As President Donald Trump prepares to send a delegation to the next round of talks between the United States and Iran in Pakistan, scheduled for this weekend, his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, will once again remain at home.
This is a situation that has been recurring frequently. Rubio did not attend the latest U.S.–Iran meeting earlier this month, nor did he take part in several summits held over the past year in Geneva and Doha. He was also absent from US delegations abroad working to resolve the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Gaza Strip.
In recent months, absorbed by his second role as National Security Advisor assigned to him by Trump, he has rarely left the country. This marks a sharp departure from the past, when Secretaries of State were considered primary figures in diplomacy.
Differences with the past
When President Barack Obama negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran more than a decade ago, his key figure was John Kerry, who met his Iranian counterpart at least 18 times over more than 20 months of talks.
During the administration of Joe Biden, then–Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made 11 trips abroad from January to April 2024, visiting around thirty cities, according to State Department data.
So far this year, Rubio has instead visited six foreign cities, including Milan on the occasion of the Winter Olympics. Trump, for his part, has preferred to delegate much of his diplomatic activity to other close allies, including his friend Steve Witkoff, a Manhattan real estate partner, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. They have led meetings with Israel, Ukraine, and Russia, as well as the most recent ones with Iran.
Experts: “He prefers to stay close to the president.”
According to The New York Times, the distance separating Rubio from major negotiating tables reflects his dual role within Trump’s national security team. Over the past year, he has served as National Security Advisor at the White House while also heading the State Department, becoming the first person to do so since Henry Kissinger in the mid-1970s.
For Rubio, less time abroad means spending more time alongside an impulsive president, prone to making crucial—and often controversial—decisions at any moment. “Rubio clearly prefers to stay close to Trump,” said Emma Ashford, an analyst of US diplomacy at the Stimson Center.
If Marco Rubio is in fact staying close to Donald Trump to temper impulsive decision-making, the implication is not reassuring but destabilizing. It suggests the secretary of state is functioning less as America’s chief diplomat and more as an internal guardrail—managing volatility in real time rather than projecting strategy outward. Even if that proximity prevents rash moves behind closed doors, it comes at a visible cost: allies encounter absence where they expect engagement, and diplomacy becomes reactive, episodic, and contingent on personal access rather than institutional process. In that sense, the role isn’t just underfilled—it’s been quietly repurposed, with the center of gravity shifting from sustained international leadership to ad hoc crisis management at the president’s side.
Ashford added: “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,”
For his part, Rubio has repeatedly said he is focused on both of his roles, which, he argues, often “overlap.” This arrangement is considered unwise by several national security veterans, who told the Times that both roles are extremely demanding and incompatible with one another.
Emanuele La Prova
Giornalista pubblicista, classe 1998. Ha collaborato con diverse testate online in Italia e all'estero. Si occupa di attualità e sport americani
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