For now, four State Department officials said they’re hopeful that Marco Rubio’s tenure at State will be less rocky than that of the first Trump term | Jacquelyn Martin/AP
With help from Nahal Toosi, Joe Gould, Connor O’Brien and Daniel Lippman
America’s diplomatic corps had their first glimpse into what the world according to newly confirmed Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO means for U.S. foreign policy.
Rubio issued a new memo to his employees, a copy of which was obtained by NatSec Daily, that outlined his Trumpian vision for the State Department. He hit on everything from refocusing foreign policy to “the realities of today’s re-emerging great power rivalry” to the pivot away from climate change to ending diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices.
The memo was light on specifics, but offered early insights into how DONALD TRUMP’s top diplomat plans to reorient U.S. priorities on the world stage, and serves as a first impression for the State Department of their new boss.
“Placing our core national interest as the guiding mission of our foreign policy may seem like common sense,” Rubio wrote to diplomats in the sensitive but unclassified message. “But in practice, it is a vision which seems to have been lost over the last three decades,” he wrote.
He pinned the blame on “leaders in both political parties” who “began assuming an ever-expanding definition of the national interest prioritizing the wrong things and emphasizing ideology over common sense.” As a result, Rubio said, “We have misread the world, missed key trends, and lost ground internationally.”
So what’s on Rubio’s agenda to right those alleged wrongs? Tackling mass migration is a top priority. “The Department will no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage it,” he wrote, without specifying what State Department activities he was referring to, and added that “negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants” will be a top Department priority.
He also said the State Department, following an executive order from Trump, would eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs — which was a major priority for the State Department under JOE BIDEN’s administration as it sought to improve its dismal track record on diversity within its workforce. “There is tremendous talent and expertise in this Department — I have seen it firsthand in missions across the globe — and upholding strict meritocracy is essential to securing our nation’s future.”
In a separate missive Wednesday, Rubio warned that the Trump administration is “aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these [DEIA} programs by using coded or imprecise language.” He encouraged State Department staffers who knew of such alleged changes in descriptions of jobs and programs since Nov. 5 to report them to DEIAtruth@opm.gov within 10 days. “Failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences,” Rubio said in the note, obtained by NatSec Daily. The aggressive tone of the note startled many State Department staffers.
On the practice of diplomacy, Rubio said that “far too much of America’s diplomacy is focused on pushing political and cultural causes that are divisive at home and deeply unpopular abroad.” He didn’t cite examples of what he meant but said: “These counterproductive activities, too, must end.”
Rubio also wrote a section on “stopping censorship and prioritizing truth” that said the State Department during the Cold War countered propaganda from adversaries but said it has since strayed from that mission. “Under the guise of combatting mis- and disinformation, agencies and programs of our government — including in this Department — have engaged in censorship, suppression, and misinformation of their own.”
“This ends today,” he wrote — again, without providing specifics on what programs he was referring to.
A spokesperson for the State Department did not comment on the matter, saying they don’t comment on the authenticity or veracity of allegedly leaked documents.
For now, four State Department officials said they’re hopeful that Rubio’s tenure at State will be less rocky than that of the first Trump term — Trump’s first term secretary of State, REX TILLERSON, grew deeply unpopular by instituting hiring freezes and eventually being iced out by Trump before being summarily sacked. His successor, MIKE POMPEO, oversaw the Department when it was dragged into Trump’s first impeachment scandal.
“The memo’s pretty clear on the work we’re going to do and people are so far pretty positive about Rubio’s leadership, if still nervous about Trump,” said one of the officials, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss internal matters candidly. “Not a surprising start. I just hope it doesn’t all devolve into a giant mess of mismanagement and drama like last time.”
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The Inbox
TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE: Trump is warning Russian leader VLADIMIR PUTIN that he’ll hit Russia with even more sanctions and tariffs if he doesn’t make a deal with Kyiv and end his invasion of Ukraine, per our colleague KETRIN JOCHECOVÁ.
In a Truth Social post today, Trump said that “if we don’t make a 'deal,' and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States.”
"We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better," Trump continued.
The invective was Trump’s first public threat towards Moscow in his quest to end the war in Ukraine, which will enter its third year in February, and comes as his administration seeks to broker a peace deal within the first hundred days of his presidency.
WEST BANK VIOLENCE: Israel launched a series of major military operations in the West Bank, including raiding a refugee camp in Jenin, as Palestinians face a new wave of settler violence in the territory and as recent terror attacks against Israelis have rattled the nation.
Ten people were killed by Israeli forces in Jenin, per the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israel said Wednesday it had killed 10 militants since the operation began. It’s the latest expression of tensions in the West Bank following a wave of settler violence Monday, which saw Israelis torch Palestinian villages and beat at least twelve people, per the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The Israeli actions in the West Bank follow several recent attacks against Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the West Bank, which have upped tensions. Thousands of attempted terror attacks have occurred in the West Bank and within Israel’s borders since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani, and those attacks killed 46 people in 2024. And after having secured cease-fires with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel can now direct its focus to militants in the territory.
The flare of violence also follows the Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions imposed by Biden on Israeli settlers accused of committing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
FRESH START(US): The new era for Syria doesn’t seem to bode well for Russia. Syria’s new government today ended the Russian lease on its strategically-located Tartus port — marking what could be the final nail in the coffin of Russia’s only naval port in the Mediterranean.
Russia has evacuated its troops stationed in Syria following the fall of BASHAR ASSAD’s regime in December, and its future military footprint in the Middle East remains unclear. Tartus was the main hub for Moscow’s Mediterranean presence and no other country has granted Russia a new base for naval activities.
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REPUBLICANS’ TYPHOON TIRADE: House Republicans want to make sure the U.S. government is responding forcefully to Chinese cyber attacks.
At a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Chair MARK GREEN of Tennessee said that it was “time for us to get a step ahead of the Typhoons,” using the weather-related term that denotes cyberattacks originating from China-backed hacker groups.
“We’ve played defense for too long, and now it’s time to go on the offense,” he continued.
But that’s easier than done. As our own MAGGIE MILLER wrote in today’s Morning Cybersecurity newsletter (for Pros!), the Trump administration is nixing key cyber bodies within the Department of Homeland Security. Trump’s pick to lead the department, South Dakota Gov. KRISTI NOEM, has also signaled her interest in a narrower focus for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The Complex
STOLTENBERG SIDES WITH TRUMP: Former NATO chief JENS STOLTENBERG agrees with Trump — alliance members need to be spending more.
“It's obvious that they need to spend significantly more than 2 percent” of their GDP on defense, said Stoltenberg, now head of the Munich Security Conference, in an interview with our own PAUL McLEARY. He argues NATO allies need to work on “more joint procurement, more efficiency, less fragmentation, less bureaucracy” and “remember that during the Cold War, European allies spent 3 percent. We have done it before and we can do it again.”
He’s not the only European leader giving Trump assists with recalcitrant European nations. Polish Prime Minister DONALD TUSKtold the European Parliament today that Trump was right and “if Europe is to survive, it needs to be armed."
ON THE HILL
THUNE TARGETS ICC: Top Republican senators said they plan to make sanctioning the International Criminal Court a top legislative priority.
Senate Majority Leader JOHN THUNE didn’t give details on timing when asked about the matter, but said the Senate would take up an ICC sanctions bill “before long, hopefully.”
Previous versions of the bill have been held up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee due to Democratic opposition. But Sen. JIM RISCH (R-Idaho), the chairman of the committee, made clear that wouldn’t be a factor in the new Republican-controlled Senate.
“The best thing we can do is get a vote on the ICC sanctions bill in the full Senate and get it to the president’s desk as soon as possible, and I’m working with Majority Leader Thune to see that happen,” he told NatSec Daily in a statement.
Republicans have pushed for ICC sanctions ever since the international body issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU and former-Israeli Defense Minister YOAV GALLANT on war crimes charges.
Broadsides
HOLDING ASSAD TO ACCOUNT: France is taking the push to hold Assad accountable for war crimes into its own hands.
As our colleague Ketrin also reports, French prosecutors issued a new arrest warrant for Assad, who fled Syria in December for Moscow, accusing him of complicity in a bombing against civilians in 2017 that killed a French citizen. At the time, French judges issued warrants for six high-ranking Syrian army officials who they believed had been following Assad’s orders.
The French move follows other efforts by international actors to get justice for victims of the Assad regime’s brutal repression. Chief ICC Prosecutor KARIM KHAN met with Syria’s new leader, AHMAD AL-SHARAA, and discussed how they could investigate crimes committed under Assad’s regime.
Here at NatSec Daily, we’ll be following this closely in the coming months to see how, if at all, U.S. sanctions on the ICC over Israel could affect the court’s work in Syria, the war in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Transitions
— MICHAEL BLOOMBERG stepped down from his role as chairman of the Defense Innovation Board, or DIB, last week following the panel’s winter meeting, a person familiar with the situation told our own CONNOR O’BRIEN. The former New York City mayor and once Democratic presidential hopeful was first tapped to head the DIB, a panel that advised top Pentagon leaders on technology and innovation, in 2022.
— FARAH DAKHLALLAH is stepping down as NATO spokesperson and will join the World Health Organization's Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in February.
— The Center for Strategic and International Studies named MATT PEARL as director of its Strategic Technologies Program. He was previously the National Security Council's director for emerging technologies during the Biden administration.
— Sen. CHRIS COONS (D-Del.) will be the new top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee tasked with defense spending.
Thanks to our editor, Rosie Perper, who always fails to outline her priorities.
Thanks to our producer, Gregory Svirnovskiy, who writes the best memos.
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