Over six decades ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s parents fled Cuba, seeking the freedom and opportunity that America provides. They knew firsthand the dangers of authoritarian rule. And yet, today, he is turning his back on their legacy by forsaking Ukraine and our European allies while empowering and enabling Russia — an authoritarian dictatorship that embodies the very oppression his family escaped.
From 1992-2024, I served proudly in the U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Colombia and Moldova, working as a career foreign service officer to stimulate social and economic development, promote stability and mitigate threats abroad before they arrive here. Since Rubio came to the Senate in January 2011, I’ve followed his career and observed him strongly promote American values, nurture relationships with our critical allies, and stand up to dictators and repressive regimes around the world.
Just weeks into his new job, Rubio is actively endorsing and rationalizing President Donald Trump’s embrace of Vladimir Putin and Russia. He is defending Trump’s comments denigrating our North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies and eroding long-standing relationships. I find these actions unfathomable.
While working in Moldova, I saw a country still grappling with the remnants of Soviet control, including the Transnistria region, a breakaway state with a Russian military presence inside it still today. It has a remarkably dangerous and complex relationship with Russia, including energy dependence, malign political influence at all levels, and an elaborate anti-west propaganda network.
Rubio knows that Putin’s Russia is not just another foreign power. It is a regime where human rights are trampled, critics are silenced, and government opposition is crushed with brutal efficiency. Freedoms of speech, assembly and association are nearly nonexistent. Political opponents face arbitrary prosecution, violent attacks and lengthy prison sentences — all carried out with impunity.
Before being nominated as Trump’s Secretary of State, Rubio regularly spoke out about Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine and other transgressions. In March 2022, he co-sponsored a Senate resolution to strongly condemn “the ongoing violence, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and systematic human rights abuses being carried out by the Russian Armed Forces and their proxies and President Putin’s military commanders, at the direction of President Vladimir Putin.” The resolution went on to ask the United States government to “use its voice, vote, and influence” in the international arena to hold Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian regime accountable for their many transgressions of international law in their invasion of Ukraine.
Rubio also knows that by working closely together, the United States and NATO’s other member countries have maintained stability in Europe and beyond for more than six decades, a tremendous benefit to U.S. economic as well as strategic interests. NATO has been the key global counterbalance to potential threats from Russia, China, Iran and other hostile actors.
While in the Senate, Rubio regularly pushed for enhancing U.S. engagement in the NATO alliance. In 2023, while a senior leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he spearheaded a bill to prohibit any President of the United States from withdrawing from NATO without Senate approval or an Act of Congress.
Today, instead of standing against tyranny and valuing our long-standing partners, Rubio has chosen to cower before Donald Trump, throwing Ukraine, our NATO allies, and America’s own security under the bus. By weakening our support for Ukraine, he has emboldened Vladimir Putin — a dictator whose ambitions do not stop at Kyiv. Putin wants to continue Russian expansion into Moldova and other former Soviet republics. History has shown us that appeasement of aggressors only leads to greater conflict.
Rubio’s actions are taking us down a very dangerous path. He inherited freedom and democracy from his parents. Yet today, he is betraying the very values that his family relied on to escape Cuban repression. It is not too late for him to correct his course. History will remember those who choose political convenience and Vladimir Putin over moral courage and American democracy.
Marco Rubio must do the right thing. Now.
Lynn Northcutt Vega is a retired career foreign service officer, member of National Security Leaders for America and an international development and foreign affairs professional based in Springfield, Virginia.
