US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that ending Russia’s war in Ukraine would become a cornerstone of US foreign policy under President Donald Trump, as part of the administration’s broader aim to prioritize peace and stability on the global stage.
Former US Senator Rubio, a China hawk and staunch backer of Israel, was the first of Trump’s cabinet nominees to be sworn into office on Tuesday after the US Senate unanimously confirmed his nomination on Monday evening.
“It’s going to be the official policy of the United States that the war has to end and we’re going to do everything possible to bring that about,” he said.
Rubio said it would be “complicated … because every side’s going to have to give something.”
“The only way conflicts like this end is … not in public pronouncements,” Rubio said. “They end in hard, vibrant diplomacy that the US seeks to engage in, in the hopes of bringing an end to this conflict that’s sustainable, in a way that assures the security of Ukraine and our partners in the region, but that stops the killing and the dying and the destruction that we’ve been seeing for quite a while now.”
Speaking at the White House after he was sworn in, Rubio promised he would carry out Trump’s foreign policy of “furthering the national interest of this country.”
He added that another foreign policy goal under Trump will be “the promotion of peace. Of course, peace through strength, peace and always without abandoning our values.”
