Op-Ed: Bonnie Glick: Marco Rubio's State Department will foster American exceptionalism

America is back, Bonnie Glick writes. The man delivering the message is Florida’s own Senator, Marco Rubio, and he has made that message abundantly clear.

From standing up to old biddies from Code Pink harassing him in the corridors of the Senate to staring down pro-Hamas jihadi-supporters before Christmas mass, Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) continues to prove Donald Trump’s wisdom in selecting Rubio as his Secretary of State.

Rubio doesn’t take guff from anyone, and he is firm in his convictions that America plays an essential role in the world: the role of leader, of moral compass, and of exceptional ally. America under President Trump is not, as Rubio regularly demonstrates, a pushover, as President Joe Biden presented it to be. We are the comeback superpower demonstrating peace through strength whether we’re speaking out against the mullahs presiding over sharia law in Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Turkey, Gaza, or anywhere else, or whether it’s the intellectual property-thieving, TikTok-pushing, cyberbullying communists in China.

America is back. The man delivering the message is Florida’s own Senator, Marco Rubio, and he has made that message abundantly clear.

Rubio will appear before a reconstituted Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a committee on which he sat, chaired by Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho), and filled with close friends and colleagues as he spells out his vision for America foreign policy in Trump’s second term. The world has transformed dramatically over the past four years. When Trump left office in 2021, he left a country viewed worldwide as the most powerful nation in the world, as well as a nation whose eyes were opened to emerging threats.

In 2021 the greatest threat, of course, was the Chinese Communist Party which presided over a massive coverup that led to a global pandemic. Nonetheless, the world was stable. We were not drawn into any military conflicts. President Trump ushered in the greatest era of peace in the Middle East ever seen through the Abraham Accords. Russia was in a box and Vladimir Putin would not dare to attack Ukraine. The theocrats in Iran were bankrupt. Americans were safe abroad.

In 2025 the world looks very different. While the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, Biden presided over four calamitous years during which American prestige around the world has hit an all-time low.

It began with his disastrous surrender of Afghanistan to the murderous Islamist Talbian forces. Biden abandoned our allies, both allied troops from NATO and other allies as well as hundreds of thousands of Afghans who worked with our troops and our government over the preceding 20 years. He shed nary a tear over the treasure we lost at Abbey Gate: 13 servicemen and women killed while trying to protect our allies.

Biden’s bumbling tenure continued with him being all but unaware that Putin was planning to invade Ukraine. Indeed, had it not been for Trump’s previous truth-telling to NATO leaders about the requirement for Europeans to spend more on defense, Putin might have run the table across much of Europe. Biden’s continued betrayal of allies was put into stark relief on October 7, 2023 when Iran-sponsored Palestinian terrorists ravaged Israel’s south, murdering over 1,200 Israelis and taking over 250 hostages all while filming themselves doing it. Today, over 450 days later, 100 hostages are still held by Palestinian terrorists and supported by Iran, in brutal conditions, in Gaza — several of whom are our fellow Americans.

Marco Rubio has his work cut out for him. But the world is ready for America to reassert its leadership. Indeed, the world is waiting and eager to usher in the next phase of American greatness.

The left’s policies, amplified by Biden, of open borders and political correctness will not be the coins of the realm any more. We see Justin Trudeau’s government in Canada about to topple. Keir Starmer’s Labour Government in the UK has been shaken to the core over the biggest crime scandal in history — Pakistani immigrant men gang raping British girls over the course of decades with the government turning a blind eye. Indeed, when Starmer led the Crown’s Prosecution Service (their Attorney General equivalent) he failed to prosecute men who were part of child exploitation and rape gangs. Poland’s left-leaning government is facing backlash over its governmental heavy hand blocking opposition voices in the media. Germany’s government coalition collapsed the day after our election and is now a minority-led left-leaning government which will not last long.

While Donald Trump will assume leadership of the United States and, by extension, over the global perception of what the free world should look like, Marco Rubio will helm the ship of state in global forums. He will be the face of America and our foreign policy as Trump’s point man on some of the thorniest problems Joe Biden is leaving behind.

We can get a preview of Rubio’s view of the world by looking at what his current public persona demonstrates. He stands up to bullies. He believes that America can and must win the 21st century against communist China, and he is the poster child of American exceptionalism. We couldn’t be in better hands once he is confirmed by the Senate.

Bonnie Glick is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and served as the Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer of the US Agency for International Development in the first Trump Administration.