Sen. Marco Rubio used his confirmation hearing Wednesday to warn a Senate panel that China might move against Taiwan before the decade is over and that a potential ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine must provide the Ukrainians with sufficient leverage to deter a repeat invasion in the future.
Rubio, R-Fla., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to become secretary of State, testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he is expected to receive bipartisan support in a vote scheduled for Monday. He is one of the few Trump Cabinet choices expected to have broad bipartisan support on the floor, with a vote possible as early as Inauguration Day.
As such, much of the attention around Rubio’s confirmation hearing has focused on how he would apply Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, with its blend of isolationist and aggressive tactics, to some of the world’s hot spots.
“Every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” said Rubio, still the second-ranking Republican on the panel and the top-ranking GOP member on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
In his 14 years in the Senate, Rubio has become well-known for his internationalist views. Those include supporting an active global U.S. military presence and a powerful intelligence community but also pushing for a rethinking of how key U.S. economic sectors including banking, pharmaceuticals, advanced technologies and supply chain management should be regulated to limit China’s ability to exploit them to further its own geopolitical and security goals.
Rubio said the post-Cold War assumption in Washington among many Democrats and Republicans “that all the nations of Earth would become members of the democratic Western-led community and that a foreign policy that served the national interest could now be replaced by one that served the liberal world order” has been revealed to be a “dangerous delusion.”
He said an end to the fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces needs to be brought about though he didn’t offer specifics for how the second Trump administration would do so. He said, however, that a successful ceasefire couldn’t happen if one side holds leverage and the other doesn’t.
Trump and members of his inner circle, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, R-Ohio, have made many comments that worry many Ukraine supporters that the U.S. might pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept a ceasefire on terms favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskyy has said long-term security guarantees for Ukraine are essential in any ceasefire negotiations and has dropped his previous insistence that Kyiv would never agree to cede land that Russian military forces have occupied.
Zelenskyy has demanded that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO to discourage future Russian predation. But amid resistance among some members of the Western military bloc to admitting Ukraine, some experts have suggested the U.S. and other alliance members could pledge to maintain a rotating troop presence in the Eastern European country, acting as a deterrent against future Russian invasions.
Rubio indicated he shared the view that Ukraine must have some sort of security guarantee in any ceasefire agreement. “Russia wants to impose neutrality on Ukraine and retrofit and come back and do this again in four, five years,” he said.
On Taiwan, Rubio backed a policy that would make the cost of invading Taiwan higher than any benefits for Beijing. He also said it’s clear from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches and writings that absorbing the democratic island is personally very important to Xi.
“What they are basically saying is that this is a foundational and definitional issue for Xi Jinping personally,” Rubio said. “Unless something dramatic changes [in Beijing’s cost calculation] we’re going to have to deal with this before the end of the decade.”
Many committee Democrats spoke warmly and appreciatively to Rubio, indicating he will be confirmed with significant bipartisan backing. Both Democrats and Republicans complimented Rubio on the breadth and depth of his knowledge on foreign policy issues. He answered a range of questions relating to Chinese-Philippine tensions, the United Nations, Panama, Haiti, Cuba, Sudan, Israel and Hamas, Hong Kong, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security partnership and more.
“The president made a great decision in choosing you. You’re a thought leader in foreign policy,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
The post Rubio says Ukraine needs leverage to deter Russia in the future appeared first on Roll Call.
