By Gustavo Veiga on January 2, 2024
Trump and Rubio, photo: Estrategia
In the foreign policy dialogue to be implemented by Marco Rubio, the new US Secretary of State, there is no room for subtleties. He is a hawk and does not bother to hide it. He said it recently, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we will deliver peace through strength.” Not the other way around, as a Gandhian or Mandela principle on the power of peace would indicate. Hispanic, son of Cubans, the Republican senator is a genuine political product of Florida.
The ultra-conservative Florida that regurgitates the most reactionary ideology on the culture war, the attacks on China, Russia and their allies and, from now on, the one that will welcome a more aggressive control over Latin America. There will be sticks for Cuba and Venezuela as complacent relations with extreme right-wing presidents: Milei and Bukele as two examples.
As in the tango Volver – “I guess the flickering of the lights that in the distance are marking my return” – there is a glimpse of what is to come as of January 20, when Donald Trump begins his second presidency. U.S. foreign policy will be guided by a heavy-handed Latino, a former adversary in the Republican internal politics of the tycoon who appointed him and now his top official. He went from calling him a “con man” and “dangerous” to aligning himself with him. He was even mentioned as a candidate to be his vice-president.
Robert Evan Ellis is a Latin America specialist and professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. He advised former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Venezuela issues. The same day Trump won he posted an article on X about “how to contain Maduro’s dictatorship and the damage it can cause by harboring extra-hemispheric threats, terrorist groups and criminal activities.” A month later, he just foreshadowed in the Nuevo Herald, a Miami newspaper, that we will see “a wave of sanctions introduced by the Trump team that are going to be much stronger than those adopted under President Biden.”
His opinion is not that of an outsider. This is someone who worked for the Secretary of State during the first Republican administration (2017-2021).
Rubio, 53, was born in Miami and is the son of Cuban immigrants. He likes to talk too much and does not often measure his words. In addition to the fact that he is interested in Latin America – the base of his electorate as senator comes from there – he has an extra problem with immigration policy. Ambiguous, contradictory, when he confronted in the past with his now boss, he said in the 2016 Republican primary debate: “If Donald Trump builds his wall the same way he built Trump Tower, he will use illegal immigrant workers to do it”.
That denunciation today became a celebration of the anti-immigrant policy to come, in harmony with the xenophobic dialectic of the president-elect. Rubio speaks of “invasions” coming from Mexico. A rhetoric backwards from history. It was the southern neighbor that was invaded in different waves during the 19th century, cutting off 55 percent of its territory. The former U.S. armies are now confused with hungry undocumented immigrants coming from almost all over the continent.
Rubio sees dangers everywhere. His theory of peace by force targets an enemy he shares with the ultra-right. He proposed in a 2021 handwritten text that “the ultimate way to stop the current Marxist cultural revolution among our corporate elite is to replace them with a new generation of business leaders who consider themselves Americans, not citizens of the world.” His vision reaches out to multinational CEOS doing business with China, Russia or other nations that do not align with the challenged world order the U.S. is trying to maintain.
Immigrants, communists, businessmen with a globalist outlook, are like ghosts that dance around the future Secretary of State. Because according to him -the 2021 text continues- “the battle against cultural Marxism will not be won if we rely on an old-fashioned ‘Wall Street Journal conservatism’”.
A profile of his social agenda as a senator, which will now be left in other hands, does not differ too much from his thinking on foreign policy, the area he will handle from January. In Congress, where he arrived in 2010 and where he is vice-chairman of the Intelligence Committee, he opposed Obama’s health care reform, any amnesty for undocumented immigrants and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 after the subprime mortgage recession. He is also an anti-gun advocate and anti-abortionist. This is the politician who will have the most influence in Trump’s cabinet, which he also said in the past that he could not be trusted with “nuclear secrets.”
The new president forgot those former offenses and now highlights his qualities: “Marco is a highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for freedom. He will be a strong defender of our nation, a true friend to our allies, and a courageous warrior who will never surrender to our adversaries,” he wrote in a statement a few days ago.
But since the U.S. has more interests than friends, there may be some difficulties with Venezuela policy. According to a Wall Street Journal article, oil market businessmen have suggested to Trump that he maintain the free flow of crude oil with the South American country. In exchange, President Nicolás Maduro would be asked to stop the exodus of Venezuelans to the U.S. Analyst Ellis provided this information during a meeting of the VenAmérica organization based in Weston, Florida: “There are certain people with an interest in oil transactions who are telling Trump that we should lift the sanctions. They are a small group that are going to play golf with him at Mar-a-Lago, and they are whispering that in his ear.”
The cabinet integration at secretary of state fuels speculation to the contrary. Venezuela is the primary target for Rubio, Carlos Trujillo, his future undersecretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Mike Waltz, another congressman who will be National Security Advisor. The latter’s appointment provides a key piece of information. Last August, he sent a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee to support the nomination of María Corina Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuela matters more to them for oil than for dubious invocations of democracy that US history does not endorse.
Gustavo Veiga is a journalist and teacher of Social Communication at the University of Buenos Aires
Source: Estrategia, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English