Newly elected US President Donald Trump continues to form a team. He will nominate Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.
This is reported by The New York Times, Reuters with reference to sources.
Rubioʼs position on Ukraine
In recent interviews, Rubio said that Ukraine needs to sit down at the negotiating table with the Russian Federation, and not focus on the return of all Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.
"Iʼm not on the side of Russia, but unfortunately the reality is that the war in Ukraine will end through negotiations," Rubio told NBC in September of this year.
At the end of 2023, the House of Representatives, where the Republicans had a majority, blocked a package of military aid to Ukraine. Rubio was one of 15 Republican senators who voted against the military aid package. The decision was made only in April 2024 — such a delay had a negative impact on the situation in Ukraine, particularly on the front, because US military aid ran out at the end of 2023.
The New York Times writes that "despite tough statements about Russia in the past, Rubio is most likely to agree with Trumpʼs expected plans to pressure Ukraine to find a way to settle relations with Russia and stay out of NATO."
The publication notes that Rubio supported Trumpʼs position regarding Russiaʼs war against Ukraine — he declared that "the conflict has reached a dead end" and "it must be brought to an end."
Meanwhile, when an activist asked Rubio late last year what he thought of the many deaths of Palestinian civilians, Rubio replied that "Hamas is 100 percent to blame."
Rubioʼs appointment role for the US
By effectively winning the presidential election, Trump partly won over the large number of Hispanics who overwhelmingly voted for Democrats.
By choosing Rubio, a Latino, to be secretary of state, Trump can let Latinos know that they have a place at the highest levels of his administration. Interestingly, Rubio will be the first Latino to hold this position.
In office, he is likely to place far greater emphasis on Latin America than any previous secretary of state, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former National Security Council assistant for Latin American affairs in the first Trump administration.
It is also known that Rubio supported a rather strict foreign policy in relation to the USʼs geopolitical rivals, in particular, Iran, Cuba and China. This is especially true of the last country. For example, in 2019 Rubio called on the Treasury Department to launch a national security review of the popular Chinese app Musical.ly. Rubio also spoke out for banning the sale of Chinese equipment to Huawei.
Rubio also co-chaired the bipartisan Congressional Executive Committee on China, which aimed to develop aggressive policies, particularly to address human rights abuses there. In 2020, Rubio authored a bill that sought to prevent the importation of Chinese goods made with the use of forced labor by Chinaʼs ethnic Uyghur minority. President Biden signed it the following year.
During the first presidential term of Donald Trump, Rubio was one of the initiators of a bill that complicates the procedure for the US to withdraw from NATO membership. This was in response to President Trumpʼs skepticism about NATO, which criticized the alliance for failing to meet agreed military spending targets. At the time, Trump warned that he would not only refuse to protect countries that are "delayed" on funding, but would also encourage Russia to "do whatever it wants" with them.
In the past few years, Rubio has somewhat changed his views to be more in line with Trumpʼs position, Western media reported.
The US presidential election
In the USA, on November 5, the election of the 47th president of the country was held — the candidate from the Republican Party Donald Trump won. He already has 312 electoral votes out of the required 270. Meanwhile, Democrat Kamala Harris has 226 votes. This means that Trump actually won, but the Electoral College will make a formal decision on the election of the president on December 17, 2024, and the inauguration will take place on January 20, 2025.
The US President-elect Donald Trump will appoint Republican Mike Waltz as his national security adviser.
Elise Stefanik, representative of the Republican Party, will be the US representative at the UN.
Donald Trump chose the head of his election campaign Susie Wiles as the head of the White House. She will be the first woman in this position.
At the same time, the Republican does not plan to invite former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to his new administration.
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