ALBAWABA - The New York Times reported Monday night that President-elect Donald Trump is set to select Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.
According to three sources, the choice is not final, but Trump appears to have landed on Rubio, a loyalist whom Trump passed over as his vice presidential running mate, NYT reported.
Over the last week, Rubio has been mentioned as one of the frontrunners to lead US diplomacy, alongside the abrasive former ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell.
Rubio was first elected to the Florida Senate in 2010 after spending more than a decade in the state house, including as speaker. During his time in the Senate, Rubio became a significant figure in discussions of US foreign policy.
Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, campaigned for Libyan involvement in 2011 and attacked then-President Trump in 2019 for proposing to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan.
"We're entering into an era of pragmatic foreign policy in which the world is rapidly changing," Rubio said in a CNN interview, adding that the U.S. will see "pragmatic foreign policy" with Trump in the White House.
"Adversaries are uniting — North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia are increasingly coordinating — and it will require us to be very pragmatic and wise in how we invest abroad and what we do."
