Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio says he’s willing to promote career diplomats to top posts, including ambassadorships, but indicated that the candidates must be in step with the Trump administration’s foreign policy vision.
Rubio, speaking Wednesday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stressed that he wasn’t talking about partisan politics. But his comments are a sign that the incoming administration won’t tolerate much dissent in the diplomatic ranks.
“I’m not talking about political alignment,” Rubio said. “I’m talking about alignment with the mission that we’ve outlined for American foreign policy, which is one of the things that I think has hurt the State Department under numerous administrations.”
The last time Donald Trump was president, he and his team grew wary of State Department officials who often disagreed with positions taken by the White House. The trust was badly broken in the early days of the administration when numerous Foreign Service officers protested the imposition of Trump’s travel ban on an array of Muslim-majority countries.
