Sen. Rubio Unanimously Appointed as New US Secretary of State
By Tenzin Chokyi

DHARAMSALA, 22 Jan: Marco Rubio, the US Senator from Florida and a staunch critic of Beijing was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate as America’s new Secretary of State on Monday following Donald Trump’s return to power as the 47th US President.
The Under Secretary, a Cuba-born immigrant, was approved with a bipartisan vote from all existing 99 Senators, making him the first-ever Latino to be the US Secretary of State.
Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony, US Vice President JD Vance described Rubio as a “needed departure from a generation of failed foreign policy” and said, “he is a bipartisan solutions-seeker, a guy who can actually get things done but a conservative of great principle and vision”.
Rubio’s confirmation positioned him to participate in the Trump administration’s first foreign policy event- a meeting of Quad foreign ministers from Japan, India and Australia at the State Department on Tuesday afternoon Eastern Times.
In a joint statement, the meeting pledged to work towards a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” deploying a codeword against Chinese assertiveness that has been utilised by the US Administration from both political parties.
The new Secretary of State who is seen as a hawkish US Senate about China is banned from entering China, which sanctioned him twice in 2020 for speaking against China’s human rights violations, particularly in occupied Tibet, East Turkestan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
President Trump’s chief foreign affairs adviser has greatly contributed towards the advancement of landmark legislation towards the Tibetan Freedom movement with the Reciprocal Access to Tibet in 2016, aimed at countering China’s restriction on foreign access to Tibet.
He also advocated for the Tibet Policy and Support Act of 2019 which affirms that the succession of the Dalai Lama is strictly a religious matter, to be decided solely by the Dalai Lama himself and his followers.
Amid Trump’s plans for the largest mass deportation in US history, Rubio’s background and legislative contributions carry significance for Tibetan and other immigrant communities in the United States.
On his first day in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border with Mexico and announced the deployment of troops to control immigration.
The administration also took steps to restrict birthright citizenship provided in the US Constitution, asserting that children born to undocumented parents are not entitled to automatic citizenship.
The drastic policy shift is expected to affect millions of immigrants living in the US, many of whom have been waiting for green cards for years or even decades.