When President Barack Obama negotiated a nuclear cope with Iran greater than a decade in the past, his level man was Secretary of State John Kerry. Over 20 months of talks, Mr. Kerry met together with his Iranian counterpart on no less than 18 completely different days, typically a number of occasions per day.
High-level nuclear diplomacy was a pure position for the highest U.S. diplomat. Secretaries of state historically take the lead on the nation’s largest diplomatic duties, from arms management treaties to Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
But as President Trump prepares to ship a delegation to the newest spherical of U.S.-Iran talks in Pakistan this weekend, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will stay the place he typically does: at house.
Mr. Rubio didn’t attend the final U.S. assembly with Iran earlier this month. Nor did he be part of a number of conferences held over the previous yr in Geneva and Doha. Mr. Rubio has additionally been absent from U.S. delegations overseas working to settle the battle in Ukraine and Israel’s battle in Gaza. Despite an extended interval of disaster and battle within the area, he has not visited the Middle East since a quick cease in Israel final October.
In latest months, Mr. Rubio — consumed together with his second position, as Mr. Trump’s nationwide safety adviser — has not traveled a lot in any respect.
During the Biden administration, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made 11 overseas journeys from January 2024 to late April 2024, stopping in roughly three dozen cities, according to the State Department. So far this yr, Mr. Rubio has visited six foreign cities, together with a cease in Milan for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Mr. Trump has outsourced a lot of his diplomacy to others, together with his buddy Steve Witkoff, a rich affiliate from the world of Manhattan actual property, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner have spearheaded diplomacy with Israel, Ukraine and Russia, in addition to Iran, whose delegation they are going to meet for the second time this month in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.
Mr. Rubio’s distance from the trenches of diplomacy displays his twin position on Mr. Trump’s nationwide safety staff. For the previous yr, he has served because the White House nationwide safety adviser even whereas main the State Department — the primary individual to take action since Henry A. Kissinger within the mid-Nineteen Seventies.
The secretary of state runs the State Department, overseeing U.S. diplomats and embassies worldwide, in addition to Washington-based policymakers. Working from the White House, the nationwide safety adviser coordinates departments and companies, together with the State Department, to develop coverage recommendation for the president.
The twin roles replicate Mr. Rubio’s affect with Mr. Trump, and supply him a technique to preserve it. For Mr. Rubio, much less time overseas means extra time along with an impulsive president susceptible to creating crucial nationwide safety selections at any second.
As Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Kushner and Vice President JD Vance met with Iranian officers in Pakistan earlier this month, Mr. Rubio was at Mr. Trump’s side at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event, famous Emma Ashford, an analyst of U.S. diplomacy on the nonpartisan Stimson Center in Washington. “Rubio clearly prefers to stay close to Trump,” Ms. Ashford stated.
Mr. Rubio accepted the nationwide safety adviser job on an appearing foundation final May after Mr. Trump reassigned the job’s earlier occupant, Michael Waltz. But officers say that Mr. Rubio is predicted to maintain it indefinitely.
That association is just not inherently unhealthy, Ms. Ashford added. And she famous that earlier presidents had entrusted main diplomatic duties to individuals aside from the secretary of state. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. delegated his C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, to deal with diplomacy with Russia and cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, for example.
But she echoed the complaints by many present and former diplomats that Mr. Rubio appears much less like somebody performing each jobs than a nationwide safety adviser who typically reveals up on the State Department. “I do think it’s to the detriment of the whole department of State and to America’s ability to conduct diplomacy in general that we effectively have the secretary of state position sitting vacant,” she stated.
Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, contested such claims. “Anyone trying to paint Secretary Rubio’s close coordination with the White House and other agencies as a negative could not be more wrong,” he stated. “We now have an N.S.C. and State Department that are totally in sync, a goal that has eluded past administrations for decades.”
Mr. Rubio divides his time between the State Department and the White House, typically spending time at each in the identical day. In an interview with Politico last June, Mr. Rubio stated he visited the State Department “almost every day.”
While there, he typically meets with visiting dignitaries earlier than returning to the White House. Last week, Mr. Rubio presided over a gathering on the State Department between Lebanese and Israeli officers that set the stage for a cease-fire in Lebanon.
His twin jobs “really do overlap in many cases,” he stated. “In many cases you end up being in the same meetings or in the same places; there’s just one less person in there, if you think about it,” Mr. Rubio added. “A lot of people would come to Washington, for example, for meetings, and they’d want to meet with the national security adviser and then meet with me as secretary of state. Now they can do both in one meeting.”
Asked about his journey schedule throughout a information convention final December, Mr. Rubio stated he had much less purpose to journey overseas as a result of “we have a lot of leaders constantly coming here” to go to Mr. Trump on the White House. Mr. Rubio additionally joins Mr. Trump’s overseas journeys in his capability as nationwide safety adviser.
Many nationwide safety veterans name the association unwise, saying that each jobs are extraordinarily demanding and incompatible with each other.
It was not simple even for Mr. Kissinger, who had firmly established himself over greater than 4 years as nationwide safety adviser earlier than convincing President Richard M. Nixon to let him tackle an extra position as secretary of state in 1973. (In a reversal of Mr. Rubio’s method, Mr. Kissinger was in fixed movement, together with a spherical of Middle East shuttle diplomacy that kept him on the road for 33 straight days.)
“In general, it’s a mistake to combine those roles,” stated Matthew Waxman, who held senior roles on the National Security Council, State Department and the Pentagon through the George W. Bush administration.
“That said, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that a dual-hatted Rubio is so offscreen right now,” Mr. Waxman added. “Especially while so much attention is focused on high-wire diplomacy with Iran, someone needs to manage foreign policy around the rest of the world.”
