Rubio oversees foreign aid halt and meets with Asian diplomats on day one

Secretary of State Marco Rubio entered the State Department on Tuesday for the first time in his term New jobtakes the reins of the primary agency implementing U.S. foreign policy at a time of violent global crises and as other countries begin to contend with President Trump.

After welcoming staff to a celebratory gathering, Mr. Rubio went to a meeting with his counterparts from India, Japan and Australia to discuss issues in the Indo-Pacific region, a region that, in his view, China seeks to control.

Mr. Rubio was sworn in as Secretary of State at 9:30 a.m. on a frigid Tuesday morning before Vice President J.D. Vance. He arrived at the State Department’s flag-lined entrance hall at 1 p.m. to applause, as hundreds of staff strained to catch a glimpse of him, his wife, Janet Rubio, and their four children. Lisa Keena, a career diplomat who serves as Mr. Rubio’s executive secretary, as she did for Mike Pompeo in the first Trump administration, introduced the new secretary.

Mr. Rubio thanked the many diplomats serving abroad, then laid out Mr. Trump’s foreign policy goal: “That mission is to make sure that our foreign policy is focused on one thing, which is advancing our national interests.”

He added: “There will be changes, but the changes are not meant to be destructive, and they are not meant to be punitive.”

He said that “things are moving faster than ever” around the world, and that the administration must be quick to act and respond.

A meeting between senior diplomats from the four countries, which form a non-military alliance known as the Quad, was scheduled to take place ahead of the transition from the Biden administration to the Trump administration on Monday. Mr. Rubio was scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with each of the foreign ministers after the initial four-way talks.

Mr. Rubio was the first Cabinet secretary appointed by Mr. Trump to be confirmed. He has been a senator representing Florida since 2011 and has served on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees. The Senate approved it unanimously on Monday evening.

Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has been particularly outspoken regarding China and the need for the United States to confront the Chinese Communist Party on a wide range of issues.

Some of Mr. Trump’s executive orders already affect operations at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Monday, Mr. Trump I signed an order Halt any disbursement of foreign aid funds and allocate new funds pending a 90-day review under guidelines to be issued by the Secretary of State.

A US official said that non-governmental organizations and contractors who were using the money to work on the programs were scrambling to figure out what to do, and many programs in poor areas affected by wars or disasters in the world may suddenly end.

The 90-day evaluation will look at “programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy,” the executive order said.

“The US foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are out of step with American interests and, in many cases, inconsistent with American values,” she said. “It is destabilizing world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are in direct conflict with internal harmonious and stable relations between and among countries.”