https://arab.news/nm5te
WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Monday confirmed Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a China hawk and staunch backer of Israel, as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state.
A majority of the 100-member Senate backed Rubio as voting continues days after the long-term member of the Senate foreign relations and intelligence committees sailed through his friendly confirmation hearing.
“The national security of the United States is this committee’s primary focus — and it is to the benefit of our country to have steady leadership in place as soon as possible,” they said.
“We believe that Senator Rubio has the skills, knowledge and experience to lead the department.”
Rubio, who would succeed Antony Blinken, would become the first Hispanic and first fluent Spanish speaker to become the top US diplomat.
He would immediately have the task of executing the diplomacy of Trump, who in an inauguration speech Monday renewed threats to seize the Panama Canal but also pledged to be a “peacemaker.”
Rubio, the working-class son of Cuban immigrants who bitterly opposed Fidel Castro’s communist revolution, is known for his hawkish stance toward Latin American authoritarian states and China.
In his confirmation hearing last week, Rubio accused China of cheating its way to superpower status and called the Asian power “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever faced.”
Rubio was once a political foe of Trump, who belittled him as “Little Marco” when he sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.
But Rubio has since rallied behind Trump while remaining well liked by senators across the political divide, with several Democrats on the committee describing him as a friend.