\n<\/p>\n
Top United States diplomat Marco Rubio has laid out the foreign policy priorities under President Donald Trump, saying that the administration is focused on advancing Washington\u2019s interests across the world.<\/p>\n
In a two-hour briefing to reporters on Friday, the US secretary of state reiterated Trump\u2019s hard line against Venezuela and defended cuts to foreign aid programmes.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also expressed outrage against \u201cmass migration\u201d into the US, echoing Trump\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n In addition to his diplomatic duties, Rubio also serves as the White House national security adviser and the chief of the now-gutted US Agency for International Development (USAID).<\/p>\n Here are five key takeaways from the state secretary\u2019s wide-ranging media briefing:<\/p>\n Rubio suggested that further talks with Venezuela would be futile because President Nicolas Maduro cannot be trusted to live up to his commitments.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s never kept any of the deals he\u2019s made in the past, which makes it difficult to consider making one in the future,\u201d Rubio said of Maduro.<\/p>\n The top diplomat kept hammering accusations that Maduro has used the Venezuelan government to lead a campaign of narcotics trafficking and \u201cterrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump has made similar allegations, accusing the Venezuelan president of masterminding a flood of drugs and criminals into the US.<\/p>\n He has also portrayed Maduro as a cartel leader, in charge of groups like the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Those assertions, however, have been contradicted by the US intelligence community, which found no evidence that Maduro controls the gang.<\/p>\n On Friday, Rubio said that the US is working with governments in the Western Hemisphere to ensure stability in the Caribbean region. But Venezuela, he underscored, is an outlier.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s one place that doesn\u2019t cooperate, and it\u2019s the illegitimate regime in Venezuela. Not only do they not cooperate with us, they openly cooperate with terrorist and criminal elements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, they invite Hezbollah and Iran to operate from their territory.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s allies have accused Maduro of forging ties with Hezbollah, but the US has not provided evidence that the Lebanese armed group, which was weakened by last year\u2019s war with Israel, is operating in the South American country.<\/p>\n Rubio\u2019s comments come as the US continues to amass troops and military assets around Venezuela, raising speculation about plans to topple Maduro by force.<\/p>\n Trump has also announced an oil blockade on Caracas as he and his top aides continue to falsely claim that Venezuela\u2019s oil belongs to the US.<\/p>\n Rubio was asked on Friday how he would square Trump\u2019s self-image as a peacemaker with the escalating military threats to Venezuela.<\/p>\n \u201cWe reserve the right \u2013 and have the right \u2013 to utilise every element of national power to defend the national interest of the United States,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cAnd no one can dispute that. Every country in the world reserves the same option. We just simply have more power than some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n The ongoing war in Ukraine, which has been raging since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in February 2022, was also a key topic in Friday\u2019s news conference.<\/p>\n Rubio explained that the Trump administration is trying to gauge what Russia and Ukraine are able to accept to help reach a peace deal, but he emphasised that the war is not a top priority for Washington.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not our war. It\u2019s a war on another continent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n However, Rubio insisted that only the US can bring about a peace agreement in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to figure out here is, what can Ukraine live with and what can Russia live with? Sort of identify what both sides\u2019 positions are, and see if we can sort of drive them towards each other to some agreement,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were to ask [for] prioritisation, I would argue that something in our hemisphere for our national interest is more important than something in another continent,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t make Ukraine and Russia unimportant. We care about it. That\u2019s why we\u2019re involved in it.\u201d<\/p>\n While campaigning for re-election in 2024, Trump pledged to end Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine within 24 hours of reclaiming the presidency.<\/p>\n He has since had to walk back those remarks, but the Republican leader has maintained an active role in peace negotiations, even hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin for a meeting in Alaska in August.<\/p>\n Trump has lobbied for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on ending world conflicts.<\/p>\n Rubio also stressed on Friday that Washington is pushing to complete phase one of the ceasefire in Gaza, so the second stage can begin.<\/p>\n The three elements Rubio highlighted were setting up a Palestinian technocratic committee to help govern Gaza, establishing the foreign-led \u201cboard of peace\u201d, and deploying an international policing force to the territory.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something we\u2019re aiming at very soon. It\u2019s what we\u2019re focused on right now like a laser,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one is arguing that the status quo is sustainable in the long term, nor desirable, and that\u2019s why we have a sense of urgency about bringing phase one to its full completion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnce we\u2019ve established that, we have a lot of confidence that we are going to have the donors for the reconstruction effort and for all the humanitarian support in the long-term building of phases two and phases three.\u201d<\/p>\n The US is currently hosting talks with officials from Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye to discuss moving to the next stage.<\/p>\n Since the Trump-brokered ceasefire in October, Israel has killed 395 people in Gaza, including an average of two children a day. On Friday, Israeli forces attacked a wedding gathering, killing at least six people and wounding many others.<\/p>\n Israel has also refused to allow an adequate amount of aid into the territory, and blocked the entry of temporary homes, despite the fact that displaced people\u2019s tents have flooded amid harsh winter weather.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera asked Rubio about Israel\u2019s violations, but the secretary of state failed to address the premise of the question. Instead, he stressed that work to ensure peace in Gaza is ongoing.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the hard work of diplomacy and peacemaking. Peacemaking isn\u2019t just signing a piece of paper; it\u2019s actually complying with it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd compliance, oftentimes, in most cases, requires daily, constant follow-up and nurturing.\u201d<\/p>\n As a senator, Rubio was a China hawk. But on Friday, he struck a softer tone when he spoke about relations with Beijing, underscoring the need for cooperation despite bilateral tensions.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019ve been nice to China,\u201d Rubio said jokingly. He added that the US has made \u201cgood progress\u201d with China.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s a global challenge that China and the US can work together on, I mean, we can solve it,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cAnd there\u2019ll be points of tension. We recognise that our job is to balance these two things. I think both sides understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n After an escalating trade war early in Trump\u2019s second term, the US and China reached a one-year deal in November to freeze tariffs and resolve other issues.<\/p>\n For nearly a decade, US officials have described the global competition with Beijing as their most pressing foreign policy issue.<\/p>\n But in recent months, Trump has turned his attention to the Americas, appearing to de-prioritise the rivalry with China.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has been blasting Europe and its leaders over their migration policies and the regulations of the European Union, but Rubio reasserted the US\u2019s commitment to the NATO military alliance on Friday.<\/p>\n He suggested that NATO\u2019s common defence, as spelled out in Article Five of the alliance treaty, which commits each member to treat an attack on an alliance ally as an attack against every NATO country, would deter any Russian military campaign beyond Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s why we remain in NATO,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re in this alliance, and that\u2019s why Article Five in the NATO alliance is important.\u201d<\/p>\n The only request the US has of its fellow NATO allies, Rubio added, is that they\u00a0increase their military spending.<\/p>\n Trump has sought to raise the minimum defence spending for members of the alliance to 5 percent of each country\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP), but some countries, most notably Spain, have pushed for greater flexibility in their military budgets.<\/p>\n European allies in NATO have also expressed concerns about Trump\u2019s commitment to the military alliance, citing ambiguous statements he has made in the past about the Article Five commitment. But Rubio sought to put those worries to rest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re committed to the alliance. And our commitment isn\u2019t just rhetorical,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cOur commitment is action, in the troops that have been deployed and the monies that have been spent, and the capabilities that are located in the cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Top United States diplomat Marco Rubio has laid out the foreign policy priorities under President Donald Trump, saying that the administration is focused on advancing Washington\u2019s interests across the world. In a two-hour briefing to reporters on Friday, the US secretary of state reiterated Trump\u2019s hard line against Venezuela and defended cuts to foreign aid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Maduro cannot be trusted<\/h2>\n
Ukraine \u2018not our war\u2019<\/h2>\n
US pressing to finalise phase one of Gaza truce<\/h2>\n
Cooperation with China<\/h2>\n
Commitment to NATO<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"