US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold his first bilateral meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Washington later Tuesday.

S Jaishankar is here at the invitation of the US Government to attend the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States. Trump on Monday took oath as the president of the US.

“Secretary Rubio meets with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar at the Department of State,” the State Department said, releasing the schedule of the new Secretary of State on the first day as the top American diplomat.

The meeting between the two top diplomats representing the world’s oldest and largest democracies would take place at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department, soon after the first QUAD ministerial in the same building.

“Secretary Rubio meets with Indo-Pacific Quad Foreign Ministers at the Department of State,” said the advisory.

QUAD is an informal group of countries representing Australia, India, Japan and the US. It was an initiative of the Trump Administration in the first term. The Biden Administration elevated it to the leadership level.

Marco Rubio’s decision to have his first meetings with the QUAD ministerial – as the first multilateral meeting – and first bilateral with India assumes significance given that the first foreign outreach of the new administration traditionally has been with its two neighbours Canada and Mexico or with its NATO allies.

Marco Rubio, a former US Senator from Florida, was confirmed by the US Senate by a unanimous 99-0 vote. All the existing 99 senators voted in favour of Marco Rubio, including Mr Rubio himself. There is currently one vacancy in the Senate after Vice President J D Vance resigned as the US Senator from Ohio.

As a Senator, 53-year-old Marco Rubio last year introduced a bill in Congress that proposed to treat India at par with its allies such as Japan, Israel, Korea, and NATO allies regarding technology transfers and support India in its response to growing threats to its territorial integrity.

The bill also sought to bar Pakistan from receiving security assistance if it is found to have sponsored terrorism against India.

A US Senator from Florida from January 3, 2011, to January 20, 2025, Marco Rubio is considered hawkish with regard to China. He is banned from entering China, which sanctioned him twice in 2020. The top Republican member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Marco Rubio is the first ever Latino to be the US Secretary of State.

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