Washington: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to tell lawmakers on Tuesday that the Trump administration has reshaped US foreign policy around advancing American interests, defending a sweeping overhaul of foreign aid, diplomacy and regional security as he makes the case for the administration’s State Department budget request.
In prepared testimony obtained by IANS ahead of his appearance before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs, Rubio argues that US foreign policy under President Donald Trump has returned to what he describes as its core mission: protecting the American people, homeland and national interests.
“Under President Trump, the purpose of American foreign policy is once again the defence of the American nation: our people, our homeland, our sovereignty, our civilisation, and our future,” Rubio plans to tell lawmakers.
The testimony lays out a broad defence of the administration’s foreign policy approach nearly a year and a half after Trump returned to office. Rubio argues that while the United States remains the world’s most powerful military and economic power, that influence should be used first and foremost to advance American interests.
“We believe that America should lead the world. But we believe that American leadership should always be on behalf of American interests,” Rubio says in the prepared remarks.
Rubio is also expected to defend significant changes at the State Department, describing them as the most extensive restructuring effort in the agency’s history.
“We consolidated offices, eliminated redundant and cumbersome bureaucracy, streamlined our entire workforce, and empowered our regional bureaus to actually do their jobs,” he says. “We restored discipline and unity and mission.”
A central theme of Rubio’s testimony is the administration’s overhaul of foreign assistance programmes. He says programmes that failed to advance American interests were terminated and that remaining assistance has been brought under closer State Department supervision.
“We transformed the way we do foreign aid,” Rubio says. “Foreign aid, properly understood, is a valuable tool — a key instrument of statecraft. But every dollar of our assistance must make America safer, stronger, or more prosperous.”
According to the prepared testimony, the administration’s new approach emphasises “trade over aid, investment over dependency, and mutually beneficial partnership over permanent patronage”.
Rubio is expected to tell lawmakers that the budget request supports a new “America First Global Health Strategy” and expands programmes designed to strengthen US economic competitiveness and secure access to critical resources.
The proposal includes support for the administration’s “America First Opportunity Fund”, which Rubio says would finance strategic investments, strengthen supply chains, secure critical minerals and bolster American competitiveness in emerging industries.
The testimony also calls for continued investments in diplomatic security and efforts to combat transnational drug trafficking organisations.
“It provides for robust security investments to disrupt and dismantle transnational drug trafficking networks, and allocates a historic investment in diplomatic security,” Rubio says.
Rubio argues that foreign policy can no longer be separated from economic security, border security, energy policy and industrial competitiveness.
“A country that cannot build ships, produce medicine, control immigration, or access vital resources cannot defend its people, its interests, or its way of life,” he says.
Tuesday’s hearing comes as the administration seeks congressional support for its foreign policy priorities and budget plans for the coming fiscal year. The State Department’s funding request reflects the Trump administration’s broader effort to align diplomacy, foreign assistance and economic policy more closely with domestic strategic objectives.
(IANS)
