Washington: The Senate voted on Monday to confirm Marco Rubio as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, the first high-level Cabinet official for the new administration to be approved by the Chamber, media reported.
The confirmation vote took place just hours after Trump was sworn in as President, CNN reported.
Rubio has served as a Republican Senator from Florida since 2011, and his nomination drew strong support from several Senate Democrats, who called their colleague highly qualified for the role.
Rubio went from Trump’s adversary to ally in recent years in a remarkable political turnaround. Now, he will play a key role as a high-ranking official in Trump’s new administration, CNN reported.
After his failed GOP presidential primary bid in 2016, Rubio sharpened his foreign policy credentials as the leading Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, while building relationships in his party and across the aisle.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has named state Attorney General Ashley Moody to fill the seat set to be vacated by Rubio.
Rubio’s nomination received a warm reception from many Senate Democrats. During his confirmation hearing, New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called Rubio “well-qualified to serve as Secretary of State”.
During questions from Senators, Rubio voiced his support for NATO — as well as a bipartisan law he co-sponsored that states that the US cannot withdraw from the alliance without Senate approval or an act of Congress.
Rubio also talked about the need for the US to take a strong stance with respect to China during his confirmation hearing, calling the Chinese Communist Party a “potent” and “dangerous” adversary.
“They’re a technological adversary and competitor, an industrial competitor, an economic competitor, geopolitical competitor, a scientific competitor now, in every realm, it’s an extraordinary challenge and one that I believe will define the 21st century,” Rubio said.
“We’ve allowed them to get away with things, and frankly the Chinese did what any country in the world would do given these opportunities, they took advantage of it, so now we’re dealing with the ramifications of it,” he said.
“Much of what we need to do to confront China is here at home. It’s not just abroad, it’s also here at home,” he said.
“We have to rebuild our domestic industrial capacity, and we have to make sure the United States is not reliant on any single other nation for any of our critical supply chains.”
In response to questions about Russia’s war against Ukraine, Rubio said it’s “unrealistic to believe” Ukraine can push Russian forces back to where they were before the 2022 invasion and that the official US position should be that the war should end, CNN reported.
Rubio added he and Trump agreed that the war needed to end and criticised the Biden administration for not setting a clear “end goal” for the war.
“What (Russian President) Vladimir Putin has done is unacceptable, there’s no doubt about it, but this war has to end, and I think it should be the official policy of the United States that we want to see it end,” he said.
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