There was cautious hope from some prominent critics of the United States’ foreign policy about Donald Trump’s potential break from the status quo of militarism and foreign intervention after he named Tulsi Gabbard, an isolationist, to the crucial role of Director of National Intelligence. But if optimism over Tulsi was warranted (this author is skeptical,) Trump’s other cabinet picks demonstrate the harsh reality that the new president will match his predecessors’ commitment to the aggressive, often violent, expansion of American influence. None more so than Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

After the fall of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. exploited the absence of a rival power to attempt to expand American corporate and military might around the globe under a unipolar world order. Over the last decade, though, the rise of Russia and China has prevented the U.S. from achieving its goals uncontested. In response to this challenge, the U.S. has announced that its primary goal is to contain and confront the power of its new rivals. Despite some attempts to cast Donald Trump as some kind of genuine anti-imperialist, it’s clear from his public statements after taking office that the foreseeable future of U.S. foreign policy will be defined by confrontations against China, Russia, and Iran, as well as intensified efforts to consolidate control in areas considered to be within the U.S. orbit. Most of Trump’s picks for key foreign policy positions demonstrate not a challenge to this establishment-endorsed future, but a renewed commitment to it. 

Chief among these is Senator Rubio, who was recently confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of State. Rubio, who has been an avid supporter of U.S. aggression against the rest of the world, seems poised to continue flexing U.S. power around the globe in an effort to halt the rising multipolar order. And yet, senators from both parties and even independent socialist Senator Bernie Sanders appear to be fully on board with this direction; Rubio was confirmed to the senate by a 99-0 vote with not a single senator voting in opposition. (Current Affairs reached out to the offices of both Senator Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, asking them to explain their votes for Rubio, but have heard nothing back.) 

Rubio recently made headlines by acknowledging in an interview that it is “not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the so-called American Century was an “anomaly” resulting from the end of the Cold War. He said that “eventually [the world was] going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia[…].” These statements are a lot more sober and realistic than the pronouncements of American supremacy and “rules-based order” that most Americans are used to. However, if Rubio's record is any guide to his future actions, these statements may not signal a meaningful change in America’s foreign policy. To anyone concerned about the suffering these policies cause around the world, and the increasing risk of nuclear war, Rubio’s tenure at the State Department is deeply troubling. 

Little Marco The Neocon

After a career as a representative in the Florida state legislature from 2000 to 2008, then as a senator in the United States Senate starting in 2011, Rubio rose to national prominence during his campaign for president in 2015-16, where he ran against soon-to-be President Trump in the Republican primary. During this run, Politico referred to him as the “toughest hawk in the Republican primary field.” Rubio called for greater military spending and the continuation of the disastrous global war on terror. He also insisted that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was “not a mistake” and pledged to obstruct efforts to close down the American torture prison at Guantanamo Bay.

During the campaign, the senator unveiled the “Rubio Doctrine,” which had three pillars. First was “American strength”—code for American military dominance. Second was "Protection of the American economy in a globalized world,” an acknowledgment of his devotion to American corporate capitalism. Rubio’s final pillar was “Moral clarity regarding America’s core values,” based on the dangerous belief that “our nation is a global leader not just because it has superior arms, but because it has superior aims.”

Like many prominent Republicans now kissing Trump’s ring, Rubio was initially a staunch critic of the real estate con man turned Republican candidate. The two notoriously clashed on the debate stage, with Trump bestowing the nickname “little Marco” on the senator. But since Trump’s victory, the public feud between the two has subsided and Rubio has acted out his hawkish ideas about American power in other ways. Now that he has been confirmed as the secretary of state, the petty differences between Trump and his former rivals are being set aside in favor of a renewed vigor to the American expansionist project—something that should worry everyone who cares about and works toward a more peaceful world. 

China And The New Cold War

              Since Obama's “pivot to Asia" in 2009 marked a shift away from the Middle East ambitions of the Bush era and towards the new imperial goal of countering the rise of China, U.S. foreign policy has been driven by a vision of a “Pacific Century” of renewed American dominance. To counter China’s meteoric rise, the U.S. has effectively launched an economic war with the aim of slowing or stopping Chinese development. 

Marco Rubio has been one of the leading American politicians pushing anti-China politics,  describing himself as “leading the charge to rebalance our relationship with Communist China.” He has labeled China “without a doubt the singular geopolitical issue of the 21st century,” and has called for “a whole-of-society effort” to “overcome the China challenge.” 

In 2024, Rubio cheered on the Biden administration’s restriction of computer chips to the Chinese telecom company Huawei, saying that the U.S. needed to be “proactive in denying Chinese companies critical technologies.” He even asked the Department of Justice to investigate alleged Chinese Communist funding of American left-wing groups. He has spearheaded the U.S. faux-advocacy for the Uyghur cause as a way to build consensus against China, boosting the work of U.S.-funded anti-China religious fanatic Adrian Zenz to justify aggressive anti-China measures. (Keep in mind that U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia commit mass killings and other human rights abuses just as bad as those China is accused of, but provoke much less outrage from people like Rubio, which shows how cynical and ideologically driven the anti-China push is.)

During his confirmation hearing, the New York Times described Rubio as “perhaps most fluent and animated during his discussion of China.” Rubio accused China of having “lied, cheated, hacked and stolen their way to global superpower status, at our expense.” He reiterated that American competition with China was the defining question of the century. 

In China’s Backyard

Part of the U.S. plan to counter China is to continue wielding American influence in their near neighborhood: Hong Kong, Taiwan and the rest of the Pacific. It’s clear that Rubio plans to continue this policy, no doubt using the rhetoric of freedom and democracy to justify it.

Rubio was a key U.S. backer of the 2019 anti-China Hong Kong protests that were supported with money and resources from America’s National Endowment for Democracy. As violent pro-American demonstrators used signs and slogans in English to cater to American audiences, Rubio promoted these efforts as part of the Western attempt to increase its foothold in China’s backyard. 

By far the most critical flashpoint with China is the island of Taiwan. On paper, the U.S. accepts the 75-year-old international position of a One China Policy, in which China is recognized as the sole legitimate government of the island with only unofficial relations with the Taiwanese government. This was a compromise with Beijing’s One China Principle, which considers Taiwan an inalienable part of China to be eventually reunified. Peaceful relations with China depend on a peaceful solution in Taiwan; likewise, any attempt to increase tensions over the island increases the possibility of armed conflict, which would be disastrous for all sides and especially for Taiwan itself.

Increasingly, though, U.S. China hawks have been attempting to prod China by deliberately crossing longstanding red lines. The U.S. has begun official military aid and diplomatic overtures to the Taiwanese factions pushing for complete political separation from the mainland. These moves have been accompanied by dramatically increased U.S. military activity on and around the island. The U.S. even stations soldiers at “permanent positions” just 2.5 miles off the Chinese coast, ostensibly as “military advisors” to Taiwanese troops. And while Chinese president Xi Jinping has explicitly warned that continued American interference in Taiwan could lead to war, the U.S. has continued its destabilizing policy.

Taiwanese separatists received a major win when Rubio was confirmed as Secretary of State. In 2022, Rubio sponsored the "Taiwan Peace Through Strength Act,” which would increase the frequency and volume of military transfers to anti-China Taiwanese factions. Though like his predecessors, Rubio has officially rejected Taiwanese independence, during his confirmation hearing, Rubio clearly indicated his support for continued and increased weapons to Taiwan, a move clearly aimed at raising tensions.

Reinvigorating the Monroe Doctrine. 

The rush to counter China’s influence doesn’t end in the Pacific. U.S. empire planners have been worried for a long time about the increasing independence of Latin American countries like Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela. They have been most concerned about their increased cooperation with China and moving away from the United States, with Rubio himself saying that the U.S. “can’t afford to let the Chinese Communist Party expand its influence” in Latin America in 2024.

Trump’s aggressive statements about Latin America have reminded many commentators of the 19th Century Monroe Doctrine—some of them approvingly. The doctrine claims the Western Hemisphere as an American sphere of influence and effectively a part of the extraterritorial empire, sometimes referred to as “America’s Backyard.” The doctrine was later amended with the Roosevelt Corollary that promoted direct U.S. intervention in Latin American affairs when the U.S. decides that a country’s actions have “loosened the ties of civilized society.”

In 2019, the New York Times emphasized Senator Rubio’s role in the first Trump administration’s moves in the entire region, labeling him the “virtual secretary of state for Latin America, driving administration strategy and articulating it to the region from the Senate floor.”  Now Rubio is in the role officially. 

One of America’s earliest targets in Latin America has been Cuba, an island long assumed by American leaders to be a rightful part of the American empire. After the Spanish-American War, the U.S. replaced Spain as the dominant colonial power, supporting thuggish dictators like Fulgencio Batista to maintain the interests of U.S. corporations. After Cuba’s socialist revolution in 1959 overturned this order, the U.S. has punished Cuba with attempted invasion, terrorism, and crushing sanctions ever since. Now, Cuba’s continued resistance and closer ties with China have put it in the crosshairs of this new Cold War.

Rubio is himself the son of Cuban immigrants who left the island during Batista’s rule—although he misleadingly claimed in 2011 that they had fled Fidel Castro instead—and he has been a consistent voice of the right-wing anti-revolutionary Cuban diaspora. His hometown paper, the Miami Herald, predicts Rubio will deal with Cuba with “an iron fist.” As a senator, he loudly criticized the Obama-era policy of rapprochement with Cuba and later championed the Trump administration's harsh policies against the island. Days before his term ended, the Biden administration lifted some sanctions on Cuba by removing the nation from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Hours into his second term, Trump set the tone for his and Rubio’s Cuba policy by reversing Biden’s move, limiting Cuba’s window of sanctions relief to just under a week. In the last few days, Rubio has also issued a statement proclaiming a “tough” policy against Cuba and rejecting what he calls its “malign interference across the Americas and throughout the world,” indicating even more hostility ahead.

Targeting Panama

Trump’s seemingly absurd comments about retaking the Panama Canal drew laughter and ridicule from many corners, as did his statements about annexing Greenland. However, these musings are rooted in genuine American goals for the Western Hemisphere. Writing for Foreign Policy, former Trump White House official Alexander B. Gray hailed Trump’s aggressive stance as an “end [to] U.S. passivity in the western hemisphere” after “decades of neglect.” The Panama Canal is another of those key examples of Chinese influence and American ire.

During his confirmation hearing, Rubio reiterated concerns about Panama, saying that since Chinese companies operate ports in the Canal, China has “the ability to turn the canal into a choke point in a moment of conflict, and that is a direct threat to the national interest and security of the United States.” Though he stopped short of fully echoing his bosses’ nakedly imperial goals, opting instead to “study” the issue, Rubio has already taken a trip to Panama as part of his first foreign mission as Secretary of State, and has successfully pressured President José Raul Mulino into ending his country’s commitment to cooperate with China on the canal’s infrastructure.

Venezuela Again

Another Latin American flashpoint has long been Venezuela. During the first Trump administration’s attempt to overthrow the socialist government of Venezuela, Marco Rubio was one of the campaign’s most vocal supporters. The campaign involved delegitimizing Venezuelan elections and declaring unpopular political figure Juan Guaidó to be the legitimate president. The regime change attempt also included a failed Bay of Pigs style invasion involving U.S. military contractors.

Rubio and other hawks introduced a bill in 2017 to pump millions of dollars into regime change efforts in Venezuela and has said that he wouldn’t rule out direct military intervention. In 2019, Rubio told the New York Times that the fall of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was “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.” While in the midst of an anti-Venezuela rant on Twitter, Rubio even posted a picture of murdered Libyan president Muammar Gaddaffi, clearly wishing the same fate for Maduro. 

Trump’s team has already signaled that Venezuela will be in the crosshairs once again with a similar playbook. Late in 2024, Rubio co-sponsored a bill with fellow Florida Republican Rick Scott to offer a $100 million bounty for Maduro’s arrest. And after Maduro’s 2024 election victory was questioned by Americans, Rubio was quick to congratulate a new opposition figure, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, as the rightful president, once again rejecting relations with Maduro’s “narco-regime.” Nothing short of regime change, apparently, will satisfy him.

Middle East Dreams

U.S. imperial designs in the Middle East are shaped by two interlinked imperatives: unconditional support for Israel and countering Iranian influence. In the U.S., the Israel lobby has been one of the most powerful organized constituencies in American foreign policy circles. The support this power generates has resulted in continued U.S. support for Israel’s aggressive expansionary policies, namely the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of the Palestinian people—which Donald Trump now openly admits is his goal, saying that “I want to remove all the residents of Gaza.” But both U.S. and Israeli aggression in the region are complicated by the persistence of Iran and its allies, causing Iran to be the target of both neoconservative and pro-Israel policy planners.

Iran has been a target of the U.S. since as early as 1956 with the CIA-sponsored overthrow of the democratically elected president Mohammad Mossadegh. This relationship shifted after the 1979 revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah and replaced him with a Shia Islamist government. Though this government maintained a complicated relationship with Americans for years after, by the early 2000s, they were largely considered a major enemy in Washington. During the Bush II years, Iran was a member of the notorious “axis of evil” and, according to General Wesley Clark, one of the targets of the famous “seven countries in five years” neocon blueprint. The hostility enjoyed a brief period of relief during the end of the Obama years, but was revived by Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of economic warfare. 

As Iran solidifies ties with China and Russia as part of the BRICS bloc in recent years, the goal of countering Iran has gained new significance to U.S. policymakers. For the Trump administration these dual objectives are to be achieved by extending American and Israeli influence as a counter to the so-called “Axis of Resistance” consisting of Iran, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah (known in the West as the Houthi movement), and other militant factions that oppose the U.S.-Israeli project. Under Bashar al-Assad, Syria was also a member of this axis, though after his swift ouster by U.S./Israeli backed militias in December 2024, the country represents a new frontier for Western influence. 

That Rubio’s hawkishness extends to the Middle East is well established. He enthusiastically backed Obama’s 2011 destruction of Libya in order to oust Muammar Gadaffi and advocated for the U.S. to overthrow Assad in 2013. In 2017 he praised Trump’s strikes on Syria that followed allegations of chemical weapon use, and in recent months he has signaled that the U.S. will have a greater role in shaping Syria in the interests of countering Iran.  

For its part, Iranian leaders have signaled that they are open to talks with the Trump administration, and Rubio has said that he is open to diplomacy. However, Trump has indicated a return to his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran—something that would forestall any chances for meaningful diplomacy. Rubio’s recent statements talking up the Iran threat, too, have been less than encouraging. Rubio has repeated the baseless claims of an Iranian plot to interfere in U.S. elections and to assassinate Trump. In a tweet last year, he asserted that “It’s good for America and our allies when Iran is on the defense.” In his confirmation hearing, he warned that any deal with Iran would be used “to build their weapons systems and to try to restart their sponsorship of Hezbollah and other related entities around the region,” casting serious doubt on any chance for a return to the nuclear deal the Obama administration secured in 2015, which Trump tore up in 2018 and Joe Biden failed to resurrect. Once again, Rubio’s position directly makes the Middle East, and the world at large, a less safe place.  

Genocidaire Like The Rest

While Trump initially saw some positive headlines for reportedly taking a harder line with Israel to agree to the January 19 ceasefire in Gaza, he remains one of Israel’s closest and most important allies in America. Trump selected pro-Israel fanatic Mike Huckabee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, a Christian minister who believes that a sovereign Israel will herald the second coming of Christ, holds all sorts of extremist beliefs, including the idea that the concept of Palestinian identity isn’t real and is instead a “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.” Rubio is only slightly less fanatical, but is still committed to the pro-Israel policy consensus within Washington. 

Throughout the recent Israeli genocide of Gaza, Rubio has repeatedly tweeted in support of Israel and backed the U.S. policy of unconditional support to the rogue state. He justified the mass killing of children as necessary to remove Hamas, calling Israel’s assault a “tragically necessary effort” that will come at “a horrifying price” but adding that “failing to permanently eliminate this group of sadistic savages is even more horrifying.” 

During a visit to Tel Aviv amidst some of the worst atrocities of the war, Rubio praised Israel’s “extraordinary steps to avoid civilian losses.” He has also called on the U.S. to send Israel “the military materials they need” and staunchly opposed a ceasefire. According to OpenSecrets, Rubio has received $1,013,563 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) between 1990 and 2024, which shows that he’s just as captured by the Israel lobby as other members of Congress. 

A Deal With Russia?

During the 2024 campaign, both Trump and Harris had nearly identical foreign policy platforms, each boasting about their support for Israel and toughness on Iran and China. However, the only major difference between the two candidates was their positions on the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. While Harris was wedded to Biden’s policy of continued support for Ukraine and a refusal to negotiate, Trump sounded a different tone, calling for the war to end. He has claimed that he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, though this has not happened as of writing.

Since the Russian invasion of 2022, Rubio was a full supporter of the Biden administration’s rejection of diplomacy and subsequent $175 billion effort to “weaken” Russia at the cost of Ukrainian lives in a war the administration knew was doomed. Recently, however, he has echoed his boss’s more diplomatic instincts on the subject. 

During his confirmation hearing, Rubio said that the Ukraine war needs to end and that the new Trump administration would work to bring it to a close. He told senators: “I think it should be the official position of the United States that this war should be brought to an end.” In a statement more clear-eyed than anything from the Biden administration, Rubio acknowledged how destructive the policy of continued war would be for Ukrainians: “The destruction that Ukraine is undergoing is extraordinary. It’s going to take a generation to rebuild it.” In an interview with CBS, he said that “We are going to engage in making it end in a way that is sustainable, meaning we don’t just want the conflict to end and then restart in two, three, or four years down the road. We want to bring stability.”

While this more diplomatic approach is welcome, and deescalates an explosive and needlessly deadly situation, many of the right-wing objections to the Ukraine war are far from humanitarian. In fact, as Rubio’s confirmation hearing made clear, the turn away from Russia will be matched by renewed aggression against China. 

The Empire Continues Marching

Antiwar activists should be prepared to oppose the Trump-Rubio foreign policy agenda on nearly every front. In their push to contain and outcompete the rising multipolar world order, their plans clearly call for a renewed push for American primacy in East Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the rest of the world. Even on fronts like Ukraine where positive change looks possible, this doesn’t represent a shift from the overall grand strategy. Over the years, we’ve seen that this strategy involves backing and participating in brutal wars, decades-long campaigns of economic warfare, and the undermining of sovereignty in nations that refuse to comply. Just as it was under Biden and his Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, we should be prepared for a Trump-Rubio version of America’s quest for global dominance.