The US Senate voted to confirm Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as President Donald Trump's secretary of state Monday, marking its first approval of a Cabinet-level official for the new Trump administration.
The upper chamber of Congress approved Rubio as America's chief diplomat, hours after Trump was sworn in as the United States' 47th president under a renewed pledge to "put America first."
His confirmation comes as the top diplomat post faces a full plate of foreign policy challenges, including an intensifying strategic competition with China, Russia's war in Ukraine and North Korea's evolving security threats, to name a few.
During a confirmation hearing last week, Rubio highlighted his readiness to realize Trump's America First credo, saying every policy the US purses must be justified with the answer to a key question: whether it makes America "safer," "stronger" and "more prosperous."
He also noted the need last Wednesday for Washington to take a "serious" look at North Korea policy to explore how to lower the risk of "inadvertent" war between the two Koreas and prevent a crisis on the Korean Peninsula without encouraging countries to seek their own nuclear arms.
In November, Trump nominated Rubio, calling him a "strong advocate for our nation" and a "true friend to our allies."
Born in 1971 as the son of two Cuban immigrants, he graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Miami Law School. Rubio served as a city commissioner in West Miami and speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. He has served as a senator for Florida since 2011. (Yonhap)
