The buzz in Washington is growing: the newly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, is, according to reports, about to choose Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his Secretary of State.

Rubio, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Committee on Foreign Relations and is known for his hawkish approach to U.S. foreign policy, if nominated and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, would be the first Latino to serve as the nation’s top will serve. diplomat.

It would also mark a notable turnaround from the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential campaign, when the two men infamously exchanged rude nicknames.

Since the public spat, Rubio appears to have adjusted his views over the years on issues like the war in Ukraine and immigration policy to align with Trump’s position.

Let’s take a look at how the Florida senator’s relationship with Trump has changed over time and what we know about Rubio’s views on key foreign policy issues.

How it all started: ‘Little Marco’, ‘Small Hands Trump’

The two men clashed when they met during the 2016 presidential primaries, with Trump mocking Rubio for sweating profusely and calling him “Little Marco.”

Lightweight Marco Rubio worked hard last night. The problem is he’s a choker, and once a choker, always a choker! Mr. Meltdown.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2016

The comments prompted Rubio to fire back: “I don’t understand why his (Trump’s) hands are the size of someone who is 6-foot-4. … And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can’t trust them.”

But believe him, he did. After Rubio was eliminated from the primaries, he ultimately supported Trump for president.

Do Trump and Rubio agree on Ukraine?

On paper, the two men have different approaches to American foreign policy.

Rubio is more of a traditional interventionist who advocates a muscular approach to foreign conflicts, while Trump’s foreign policy focuses on avoiding military interventions abroad.

This has sometimes led Rubio to publicly criticize Trump’s foreign policy, including in 2019 when he accused the then-president of “abandoning” the US military effort in Syria before it was “fully ready.”

In recent years, however, experts said Rubio has softened his stance to align with Trump.

“Rubio is a flexible and pragmatic politician who has adapted to the rise of President Trump,” Paul Musgrave, associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.

One such shift is Rubio’s approach to the war in Ukraine.

In the first months after Russia’s large-scale invasion in February 2022, Rubio used social media to fervently rally support among Americans for Ukraine.

During that period, he labeled Russian President Vladimir Putin “a murderer” and questioned his mental health.

I wish I could share more, but for now I can say that it’s pretty clear to many that something is wrong #Putin

He has always been a murderer, but his problem now is different and significant

It would be a mistake to assume that Putin would respond the same way he did five years ago

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 26, 2022

Trump, on the other hand, has insisted that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine in 2022 had he been in power.

Trump, who is due to return to power in January, has also said he could end the conflict “within 24 hours.” He has suggested that Ukraine may have to cede territory to Russia to reach a peace deal.

It’s a position Rubio appears to have softened on, Musgrave said, but with “a more pragmatic, flexible and attractive face” than Trump’s more expansive rhetoric.

In recent interviews, Rubio has suggested that Ukraine should seek a “negotiated solution” with Russia, and he was one of 15 Republican senators who voted against a military aid package for Ukraine that passed in April.

Rubio has stated that with Trump in power, the US can expect a “more pragmatic foreign policy.”

Are Trump and Rubio aligned in their support for Israel?

The two men initially clashed over the issue in 2016 with Rubio, a long-standing supporter of Israel, who accused Trump of being “anti-Israel” and released a statement titled “Fact Check: Donald Trump is not an ally of Israel’.

Rubio’s comments were related to the suggestion that Trump would be “kind of a neutral guy” in the Palestine-Israel conflict.

During his first term, Trump dispelled any questions about neutrality after officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

He has since accused President Joe Biden, who defeated him in the 2020 election, of trying to contain Israel in its war on Gaza and stated during a debate with Biden in June that he will help Israel “finish the job” if he is re-elected.

Rubio has taken a typically aggressive stance toward Israel’s war on Gaza. He told an activist in 2023 that he was not in favor of a ceasefire and that Hamas was “100 percent responsible” for the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

He then supported Trump’s plan to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student protesters to get them to “behave.”

Nader Hashemi, associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera that Rubio’s past comments on the conflict, especially when referring to Palestinians, are sometimes “indistinguishable from (Israeli Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu ”.

Rubio has previously defended Israel’s right to conduct a ground operation in Rafah despite an emergency ruling by the International Court of Justice to have Israel halt the offensive, citing “an enormous risk” to the Palestinian population. He compared the Israeli operation to the pursuit of Adolf Hitler during World War II.

But in April, Rubio signaled that he had moved away from unfettered support for foreign wars — more in line with Trump’s approach to foreign policy — when he voted against a package that provided emergency funding to Israel, arguing that the deal also including money for U.S. border enforcement.

Has Rubio aligned his views on immigration with Trump’s?

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, appears to have shifted to a more populist approach to immigration.

Musgrave said that earlier in his career, Rubio was “a force trying to change the Republican Party to be more open to immigration and more open to diversity.”

As a member of the Florida House of Representatives in 2003, Rubio co-sponsored a version of the DREAM Act, which would have given undocumented immigrant students permanent residency if they met certain criteria.

When Rubio became speaker of the Florida House in 2006, he halted immigration reforms that would have cracked down on undocumented immigrants.

After being elected U.S. Senator in 2010, he began to take a tougher stance on immigration, but it remained significantly softer than Trump’s hardline policies on immigration. For example, in 2016, Rubio declared that mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants were not “realistic policies.”

But now, Musgrave said, Rubio has shifted to a more “anti-immigrant, pro-legal immigrant stance that is consistent with both his political base and President Trump’s policies.”

In recent months, however, Rubio has defended some of Trump’s more populist rhetoric, including his comments that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”

“That’s a saying he (Trump) uses, but it has nothing to do with race,” Rubio said in a Spanish-language TV interview, adding: “The country is threatened by this influx of people, which we now know that these are even criminals and terrorists.”