Call it an American success story.
Marco Rubio, the son of immigrants from Cuba who graduated from the University of Miami School of Law and went on to achieve a stellar career as a United States senator, was sworn in as the nation’s 72nd secretary of state on Tuesday, becoming the first Latino to hold the post.
During remarks to State Department workers shortly after his swearing in ceremony, Rubio said there was no other agency in the world he would rather lead, praising the talent of the agency’s employees who had assembled before him.
“Some of the brightest minds in foreign policy reside within this building and within this government, and we need to ensure that we have an environment here that’s conducive to creativity, to boldness, to new ideas, to recognizing the dynamic world in which we live—one that is changing faster than it has ever changed before. And we need to be ahead of it,” Rubio said.
Rubio also said he wanted the State Department “to be at the center of how America engages the world.”
“We want to be at the centerpiece; we want to be at the core of how we formulate foreign policy, because we’re going to have the best ideas of any agency, and because we’re going to execute it better and faster and more effectively than any other agency in our government,” Rubio said with his wife Jeanette, and four children standing beside him.
On Monday, the Senate unanimously confirmed Rubio’s appointment to the post, making him the first confirmed cabinet member of the second Trump administration.
During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, political observers got a glimpse of Rubio’s extensive foreign policy experience when he addressed a range of issues, expressing his support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, during one exchange of questioning.
“The NATO alliance is a very important alliance, I believe that,” said Rubio, noting that it is important to have NATO partners that are “capable” of defending themselves.
On his first full day on the job as secretary of state, Rubio hit the ground running, meeting with India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Washington, D.C. The two affirmed a shared commitment to continuing to strengthen the partnership between the United States and India. They discussed a wide range of topics, including regional issues and opportunities to further deepen the U.S.-India relationship, specifically on critical and emerging technologies, defense cooperation, energy, and on advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
Rubio also met with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya—the two discussing plans to deepen ties during the new administration. They discussed how the United States and Japan can work together to counter ongoing threats in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.
Rubio graduated from the School of Law cum laude in 1996, where he was active with the Hispanic Law Student Association, Litigation Skills Program, Mock Trial Team, and International Moot Court.
As a law student, he interned in the offices of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and ran Sen. Bob Dole’s Miami-Dade presidential campaign.
Rubio’s Miami roots run deep. His parents came to the United States from Cuba in 1956. His father worked as a hotel bartender; his mother worked as a maid. The family eventually settled in West Miami, and Rubio attended South Miami Senior High, where he played football. Before attending law school, he was awarded a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Florida.
Rubio’s political career began with his election to the West Miami City Commission. He was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2000 and was the first Cuban American to serve as speaker of the Florida House in 2007. Rubio was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2011, a seat he has held since.
As a senator, Rubio spent his tenure building his foreign policy bona fides. His first year in office was marked by his passionate defense of the U.S. embargo against Cuba and his defeat of an ambassador to Cuba nomination. He felt the candidate would not be sufficiently tough on the regime. He also rallied support of U.S. intervention to bring down Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi and has supported bills to support humanitarian aid to Haiti.
During the first Trump administration, Rubio was valued for his influence in Latin America and well-thought-out foreign policy positions. In The New York Times, Peter Baker called Rubio "a lead policy architect."
“Through sheer force of will and a concerted effort to engage and educate President Trump, Mr. Rubio has made himself, in effect, a virtual secretary of state for Latin America, driving administration strategy and articulating it to the region from the Senate floor," Baker wrote.
Rubio has served as a ranking member on the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee for Foreign Relations.
During his time in elected office, Rubio played a significant role in advocating for key University programs, including those related to the University’s Center for Southeastern Tropical Advance Remote Sensing, the Gordon Center for Simulation and Innovation in Medical Education, and Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Rubio was awarded the University of Miami Law Alumni Association Achievement Award in 2005. He again returned to the law school in 2006 as the commencement speaker and again in 2012 to introduce presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a campaign rally at the BankUnited Center, now known as the Watsco Center.