In a 99-0 vote Monday night, the Senate confirmed Marco Rubio as U.S. Secretary of State, making him the first official member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet. An hour earlier, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had also voted unanimously (22-0) on his nomination.

A two-term senator, Rubio’s bipartisan relationships with his colleagues cleared any obstacles to his nomination. After Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would vote for Rubio despite their policy disagreements, every other Democratic senator did too. Every senator was present for the vote, with one vacancy from Ohio, after Senator J.D. Vance was sworn in as vice president earlier on Monday. Fox News’s Chad Pergram said Rubio broke tradition in casting a vote for himself.

Immediately after his confirmation, Rubio resigned as a senator. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) announced last Thursday that he would name Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) to fill Rubio’s seat. For the time being, however, the Republican Senate majority stands at 51-47, with two vacancies.

Rubio developed extensive national security and foreign policy experience in the Senate through his years as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He particularly focused on issues related to Latin America, some of which will be relevant to Trump’s foreign policy agenda.

During his confirmation hearing last week, Rubio said that the State Department’s “top priority” under President Trump will be putting America first. “This will not be easy. And it will be impossible without a strong and a confident America that engages in the world, putting our core national interests, once again, above all else.”

Rubio steps into the role with a variety of global flashpoints unresolved. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now almost three years old, grinds on in a rough stalemate. Tensions between Israel and Iran remain after Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas this past weekend. And an aggressive China presents an increasing challenge to U.S. hegemony.

In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin met via video conference call on Tuesday, the day after Trump’s inauguration, to emphasize their close ties and discuss how to challenge a U.S.-led world order. Putin contemplated “joint efforts by Russia and China” that would “support the development of a more just multipolar global order.”

In his Senate confirmation hearing, Rubio emphasized the growing threat from China, which he called “a technological adversary and competitor, an industrial competitor, an economic competitor, geopolitical competitor, a scientific competitor now, in every realm. It’s an extraordinary challenge and one that I believe will define the 21st century.”

“We’ve allowed them to get away with things — and frankly, the Chinese did what any country in the world would do given these opportunities, they took advantage of it, so now we’re dealing with the ramifications of it,” Rubio argued, signaling the economic confrontation with China that represents a key plank of Trump’s agenda. “Much of what we need to do to confront China is here at home. It’s not just abroad, it’s also here at home. We have to rebuild our domestic industrial capacity, and we have to make sure the United States is not reliant on any single other nation for any of our critical supply chains.”

Two State Department officials also said that Rubio was scheduled to meet on Tuesday with his counterparts from India, Australia, and Japan. Along with the U.S., these three countries comprise a diplomatic partnership called the “Quad” that aims to counter China’s influence in the Pacific.

Rubio also addressed the Russia-Ukraine war in his Senate hearing by criticizing the Biden administration for not setting a clear “end goal” for the war. “What Vladimir Putin has done is unacceptable, there’s no doubt about it, but this war has to end, and I think it should be the official policy of the United States that we want to see it end,” he said.

Rubio also said he would work to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, extending the work achieved by the Abraham Accords under the first Trump administration. He also pledged to lift sanctions the Biden administration placed upon Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. He suggested the second Trump administration might be “perhaps the most pro-Israel administration in American history.”

On the other hand, Rubio also called the disadvantageous Israel-Hamas ceasefire “a foundation to build upon” in forging new diplomatic relationships across the Middle East.

While on the topic of Israel, Rubio excoriated the International Criminal Court for creating a false “moral equivalency” between Hamas and Israel by issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I think the ICC, if they don’t drop this, will find its credibility globally badly damaged,” he declared, “and I think the United States should be very concerned, because I believe this is a test run for applying it to American servicemembers and American leaders in the future.”

Rubio also accused the Iranian regime of sponsoring terrorism throughout the region. “Any concessions we make to the Iranian regime we should anticipate that they will use, as they have used in the past, to rebuild their weapons and to try to restart their sponsorship of Hezbollah and other related entities around the region because they seek to become the dominant regional power,” he said. “That’s their stated goal, and it’s been clear by the actions that they’ve taken.”

In the past, Rubio has criticized the Biden administration State Department for using diplomacy to “force a socially progressive worldview on partners in strategically vital regions.” He cosigned a February 7, 2024 letter urging the State Department to rescind a proposed rule, “Nondiscrimination in Foreign Assistance,” which the letter said “would violate the rights and beliefs of faith-based partner organizations and their beneficiaries, undermine relationships with key stakeholders, and threaten U.S. security interests.”

“Conditioning foreign assistance programs on adherence to leftist priorities, like abortion and gender identity, may deprive access to U.S. foreign assistance to those most in need of these programs,” the letter added.

In addition to Rubio, two other Trump nominees advance through their respective committees on Monday. The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 14-3 to advance the nomination of John Ratcliffe as head of the Central Intelligence Agency, with five Democrats joining nine Republicans to advance his nomination. And the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 14-13 on a party line to advance the nomination of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Senate committees and the full Senate body will likely hold votes on other Trump nominees this week.