MARCO RUBIO, A LATINO AT THE HEAD OF US DIPLOMACY

President-elect Donald Trump has surprised his followers by naming a Latino at the head of US diplomacy. Marco Rubio is considered a "tough" character who fits well with the way the new head of the executive manages the country. Of Cuban origin, Rubio is a person who has long since broken with the Latin American universe.

Marcio Rubio is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008.

In the 2006 presidential elections, Rubio presented himself as a candidate against Trump, accusing him of being a man who did not know the interests of his country and only sought his own personal interests. In a few days, however, he decided to abandon his candidacy although he did not then put himself at the service of the real estate magnate.

Between 1998 and 2008 Marco earned $2.38 million from his law career and House salary. Unfortunately, he did not save very much of this income. When he was first elected to the House in 2000, he was literally reported to have a net worth of ZERO. According to his 2009 financial statement, at that time Marco reported his net worth to be negative $37,000. His finances were being pressured under various student debt and multiple mortgages. At one point a property he owned in Tallahassee was facing foreclosure after he reportedly did not make a mortgage payment for five months. He sold this home at an $18,000 loss in 2015. In 2012 he earned an $800,000 advance to publish a biography.

Marco Rubio was born on May 28, 1971 in Miami, Florida as the third child of Cuban immigrants Oriales and Mario, who had come to the United States in 1956 prior to the Cuban Revolution. He has an older brother named Mario Jr. and an older sister named Barbara, as well as a younger sister named Veronica. Rubio spent part of his childhood in Las Vegas, Nevada, where his father worked as a bartender and his mother as a housekeeper. Back in Miami, he attended South Miami Senior High School, from which he graduated in 1989. Rubio went on to attend Tarkio College in Missouri for a year before transferring to Santa Fe Community College in Florida. He then attended the University of Florida, from which he graduated with his BA in political science in 1993. Rubio subsequently enrolled at the University of Miami School of Law, earning his JD in 1996.

Early in his Senate tenure, he was an influential defender of the US embargo against Cuba, and was a major proponent of the US's involvement in the military campaign to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Meanwhile, he voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011. Later, in 2013, Rubio was part of a bipartisan group advocating for comprehensive immigration reform legislation. He also voted against an expansion of background checks for gun purchases, and voted against publishing the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.

Given that Trump does not pay much attention to the opinion of his advisors, Rubio will have to adapt to this situation and remain in a position of little influence on the foreign policy of the new president, unless the latter, in the first months of his mandate, decides to grant Rubio a certain margin of influence.