of a number one function in authorities affairs.
“Generally, the Division of State has been form of relegated to a secondary function as a result of another company can transfer sooner or appears to be bolder or extra artistic,” Rubio mentioned.
“It’s not your fault. However we’re going to vary that. We wish to be on the centrepiece. We wish to be on the core of how we formulate international coverage.”
The previous senator defined that the division’s function transferring ahead could be extra inward-looking, looking for to craft insurance policies that may make the US “stronger or safer or extra affluent”.
He additionally suggested workers to take a look at Trump’s election to a second time period in November as a mandate to centre US priorities.
“Our job, the world over, is to make sure that we’ve a international coverage that advances the nationwide curiosity of the USA,” he mentioned, including: “I anticipate each nation on earth to advance their nationwide pursuits.”
Balancing hawkishness with peace
However regardless of his unifying tone on Tuesday, Rubio confronted protesters as he sat for Senate hearings about his nomination over the previous week.
“Little Marco, maintain your arms off our nation!” one protester shouted, denouncing the US’s involvement in “ceaselessly wars”.
One other, talking Spanish, criticised hardline US insurance policies overseas: “The sanctions of Marco Rubio are killing youngsters in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.”
Rubio brushed apart the interruptions with light-hearted remarks. “I get the bilingual protesters,” the lawmaker, a baby of Cuban immigrants, quipped. He would be the first Latino particular person to function secretary of state.
However the protests have been a reminder of Rubio’s popularity as a foreign-policy hawk, identified for his aggressive stance to US adversaries abroad.
One explicit goal throughout Rubio’s affirmation hearings was China, which has sanctioned the Florida politician for his assist of Hong Kong’s autonomy. He informed senators final week that he believed the US-China rivalry would “outline the twenty first century”.
“The Communist Celebration of China that leads the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is essentially the most potent and harmful near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted,” Rubio mentioned.
He defined the specter of China dwarfed that of the US’s Chilly Struggle rival, the Soviet Union.
“They’ve components that the Soviet Union by no means possessed. They’re our technological adversary and competitor, an industrial competitor, an financial competitor, a geopolitical competitor, a scientific competitor now — in each realm.”
Nonetheless, regardless of his hawkish posture, Rubio informed State Division workers on Tuesday that he deliberate to comply with by with Trump’s guarantees of delivering world peace.
“That’s what we endeavour to do: to advertise peace all over the world as a result of that’s in our nationwide curiosity,” Rubio mentioned. “With out peace, it’s arduous to be a robust nation, a affluent nation.”
He did, nevertheless, admit that “there can be battle”. In explaining how he considered US coverage overseas, he echoed rhetoric standard among the many Christian proper: particularly, that the US is based on a non secular mandate.
“We’re, on the finish of the day, a nation based on a robust precept. And that highly effective precept is that each one males are created equal as a result of our rights come from God, our creator — not from our legal guidelines, not from our governments,” Rubio mentioned.
“We hope the whole world can someday dwell beneath that. And we are going to at all times, at all times be sturdy defenders of that precept.”
