Trump expected to name Marco Rubio as secretary of state

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state, three people familiar with his thinking said Monday, as Trump moves rapidly to fill out his foreign policy and national security team.

Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, the people said, but appeared to have settled on Rubio, whom he also considered when choosing his running mate this year.

Rubio was elected to the Senate in 2010 and has staked out a position as a foreign policy hawk, taking hard lines on China, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba in particular.

He initially found himself at odds with those Republicans who were more skeptical about interventions abroad, but he has also echoed Trump more recently on issues like Russia’s war against Ukraine, saying that the conflict has reached a stalemate and “needs to be brought to a conclusion.”

Despite speaking in hard-line terms about Russia in the past, Rubio would likely go along with Trump’s expected plans to press Ukraine to find a way to come to a settlement with Russia and remain outside of NATO. It is unclear whether the leaders of Ukraine or Russia would be prepared to enter into talks at Trump’s urging.

Rubio has been among the most outspoken senators on the need for the United States to be more aggressive on China. He has adopted positions that later became more mainstream in both parties. For example, while serving in Congress during the first Trump administration, he began advocating industrial policy meant to help the United States better compete with China’s state-directed economy.

Rubio also served as a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which has aimed to craft aggressive policy on China, especially in trying to address human rights abuses there. In 2020, Rubio sponsored a bill that tried to prevent the import of Chinese goods made with the use of forced labor by China’s ethnic Uyghur minority. President Joe Biden signed it into law the next year.

In 2019, Rubio helped persuade Trump to adopt a harsh sanctions policy against Venezuela to try to unseat its authoritarian leftist president, Nicolás Maduro. “He’s picked a battle he can’t win,” Rubio said of Maduro in an interview with The New York Times. “It’s just a matter of time. The only thing we don’t know is how long it will take — and whether it will be peaceful or bloody.”

Though Venezuelans have suffered from the U.S.-imposed sanctions, Maduro remains in power.

More recently, Rubio has expressed unalloyed American support for Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. When asked by a peace activist late last year what he thought about the many Palestinian civilian deaths, he said, “I think Hamas is 100% to blame.”

Rubio has worked across party lines on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, and would likely sail through a confirmation process.

If he becomes secretary of state, a main question is whether he would forgo U.S. interventions in parts of the world to prioritize China. That approach would align with Trump’s “America First” ideas but would run counter to some of Rubio’s earlier positions.

Rubio was a loyal surrogate for Trump during the campaign even after being passed over as the vice presidential pick.

A spokesperson for Rubio declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has made his choice for a number of other national security roles. He has selected Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., to be his national security adviser, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., to be ambassador to the United Nations.

Rubio was first elected to the Senate in 2010 as part of a new generation of conservative Tea Party leaders. But some conservatives considered him wobbly on immigration, an issue that caused him political problems when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 against Trump and others.

During that campaign, Trump belittled him as “Little Marco,” and Rubio responded with acerbic attacks.

But after Trump’s 2016 victory, Rubio went on to patch things up with him, serving as an informal foreign policy adviser and helping to prepare him for his first debate against Biden in 2020.

Under Florida law, Gov. Ron DeSantis can temporarily appoint a replacement to Rubio’s seat who will serve in the Senate until the next regularly scheduled general election is held. After last week’s elections, Republicans are set to hold at least 52 seats in the chamber.