Marco Rubio

• 1. Introduction

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  The New York Times dubbed Marco Rubio the "Secretary of Everything," a nickname earned by holding several government posts at the same moment. Few American officials have ever carried that kind of workload. Fewer still arrived by a road as winding as his. Rubio's story raises questions that no single line of a résumé can answer. How did the son of Cuban immigrants become one of the most powerful diplomats in the world? Why did a major newspaper challenge the way he told his own family history? How did a politician who once fought bitterly with Donald Trump end up serving in his cabinet? And what did he choose to do once the machinery of American foreign policy was within reach? The answers run through Tallahassee, the Senate, a presidential campaign and a department he now runs.

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• 2. Family Lore

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  In October 2011, The Washington Post reported that Marco Rubio had gotten his family's escape story wrong. He had said his parents were forced out of Cuba in 1959, after Fidel Castro took power. The Post found that they actually left in 1956, during the Batista regime, about two and a half years earlier. The paper explained why the date mattered, noting that in Florida, being tied to the post-revolution exile community "gives a politician cachet" that an earlier exodus never earned. Rubio denied embellishing anything. He said his public statements rested on "family lore," and that the "essence of my family story is why they came to America in the first place and why they had to stay."

  Rubio's own version added a wrinkle. By his telling, his mother took his two older siblings back to Cuba in 1961, planning to settle there for good. His father stayed in Miami to wrap up the family's affairs. Cuba's turn toward communism changed their plans. Reporting shows his mother made at least four return trips after Castro's takeover, including one lasting a month.

  Marco Antonio Rubio was born on the 28th of May 1971 in Miami, the second son and third child of Mario Rubio Reina and Oriales, born García. His parents were Cubans of Spanish and Italian descent. They were not U.S. citizens when he was born and were naturalized in 1975.

  His maternal grandfather, Pedro Victor Garcia, had a more tangled path. Garcia immigrated legally in 1956 but went back to Cuba in 1959 to find work. In 1962 he fled and returned to the United States without a visa. Officials detained him as an undocumented immigrant, and an immigration judge ordered him deported. Immigration officials reversed that decision later the same day. Garcia was reclassified as a parolee, and after the Cuban Adjustment Act passed, his residency was approved in 1966. Rubio was close to him throughout childhood.

  Between the ages of 8 and 11, Rubio lived in Las Vegas, where the family attended the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father worked as a bartender at Sam's Town Hotel, and his mother as a housekeeper at the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino. Rubio received his first communion as a Catholic in 1984. The family moved back to Miami a year later. He changed religious affiliations several times and now belongs to the Catholic Church.

  As a teenager, Rubio earned money caring for the dogs of his brother-in-law, Orlando Cicilia, and spent it on Miami Dolphins games. When Rubio was 16, Cicilia was arrested and later convicted of trafficking millions of dollars' worth of cocaine. The Rubio family says it knew nothing about the crimes.

  Rubio graduated from South Miami Senior High School in 1989. A football scholarship took him to Tarkio College in Missouri for a year. He then enrolled at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida, before transferring to the University of Florida, where he earned a political science degree in 1993. In 1996 he received his law degree, cum laude, from the University of Miami School of Law. By his own account he piled up $100,000 in student loans. He did not finish paying them off until 2012, when he was already a U.S. senator.

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• 3. Tallahassee Years

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  While studying law, Rubio interned for U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and worked on Senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. In April 1998, two years after finishing law school, he won a seat as city commissioner in West Miami.

  A bigger opening came in late 1999, when a special election was called for the 111th District of the Florida House, which covered part of Miami. The seat was considered safely Republican, so the real fight was for the party nomination. Rubio campaigned as a moderate who wanted tax cuts and early childhood education. He placed second in the primary on the 14th of December 1999. He then won the runoff by just 64 votes over Angel Zayon, a television and radio reporter popular with Cuban exiles. On the 25th of January 2000, he beat Democrat Anastasia Garcia with 72% of the vote. After that he ran unopposed in 2000-2002 and 2006, and took 66% in 2004.

  Timing worked in his favor. Florida voters had recently approved a constitutional amendment on term limits, which forced many senior incumbents out and opened leadership posts. Because the special election let him take his seat in Tallahassee in January 2000, he was sworn in early, which National Journal said gave him a head start on those openings.

  Later in 2000, Majority Leader Mike Fasano promoted Rubio to one of two majority whips. National Journal noted that the job usually demands arm-twisting, but Rubio leaned on persuasion. In September 2001, Fasano resigned after disagreements with the speaker, and the speaker passed over Rubio for a more experienced replacement. Rubio then volunteered for redistricting. He divided the state into five regions and worked one by one with the lawmakers involved, which deepened his ties to party leaders. In December 2002, Speaker Johnnie Byrd appointed him majority leader. Rubio persuaded Byrd to restructure the job so that the whip's office handled the legislative wrangling while he became the main spokesperson for House Republicans.

  His voting record in those years surprised later critics. Some colleagues called him a centrist who "sought out Democrats and groups that don't typically align with the GOP." He co-sponsored a bill letting farmworkers sue growers in state court over shortchanged pay. He co-sponsored another giving in-state tuition rates to the children of undocumented immigrants. After the September 11 attacks, he voiced suspicion about expanding police detention powers and helped defeat a Republican bill that would have required colleges to report more about foreign students.

  Because the legislative session lasted only 60 days, Rubio spent about half of each year in Miami practicing law. He worked at a firm specializing in land use and zoning, and later at Broad and Cassel, a Miami law and lobbying firm. State law barred him from lobbying or introducing legislation for its clients.

  On the 13th of September 2005, at age 34, Rubio became the incoming speaker after Dennis Baxley, Jeff Kottkamp and Dennis A. Ross dropped out. He was sworn in a year later, in November 2006, as the first Cuban American to lead the Florida House. He held the gavel until November 2008.

  His speech on being chosen is the speakership's most vivid scene. Rubio told members to look in their desks. Each found a hardcover book titled 100 Innovative Ideas For Florida's Future, and every page was blank. Rubio said they would fill it together with ordinary Floridians. In 2006, after traveling the state and gathering citizens' suggestions, he published the finished book. National Journal called it the centerpiece of his early speakership. About 24 of the ideas became law and another 10 were partly enacted. Winners included multiple-year car registrations, more vocational courses in high schools and an expanded voucher-like school-choice program. Defenders and some critics note that a national economic downturn overlapped with much of his tenure, which made funding new proposals hard.

  Jeb Bush left the governor's office in January 2007, and Rubio hired 18 of his aides. Capitol insiders joked that the speaker's suite had become "the governor's office in exile." Their styles differed sharply. Bush managed assertively, while Rubio delegated some powers, relinquished others and invited political rivals into his inner circle. He also opened a private dining room for legislators, saying it would shield them from lobbyists, though its cost caused a public relations problem.

  In 2006, Florida limited the state's power to seize private property, a response to the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London. A special committee that Rubio chaired before his speakership had proposed the law.

  Governor Charlie Crist took office in January 2007, and the two men clashed constantly. The sharpest fight concerned Crist's plan to expand casino gambling. Rubio sued the governor for making a deal with the Seminole Tribe without the legislature. The Supreme Court of Florida sided with Rubio and blocked the deal. Rubio also attacked Crist's executive order on climate change, accusing him of imposing "European-style big government mandates." The legislature under Rubio weakened the order's effect. Rubio argued it would raise utility bills with little environmental benefit, and he favored biofuels, solar panels and energy efficiency.

  Taxes produced the biggest showdown. Rubio proposed cutting property taxes to 2001 levels, perhaps eliminating them, and raising sales taxes by 1% to 2.5% to fund schools. The plan would have trimmed property taxes by $40-50 billion. It passed the House, but Crist and Senate Republicans opposed it, arguing the sales tax would hit poor residents hardest. Rubio accepted smaller changes. Crist's idea of doubling the property tax exemption from $25,000 to $50,000 passed, a cut Crist estimated at $33 billion. Legislators called it the largest tax cut in Florida history to that point. Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist, called Rubio "the most pro-taxpayer legislative leader in the country."

  NBC News said Rubio "aggressively tried to push Florida to the political right." Yet Democrats described a different man. Dan Gelber, the House Democratic leader, called him "a true conservative" but not "a reflexive partisan." Gelber added, "He didn't have an objection to working with the other side simply because they were the other side. To put it bluntly, he wasn't a jerk."

  In 2007, state senator Tony Hill, chairman of the legislature's Black Caucus, asked lawmakers to apologize for slavery. Rubio said the idea merited discussion. The next year he said such apologies can matter even if symbolic, noting that young African-American males still "believe that the American dream is not available to them." He helped set up a council on issues facing black men and boys, urged colleagues to replicate the Harlem Children's Zone in Miami's Liberty City, and backed literacy and mentoring efforts.

  Money questions followed him out of Tallahassee. In two years as speaker, Rubio charged about $110,000 to a Republican Party of Florida American Express card. About $16,000 covered personal items such as groceries and plane tickets. He said he paid American Express more than $16,000 himself. In 2012, the Florida Commission on Ethics cleared him, though its inspector saw a "level of negligence" in his not using a personal MasterCard. In November 2015, Rubio released statements covering January 2005 through October 2006. They showed eight personal charges totaling $7,243.74, all reimbursed. Spokesman Todd Harris said, "Marco has nothing to hide."

  Rubio also co-owned a Tallahassee residence with fellow state representative David Rivera. The house went into foreclosure in 2010 after missed mortgage payments. Rubio took over the payments, and the house was eventually sold. Earlier, he had sought legislative earmarks totaling about $145 million for 2001 and 2002, and none after that. Many funded health and social programs, which he called "the kind of thing that legislators would get attacked on if we didn't fund them."

  A 2010 report by the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald noted that some requests overlapped with his personal interests. One was a $20-million appropriation for Jackson Memorial Hospital to subsidize care for the poor and uninsured, and Rubio later consulted for that hospital. A spokesman said the items helped the whole county, that Rubio did not lobby for them, and that he is "a limited-government conservative... not a no-government conservative."

  Term limits ended Rubio's legislative career in 2008. He became an adjunct professor on a fellowship at Florida International University, and he rejoined the faculty in 2011 after entering the U.S. Senate. He has taught undergraduate courses on Florida politics, political parties and legislative politics. The appointment drew criticism because the university had won considerable state funding while he was speaker and was cutting other jobs. Rubio agreed to raise most of the funding for his own position from private sources.

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• 4. Senate Record

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  On the 5th of May 2009, Rubio announced a run for the U.S. Senate seat that Mel Martínez was leaving. Martínez had decided against seeking reelection and resigned before finishing his term. The Republican primary looked grim at first, because the incumbent governor from Rubio's own party, Charlie Crist, led him by double digits. Rubio met with fundraisers and supporters across the state and won the backing of Tea Party members unhappy with Crist's governorship. He eventually passed Crist in polling. On the 28th of April 2010, Crist said he would run without a party affiliation, effectively handing Rubio the nomination. Several of Crist's top fundraisers and Republican leaders then refused to support him. On the 2nd of November 2010, Rubio won the general election with 49% of the vote to Crist's 30% and Democrat Kendrick Meek's 20%. When he was sworn in, only he and Bob Menendez of New Jersey were Hispanic Americans in the Senate.

  His early staffing choices hinted at ambitions. Rubio hired Cesar Conda, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, as chief of staff. In March 2012, Rubio endorsed Mitt Romney and said he neither expected nor wanted the vice presidential slot. The Romney campaign vetted him anyway, and former Romney aide Beth Myers said the process found nothing disqualifying.

  In his first year, Rubio became an influential defender of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. He pushed the State Department to withdraw the ambassadorial nomination of Jonathan D. Farrar, then chief of mission in Havana, whom he judged too soft on the Castro regime. That year he also gave a widely noted speech at the Reagan Library praising Ronald Reagan, and he rescued Nancy Reagan from a fall. In March 2011, he supported U.S. participation in the military campaign to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He asked Senate leaders for a bipartisan authorizing resolution, but the administration held that none was needed. He also voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011.

  In 2013, Rubio joined the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" senators who wrote comprehensive immigration legislation. His plan offered undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship through fines, back taxes, background checks and a probationary period, but only after border security improved. The bill passed the Senate 68 to 32 with his vote. Rubio then signaled that the House should not take it up, because repealing Obamacare ranked higher among his priorities. The House never did. That year he also delivered the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address, the first time the response was given in English and Spanish. In April 2013, he voted against expanding background checks for gun purchases.

  In March 2015, Rubio and Senator Mike Lee of Utah proposed a tax plan that the Wall Street Journal said blended Reagan-era supply-side thinking with younger conservative reformers. It would cut the top corporate rate from 38% to 25%, eliminate taxes on capital gains, dividends and inherited estates, and create a child tax credit worth up to $2,500. The top individual rate would be 35%.

  Rubio's attendance became a liability. He missed about 35% of Senate votes in 2015, the worst record among the three senators campaigning for president that year. Analysts noted that John McCain had missed a higher share in 2007.

  In May 2016, Rubio broke with most Republicans to back Obama's request for $2 billion in emergency Zika spending. Florida then accounted for roughly 20% of recorded U.S. Zika cases. When Trump picked Rex Tillerson for secretary of state, Rubio first voiced concern, questioned him at his Senate hearing on the 11th of January 2017, and then said he would vote to confirm.

  In April 2017, Rubio praised Trump's strike on the Syrian facility tied to a chemical weapons attack. In September 2017, he defended Trump's decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, calling it "unconstitutional." During the first session of that Congress, a bipartisan index ranked him the tenth most bipartisan senator. Yet in 2018, while ballots were counted in the race between Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson and Republican Rick Scott, Rubio claimed without evidence that Democrats were conspiring to install Nelson. Election monitors and the Florida State Department found no evidence of voter fraud in Broward County. Nelson lost, which made Rubio Florida's senior senator in January 2019.

  His influence over Latin America policy in Trump's first term led observers to call him a "virtual secretary of state for Latin America." He was also seen as one of Congress's most hawkish members on China. On the 13th of July 2020, Beijing sanctioned him and three other American politicians for condemning human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Rubio tweeted, "Last month #China banned me. Today they sanctioned me. I don't want to be paranoid but I am starting to think they don't like me." On the 10th of August 2020, China sanctioned him and ten other Americans over Hong Kong. In January 2021, he sponsored the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. In May 2021, he argued that "Wall Street must stop enabling Communist China." The entry ban lasted until he became secretary of state.

  After Biden defeated Trump, Rubio defended Trump's right to challenge the results, then shifted toward saying Republican voters' concerns about irregularities deserved redress. By the 23rd of November 2020, he called Biden the president-elect. He described the 2021 Capitol attack as "3rd world-style anti-American anarchy" and voted to certify the electoral count. In February 2021, he voted to acquit Trump, and on the 28th of May 2021 he voted against creating a January 6 commission. He denounced Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

  On the 8th of November 2022, Rubio won a third term with 58% of the vote against Democrat Val Demings, a Florida congresswoman and former police officer. Demings attacked his attendance record, and her claim that he supported tax hikes was proven false. In 2023 and 2024, Rubio introduced 270 bills and resolutions, the most of any senator in the 118th Congress. The National Taxpayers Union gave him an 87% rating, while noting his past opposition to tariffs.

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• 5. The 2016 Gamble

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  In April 2014, Rubio said he would not seek Senate reelection if he ran for president in 2016, because Florida law bars a candidate from appearing twice on a ballot. That same month, Cesar Conda left as his chief of staff to lead Rubio's Reclaim America PAC. Groups backing Rubio raised over $530,000 in the first three months of 2014, mostly spent on consultants and data analytics. By January 2015, he had begun courting top donors and appointing advisors. Two veterans of past campaigns, George Seay and Jim Rubright, joined, and aides were told to prepare for a presidential run before a Team Marco 2016 fundraising meeting in South Beach.

  On the 13th of April 2015, Rubio launched his campaign, pledging either to become president or return to private life. Many saw him as viable because of his youthfulness and speaking skill. He pitched the effort as a bid to restore the American Dream for middle and working-class families, and his working-class Cuban American background seemed to fit that message.

  The voting went badly. On the 1st of February 2016, he finished third in the Iowa caucuses, behind Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. At a debate in New Hampshire on the 6th of February, rival Chris Christie criticized Rubio for speaking repetitiously and called him "scripted." Rubio placed fifth in the primary three days later and took the blame for his debate performance. On the 20th of February, he finished second in South Carolina but won no delegates, since Trump swept every congressional district. Jeb Bush left the race that day, which brought Rubio a surge in donations and endorsements. On the 23rd of February, he finished second in the Nevada caucuses.

  Then Rubio changed tactics. At the 25th of February debate, he repeatedly attacked Trump, whom he had largely ignored before. CNN called it a "turning point in style." The next day he turned Trump's attacks back on him and even ridiculed Trump's physical appearance. Trump had called Rubio "robotic" for repeating talking points, and hecklers dressed as robots later followed Rubio. On Super Tuesday, the 1st of March, with eleven Republican contests, his only victory came in Minnesota. He added wins in Puerto Rico on the 6th of March and the District of Columbia on the 12th of March. Around then, he admitted he was not "entirely proud" of his personal attacks.

  On the 15th of March, Rubio placed second in his home state of Florida, with 27.0% of the vote to Trump's 45.7%. Trump took all of Florida's delegates. Hours earlier, Rubio had predicted a Florida win and said he would campaign in Utah regardless. Instead he suspended his campaign. He held 169 delegates, with 1237 needed to win, while Cruz had 411 and Trump 673. Two days later, he ruled out a vice presidential run, the Florida governorship and Senate reelection. He said he would be a "private citizen" by January 2017, and on the 16th of May he tweeted, "I have only said like 10000 times I will be a private citizen in January."

  He reversed himself anyway. On the 22nd of June 2016, after weeks of pressure from other Republican politicians, Rubio restarted his Senate reelection campaign. He won the primary on the 30th of August over Carlos Beruff and defeated Democrat Patrick Murphy 52% to 44% in November.

  His relationship with Trump changed just as sharply. In February 2016, Rubio had called Trump a "con artist" and "wholly unprepared to be president of the United States." In June, he repeated that the country must not hand "the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual." That same month, he called Trump's remarks about Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel "offensive." After Trump clinched the nomination, though, Rubio endorsed him on the 20th of July 2016. On the 26th of May, he had already said Trump was a better choice than Hillary Clinton, citing the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court seat left by Antonin Scalia. After the Access Hollywood recording surfaced on the 7th of October, he wrote that Trump's comments were "vulgar, egregious & impossible to justify." He reaffirmed his support soon after. Two weeks later, at the Calle Orange street festival in Orlando, a mostly Hispanic crowd booed him off a stage. In 2024, he would endorse Trump again, days before the Iowa caucuses.

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• 6. Running The Department

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  On the 13th of November 2024, Trump confirmed he had chosen Rubio as his secretary of state. Unlike many of Trump's other cabinet nominations, this one drew little controversy, and both Republicans and Democrats praised it. At his hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the 15th of January 2025, Rubio called China "the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever faced." He said the Chinese Communist Party had "lied, cheated, hacked, and stolen their way to global superpower status at our expense." Trump formally nominated him on the 20th of January. The committee approved him unanimously, and the Senate confirmed him a few hours later by 99 to 0. Vice President JD Vance swore him in on the 21st of January as the 72nd secretary of state. Rubio became the first Hispanic and the first Floridian to hold the office.

  On the 1st of May 2025, Trump announced that Rubio would replace Mike Waltz as national security advisor, in an acting capacity, while remaining secretary of state. No one had held both jobs in fifty years, since Henry Kissinger in 1975. Rubio also served as acting administrator of USAID until August 2025.

  The archivist role began in confusion. On the 6th of February 2025, ABC News reported that Rubio was already acting archivist of the United States. Later reporting by 404 Media called that a misunderstanding, noting that Colleen Shogan was still listed in the job. After Shogan and deputy archivist William J. Bosanko were removed, Rubio became acting archivist on the 16th of February. To comply with the Vacancies Reform Act, he gave up the role on the 4th of February 2026. No immediate successor was named, and authority was delegated to Jim Byron, a senior advisor.

  On the 23rd of January 2025, Rubio acted on Executive Order 14168, which ended gender self-identification on passports. He told State Department staff to freeze applications requesting "X" sex markers. The department held some transgender applicants' documents while their applications sat in limbo, creating widespread confusion. The Williams Institute estimated that 16,700 of the 171 million Americans with valid passports could be eligible for "X" markers.

  In February 2025, Rubio announced the closure of the department's Counter Foreign Information and Manipulation and Interference Office, saying it had wasted millions of dollars and engaged in censorship. In late April, he announced plans to trim department costs and jobs by 15% to 17%. A senior official said the job cuts would reach 22%. Rubio blamed a "sprawling bureaucracy" more beholden to radical political ideology than to America's core national interests. The proposal would have fired 80% of staff in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

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• 7. Aid Under Freeze

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  On the 24th of January 2025, following Trump's executive order, Rubio enacted an unprecedented 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign aid, with some exceptions, effective the 28th. It shut down many USAID humanitarian, development and security programs worldwide. In Congress, Rubio had been an avid supporter of the agency. At a press conference in the Dominican Republic on the 6th of February, he said lifesaving aid was exempt, telling reporters, "you're not included in the freeze." Two days later, CNN reported that many waivers were going unprocessed, because too many staff had been placed on leave and payment systems had been taken over.

  In March, ProPublica reported that emails showed longtime employees had warned Rubio about the stakes. They estimated that, over the next decade, one million children would go untreated for severe malnutrition and up to 166,000 people would die from malaria. They also estimated 200,000 children would be paralyzed by polio if the programs were cut.

  The Department of Government Efficiency restructured USAID in early 2025, despite the administration's assurances that critical programs would be protected. In late February and early March, loss of access to financial systems badly hurt the agency's ability to process payments. At a meeting on the 13th of February, three political appointees shouted at a regular employee over a memo meant to counter the "false narrative" that any pause had occurred. On the 24th of February, employees were told not to bother requesting waivers for infectious diseases such as Ebola, because none would be approved. On the 26th, about 10,000 programs were abruptly ended, and payment of $2 billion for completed work slowed. At times, the administration seemed to be "trying to reverse-engineer its most sweeping actions" to restore lifesaving programs. When an employee appealed, political appointee Joel Borkert acknowledged that some programs were canceled in error and wrote, "we have the ability to rescind." On the 10th of March, Rubio posted on X that only 17% of USAID programs would be kept.

  The agency's work also landed in a fight with Elon Musk. On the 7th of March, The New York Times reported a clash at a White House cabinet meeting. Musk criticized Rubio for firing no one at the State Department. Rubio was angered by Musk's dismantling of USAID while Rubio was its acting administrator.

  In June 2025, the White House asked Congress to claw back about $8 billion in foreign aid and $1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The House passed the cuts as requested. The Senate excluded cuts to PEPFAR, the program President George W. Bush started to help lower-income countries get HIV medicines. Two preliminary Senate votes ended 51-50, with Vice President Vance breaking the ties. On the 17th of July, the Senate approved the cuts 51-48, and the next day the House passed the Senate version 216-213. A rescission is one of the exceptions to the Senate's 60-vote filibuster rule.

  Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, first made landfall in Jamaica on the 28th of October 2025. Rubio activated a disaster assistance response team that reached Jamaica within several days. By the 31st of October, three U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopters were in Jamaica, with five more on the way. The State Department promised $12 million to Jamaica, $8 million to Haiti and $500,000 to The Bahamas. Spokesman Tommy Pigott said the response proved that the "new foreign assistance model" could handle emergencies. The list also included $3 million for Cuba, the country Rubio's parents left.

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• 8. Diplomatic Fronts

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  On his first day as secretary, Rubio met foreign ministers from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue countries to strengthen economic opportunity and security in the Indo-Pacific and to counter China's influence. In May 2025, he announced the government would "aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students," including those with Chinese Communist Party ties or studying in critical fields. He also promised more scrutiny of future visa applications from China and Hong Kong.

  His first trip abroad took him to Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. It aimed to curb illegal migration and advance Trump's push to reclaim the Panama Canal. On the 30th of January, Rubio said acquiring Greenland was in the U.S. "national interest" and did not rule out military coercion. In February, he met El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, and reached a deal. El Salvador would take in deported foreign nationals who had committed crimes, along with jailed U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Rubio praised it as a way of rehousing them in the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center.

  On the 16th of February 2025, Rubio rejected concerns that Ukraine and Europe would be shut out of peace talks. He called Trump "the only leader in the world that could potentially begin that process." Two days later, he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov led delegations meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff joined Rubio. In October 2025, Rubio and Lavrov began discussions to prepare for the 2025 Budapest Summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin.

  In February 2025, Rubio backed Trump's proposal for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip, saying America stood ready to "Make Gaza Beautiful Again." In March, he bypassed Congress with an emergency declaration to send Israel a $4 billion shipment of arms. In May, he acknowledged criticism of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose hub-based food plan critics called unworkable and possibly unlawful. He said the government was "open to an alternative if someone has a better one." In October 2025, when the Knesset passed a bill applying Israeli sovereignty to all West Bank settlements, he called it "counterproductive" to Trump's Gaza peace plan.

  In June 2025, Rubio announced sanctions on four International Criminal Court judges for allegedly targeting the United States and Israel. The court had opened an Afghanistan war crimes investigation in 2020. In 2021, it deprioritized the part touching U.S. troops. In 2024, it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant.

  On the 27th of June 2025, Rubio hosted a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. Rwanda would withdraw soldiers from the eastern DRC, and the two countries would begin an economic integration framework within 90 days. Rubio called it "an important moment after 30 years of war" in a conflict that has killed six million people. Former prime minister Joseph Kabila called the deal "nothing more than a trade agreement." In November 2025, Rubio called for action to stop weapons reaching the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, blamed for atrocities in El Fasher and across Darfur. On the 14th of March, he had expelled South Africa's ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, calling him a "race-baiting politician who hates America."

  Elsewhere, on the 9th of March 2025, Rubio condemned massacres of Syrian minorities by pro-government fighters. In early September, on his third visit to Latin America, he met Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and called U.S.-Mexico cooperation on drugs and guns "the closest cooperation we've ever had."

  Iran brought the sharpest test. In June 2025, Rubio defended Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites that followed Israeli attacks. In January 2026, he strongly backed anti-government protests in Iran. During the 2026 Iran war, he said the U.S. knew Israel planned to attack and launched a preventive strike to avoid higher casualties. Critics said that made American strategy hostage to Israeli military decisions. Rubio said Iran's leadership was the problem, not its people, and that the war's goals were to degrade Iranian military capabilities and keep Iran from controlling the Strait of Hormuz.

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