How would Marco Rubio change U.S. foreign policy?
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio has promised an active foreign policy agenda if he captures the White House in 2016. He's said he'll forcefully confront Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, he'll tear up the nuclear agreement with Iran on day one, and he'll take a harder line against the Chinese in maritime territorial disputes, among other agenda items.
"That's a lot, for a country that's nervous about extending itself overseas," noted "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson during a recent interview with Rubio. "Aren't you kind of offering the American people a kind of jittery beginning, a lot of things going on overseas?"
"I think the alternative is worse, which is a weakening position in the Asia-Pacific region," explained the freshman Florida senator, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "The fastest-growing economies in the world are going to be in Asia for the next 50 to 70 years. We have important alliances there. And we can't allow, for example, for the Chinese to claim sovereignty over the majority of the South China Sea. Fifty percent of global commerce goes through there. We have important strategic alliances with Japan, South Korea, increasingly with the Philippines that we have to live up to those commitments."
Otherwise, Rubio added, "We are giving China the argument they're already making to these countries in the region which is: 'America's a power in decline. You need to play by our rules in the game.'"
The situation with Russia and Ukraine, Rubio explained, is "a little different."
"They're sowing instability in parts of Europe, including nations that border them, where they're actually actively promoting all sorts of anti-government propaganda in those countries, pro-Russian propaganda. And in the process, undermining potentially some of our NATO allies like in the Baltic States," he continued. "And so it's not necessarily a confrontational approach as much as it is a realistic one. And that is, we have to live up to these commitments or the world order will be completely rewritten in a way that is against our interest in Europe and Asia and throughout the world."
Rubio emphasized the links between America's economy and foreign policy, arguing that the U.S. security posture in Asia and Europe has created the conditions necessary for America to foster a prosperous relationship with trading partners - and those conditions could be jeopardized if Russia or China is able to scramble the security calculus in their respective regions.
"We have a deep interest in the Asia-pacific region. As I said, some of the fastest-growing economies in the world are in that region. These are important trade partners for us. But a lot of the lynch pin of that has been the security arrangements that we have," he said. "The reason why these nations like Japan and South Korea and others have prospered is because of their security arrangements with the U.S. If we don't live up to those commitments, it completely rewrites the rules of the game both economically and politically in the region. The same is true with Europe. I mean, since the end of World War II obviously, we lived through the Cold War. But our alliances in that region are critical to our economic stability as well. So I think it'll be even more disruptive to allow the trends that are in place to continue."
It's worth noting that Rubio supports at least one element of Mr. Obama's approach to the Asia-Pacific region: he's spoken out in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade agreement between the U.S. and 11 other nations designed to facilitate commerce along the Pacific Rim.