Rubio oversees foreign aid cutoff, meets with Asian diplomats on day one

Secretary of State Marco Rubio entered the State Department on Tuesday for the first time in his new role, taking the reins of the main agency responsible for American foreign policy at a time of violent global crises and as other countries are beginning to engage with President Trump.

After greeting employees in a ceremony, Mr. Rubio headed to a meeting with his counterparts from India, Japan and Australia to discuss issues in the Indo-Pacific region, an area that at in his eyes, China seeks to dominate.

The State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, which works under Mr. Rubio’s authority, began suspending foreign aid payments, following an executive order signed Monday by Mr. Trump.

This decision immediately affects programs aimed at relieving hunger, disease and wartime suffering around the world, as well as those that help countries develop economically.

Mr. Rubio was sworn in as secretary of state at 9:30 a.m. on a frigid Tuesday morning by Vice President JD Vance. He arrived at the State Department’s flag-draped lobby at 1 p.m. to applause, as hundreds of employees strained to catch a glimpse of him and his wife, Jeanette Rubio, and their four children. Lisa Kenna, a career diplomat who serves as Mr. Rubio’s executive secretary, as she did for Mike Pompeo in the first Trump administration, introduced the new secretary.

Mr. Rubio thanked the many diplomats working abroad, then outlined Mr. Trump’s foreign policy goal: “That mission is to ensure that our foreign policy is focused on one thing, and that is promoting our national interests, which they clearly did. defined through his campaign as anything that makes us stronger, safer or more prosperous,” he said.