Marco Rubio: A Serious Statesman for a Dangerous World
Senator Marco Rubio’s testimony yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as it performed its “advise and consent” role was reassuring.
I’ll admit being already predisposed to Mr. Rubio being his de facto El Paso County, Colorado chairman in 2016.
Now a seasoned politico, Senator Rubio has a clear world view that is anchored in a both a deep concern with our weak industrial base as well as for the half of America that does not own stocks and struggles to pay the bills.
In particular, Senator Rubio has a sense of the dangerous world out there and that the US-China rivalry is at the center of this century’s story.
He embraces a move from complacency to recognizing that economic security is national security. That a weak U.S. industrial base has hollowed out American deterrence. Just one example is sitting by as China’s shipbuilding industry has built a capacity more than 230 times greater than that of the United States. Ditto for critical minerals.
He is also a sincere defender of human rights but a realist in placing deterrence and national security at the top of his responsibilities.
He has the temperament to be direct without causing offense and the charm to persuade without weakening his steely resolve.
For decades, U.S. defense and foreign policy strategy has been predicated on U.S. military forces that were superior in all domains to those of any adversary. This superiority is long gone as China has risen right along with our stock market.
The next four years will be full of turbulence but we should all be somewhat assured that Secretary Rubio is at the helm of the State Department.
Carl Timothy Delfeld is head of the Economic Security Council and Blackthread LLC and was previously with the U.S. Joint Economic Committee and the U.S. Treasury