Rui Zhong is a writer and researcher living in the Washington D.C. metro area. She studies China, censorship, and technology’s role in nationalism and foreign policy
Donald Trump began his second Administration allowing Elon Musk to spearhead a sweeping ransacking of the federal workforce, beginning with foreign policy. Tasked with overseeing the rapidly dissolving network of embassies and formerly independent USAID offices is Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime Republican fixture within American foreign policy. Rubio is working with colleagues within the Trump administration to renege, avoid or otherwise thwart attempts to make good on financial and policy commitments in the international space. In conjunction with the Department of Justice, Rubio argued (in his secondary role as the terminal Administrator of USAID) that the United States had no obligation to pay out frozen aid contracts already committed to ongoing projects – and then declared the overwhelming bulk of them terminated
The thorough complicity of Marco Rubio and other institutional Republican stalwarts goes far deeper than mere verbal hypocrisy. Within Trump’s first administration, Rubio identified the problem of Trump’s conduct against Ukraine following impeachment by the House of Representatives, but ultimately declined to convict him.
“Can anyone doubt that at least half of the country would view his removal as illegitimate — as nothing short of a coup d’état?” Rubio wrote at the time in a blog post justifying his decision. “It is difficult to conceive of any scheme Putin could undertake that would undermine confidence in our democracy more than removal would.”
Five years later, Rubio’s entry and active participation in the second Trump Administration reflects a shift in conventional Republican culture, a highly visible reminder of the party’s transformation from one that first mocked, then reluctantly welcomed Trump, to one that is fundamentally about Trump. On international relations in particular, mainstream Republicans have changed to accommodate Trump, with Rubio only the latest member of the cadre to bend the knee.
Of all the selections by Donald Trump for the Cabinet of his second administration, Rubio has the longest tenure within Republican politics and conservative spaces. Foreign policy was one of the ways Rubio had appealed to moderates and even liberals, taking photo opportunities with Hong Kong dissenters and through his service on the human rights-centric Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
During his confirmation hearings, Democratic Senators praised the cordial lines of communication they maintained over the course of his fourteen-year Senate career. “You and I have also had a good working relationship for many years,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). “I believe you have the skills and are well qualified to serve as secretary of State.” The Senate voted to confirm Rubio 99 in favor with no dissents, greeting Rubio’s nomination to Secretary of State as the promise of a steady hand to steer foreign policy.
Most of his former Democratic colleagues likely did not envision Rubio rushing to sign off on decisions such as abruptly ending funding the Fulbright Program, nor his sullen silence as Trump and Vance berated Ukrainian President for lack of deference during a March 1st Oval Office Meeting. When asked about his opinion of the meeting by CNN, Rubio said: “I think he should apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was gonna [sic] end the way it did.” Putin’s schemes were not mentioned. Likely, such topics are not encouraged under the Trump administration.
It is easy to understand why Democratic Senators might have expected Rubio to continue the hawkish but structurally normative habits of his Senate career. During Trump’s First Administration, then-Senator Rubio and most Republicans stuck to a baseline level of support for American soft power institutions and foreign policy practices. Non-political staffers were not subject to executive office oversight, and the Hill mostly consulted agencies for technical information in a neutral relationship. The second Trump administration began instead with a bombastic declaration to cut departments, a process rhetorically and explicitly guided by Elon Musk, through his role in the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Elevated to Secretary of State, Rubio capitulated to these cuts almost immediately, discarding the values-based steps he took to secure the cabinet nomination in the first place. As the White House cut State Department offices like the office of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, he accepted such closures as collateral damage in service of the same fictional concept of cutting government to efficiency pursued by Musk and his hit team of hired henchmen. At the time of the writing of this piece, Rubio also allegedly pursued the usage of AI to deport students that appeared “pro-Hamas.” He also moved to exempt a wide swath of policies from public commentary during draft phases, removing a mechanism that allowed for democratic input on policies under consideration. And he has, the New Republic reports, “terminated a contract that was in the process of transferring evidence of alleged Russian abductions of Ukrainian children—a potential war crime—to law enforcement officials in Europe.”
Rubio’s foreign policy doctrine and its wide-ranging surveillance and policy process changes would not look out of place in the authoritarian regimes he’d pursued hawkishly as a Senator. It is not unheard of for politicians to change opinions or policy positions as they rise in power and prominence, nor is it unorthodox practice for them to discard previously-held values at the apex of that political climb. Rubio’s opportunism, however, stands out because he presides over a particularly monumental and irreversible demolition project. If Rubio took the position under the hopes that he would guide foreign policy as he had from the Senate, he has instead been tasked with dismantling the very institutions needed to execute US diplomacy in the world. Partners, contractors and grantees in the United States and abroad cannot forget or experience in reverse the betrayal they feel at getting abandoned. Because Rubio put his face and name to the abandonment, there can be no lifeline offered from any other mainstream Republicans, unless an unforeseen sea change occurs.
Immediate monetary disbursement and assurance given to grantees, allies and partners are the absolute minimum of what would be needed to restore this historic crisis of confidence in the U.S. foreign policy institutions. Money obligated to agreements are a cornerstone of maintaining the reputation of the United States as an implementation partner on the most fundamental diplomatic, consular and development policies. Based on current trajectories of agencies and programs being cut, frozen or suspended, Rubio and the purportedly “stabilizing” element of the Republican party can be written off as uninterested, unwilling or unable to curb the impulses of Musk and Trump.
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