‘There shall be modifications’: Marco Rubio confirmed as US secretary of state – INA NEWS

The cupboard of United States President Donald Trump has began to take form, with its first nominee confirmed to a task: Florida lawmaker Marco Rubio.

On Tuesday, Rubio, 53, was sworn in as secretary of state, the nation’s chief diplomat and the highest-ranking position 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 position.

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 truly get issues accomplished, however a conservative of nice precept and imaginative and prescient,” Vance stated. “And I feel greater than anyone that I’ve met in Washington over the previous couple of years, Senator Rubio, I feel, understands the distinctive priorities of President Trump.”

However what has Rubio pledged to do in his new position? 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 rare honour and a privilege to serve on this position, 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 stated.

“ I need to additionally thank the regionally employed employees, 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 government actions designed to rein in authorities forms.

Simply sooner or later 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 speedy management of the huge federal out-of-control forms, I’ll implement a direct regulation freeze, which can cease Biden bureaucrats from persevering with to control,” Trump instructed supporters gathered on the Capitol One Area in Washington, DC.

“Most of these bureaucrats are being fired. They’re gone. Ought to be all of them, however some sneak by.”

Against this, Rubio entered his new position defending the work of the State Division and praising its workers.

“ There’s no different company on this planet, there’s no different company in our authorities, that I’d reasonably lead due to the expertise that’s collected right here on this room and people watching around the globe,” he stated.

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 in consequence.

“There shall be modifications, however the modifications usually are not meant to be harmful. They’re not meant to be punitive,” he instructed 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 position in authorities affairs.

“Generally, the Division of State has been kind of relegated to a secondary position as a result of another company can transfer quicker or appears to be bolder or extra artistic,” Rubio stated.

“It’s not your fault. However we’re going to vary that. We need to be on the centrepiece. We need to be on the core of how we formulate international coverage.”

The previous senator defined that the division’s position transferring ahead can be extra inward-looking, searching for to craft insurance policies that will 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, internationally, is to make sure that now we have a international coverage that advances the nationwide curiosity of the US,” he stated, including: “I count on 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, preserve 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 individual to function secretary of state.

However the protests have been a reminder of Rubio’s status as a foreign-policy hawk, recognized for his aggressive stance to US adversaries abroad.

One specific goal throughout Rubio’s affirmation hearings was China, which has sanctioned the Florida politician for his assist of Hong Kong’s autonomy. He instructed senators final week that he believed the US-China rivalry would “outline the twenty first century”.

“The Communist Occasion 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 stated.

He defined the specter of China dwarfed that of the US’s Chilly Struggle rival, the Soviet Union.

“They’ve parts 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 instructed State Division workers on Tuesday that he deliberate to observe by with Trump’s guarantees of delivering world peace.

“That’s what we endeavour to do: to advertise peace around the globe as a result of that’s in our nationwide curiosity,” Rubio stated. “With out peace, it’s exhausting to be a powerful nation, a affluent nation.”

He did, nonetheless, admit that “there shall be battle”. In explaining how he considered US coverage overseas, he echoed rhetoric standard among the many Christian proper: specifically, 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 stated.

“We hope the complete world can sooner or later reside underneath that. And we’ll at all times, at all times be sturdy defenders of that precept.”