Jan 17, 2026
3 min read
Donald Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio for United States for the Southern Hemisphere
The false history of the United States Secretary of State, Marco Antonio Rubio, makes one immediately question the image of the "good, smart right-wing boy" carefully created by this 54-year-old politician, born in the Cuban-American city of Miami: his parents and grandfather left Cuba for the United States two and a half years before the revolution of the Castro family. Escaped and forced into exile by the government ofCommunist dictatorship, according to the actor himself, would affect his political beliefs.
According to the documents obtained by the journalist Manuelis Roigas-Franzia, who in 2011The Washington Post published its findings in October - Rubio's first year in the Senate - Cubans Mario and Oriales Rubio, Rubio's father and mother, in 1956.May 27came to the United States accompanied by his eldest son Mario.The third of the couple's four children, Marco was born in the United States in 1971. Pedro Victor García, Rubio's maternal grandfather, came to the United States in 1956-1957 to join his family, which supported itself by doing odd jobs, Mario as a bartender, a school janitor at a hotel, and Orialeres.
A data pode parecer um detalhe, mas como explica o jornalista que revelou a farsa, a “fuga dos pais de Rubio de Cuba, ponto central da identidade política do jovem senador, é citada na segunda linha de sua biografia oficial no Senado”.
Rubio repeated false information about his family in impassioned speeches for more than a decade, from when the 27-year-old lawyer ran for the West Miami City Commission to his successful campaign for the Senate in 2010, under the blessing of the Tea Party, at age 39.Rubio gained attention at the same time, which blocked him in Florida during his two previous terms. State representatives (the Assembly, for us), and the first Cuban American when his teacher, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, President George W.Bush applauded when his brother was elected speaker (Chairman) with his blessing.
Rubio has always presented himself as a visceral anti-communist since birth, a narrative supported by his 2013 autobiography, Son of America, in which he describes himself as a shy and stubborn boy whose best friend was his maternal grandfather, the Cuban Pedro Víctor García, always with a cigar in his mouth.It would be his greatest personal and political influence, the counter-revolutionary grandmother, who taught him "America Love", took advantage of all opportunities for social progress and never gave up on "liberating Cuba from the communist dictatorship".
But Pedro García, a man of flesh and blood, not only returned to Cuba shortly after the revolution because he could not find the means to support himself in Miami, but also received a lower position in the bureaucracy of Fidel Castro's government.Upon his return to the United States in 1962, he was stopped by immigration, but eventually convinced agents that he was not a communist spy and was granted a humanitarian visa (Parole) because he was over 60 years old and in frail health.
In the face of this information, including the undisclosed fact that his mother spent time in Havana in the 1960s without facing any problems with the Cuban government, Rubio admitted the "mistake" to the Washington Post, pointing to the fact that it was only "oral history" of the family, thus reducing the importance of the details he created."Those from Cuba, they want to live in Cuba again, but what was done in the country was not possible, that is what is important."
The lie says a lot about Rubio's character and the weight of Cuba in his career, describing the dimensions of the victory that the Secretary of State achieved within the Trump administration by training the forces of the largest military power in the world to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro and intervene in Venezuela.If Trump has already managed to extort at least 30 million barrels of oil from the Bolivarian government, Rubio is planning the next step in his career: to overthrow the Cuban government and run for president in the next US elections.
"If Rubio destroys Maduro and the Cuban regime, he will be an eternal hero in Miami," the Florida politician told the New Yorker magazine, which published a profile of Marco Rubio on January 12.Surprisingly, one of Rubio's first statements after the invasion of Venezuela was: "If I lived in Havana and the government, I would be very worried".
First of all, a great lobbyist
To understand the reason for the confusion about the date of arrival of the Rubio family in the United States, it is necessary to look at the Cuban community in Florida, which today numbers about 1.8 million people - more than half of the Cuban population living in the United States - and consider the different characteristics of the waves of immigration from the island since 1959.
The political career of the humble Rubio family's golden boy was built on the anti-communist hatred cultivated by the 400,000 Cubans since the revolution who arrived in the first two waves of immigration - one more wealthy and linked to the dictator Batista, who came to Florida between 1959 and 1996, and who came to Florida in 1959 and 1996, who came to Florida in 1996. made bythe human. Sponsored by the United States between 1965 and 1973.
For example, the Fanjul brothers, the longest-serving financiers of Marco Rubio's political career, arrived in Miami in 1959 with enough money in their suitcases to restore the sugar barony they had lost in Cuba to the United States.These same elites have sided with the US government in efforts to overthrow or kill Fidel Castro, until recently.They received special visas and green cards similar to those granted to Cuban immigrants.Guaranteed benefits
“Rubio lied about his family’s arrival because he wanted to get a tattoo, which was considered important in Miami’s Cuban community,” explains Fernando de Morais, a journalist and author who lived among Cubans for decades on and off the island.
As new waves of immigrants arrive, this time poorer and darker-skinned Cubans, such as the 128,000 "marielitos" who arrived by sea in the 1980s as Cuba suffered the effects of the U.S. economic embargo, followed by about 30,000 "balcers" before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
During this period, Cuban extremists in Florida, gathered in secret organizations, attacked Cuban airspace under the pretext of rescuing loggers and carried out a series of terrorist attacks against hotels and other tourist attractions on the island to disrupt tourism, which was one of the only sources of foreign currency earnings after the US blockade.
This is the background to the book "The Last Soldiers of the Cold War" by Fernando de Moraes, published in 2011, about Cuban spies who infiltrated these terrorist groups in Miami and the American intelligence services in the 1990s (the movie Wasp - The Spy Network, based on the book, can be seen in Neruzs and Spanish. Cuba Ana de Armas, our Wagner). Maura).
Morais, who visited the Cuban-American community several times while researching the book, reports that "before September 11, Miami was a big stand selling weapons, including heavy weapons. It's not for nothing that all the pilots who flew planes in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon took pilot courses in Florida," he says.
In this environment, the politician Marco Rubio was born, elected for the first time to the Florida House of Representatives in 1999, recently married to Jeanette Dousdebes, a former runner with blond hair, daughter of Colombian immigrants, a strong and generous Christian like him.They lived in West Miami until he went to Washington as a senator-elect, they have four children.
"Marco Rubio is part of the counter-revolutionary community, he supported the far-right Brujos, but he was never involved in groups that carried out attacks. He was always a big lobbyist for the anti-fidelista cause, but not a terrorist, so when I was looking for someone, I was looking for someone to speak for the physical enemies of the revolution (Rubio, who were not enemies of the revolution long ago). The system, as well as Fidel's two cousins, Castro, bothVice Presidents Lincoln (died March 2025) and Mario Diaz Balart (still a Florida representative), who are cousins on Fidel Castro's side, says Morais.
Rubio's "Bushita" Advisor
When the lie showed that the young senator was less reliable than his "honest boyish eyes and boy scout's smile", which were always praised in the United States press, the Cuban community did not even care about the senator's "adorned" biography, which by that time had already become a key element in bringing his ambitions to power circles - from reducing taxes to guaranteeing exclusive rightsof Cuban.
More than that, Rubio became a Republican Party strategist, losing the 2012 election to Barack Obama in his second term, angered by the rejection of Latinos, solutions presented by the right to the immigration crisis, from the use of alligators to restrict entry to Florida to "immigration".Rubio made it harder for the Tea Party to win.
Always look at his candidates, which are now transferred to Latino Churches from different countries across the country, Rubio tried to define a bypartian immigration policy, which is compiled from him, three other republican representatives.
Rubio led the discussions, appeared on the cover of the Times magazine entitled "savior of the Republic" and told reporters that he had a very special adviser in these matters: his mother Oriales, who never forgot the true story of the Rubio family and left a message on his cell phone in Spanish that the senator shared with reporters: "Tony, love advice from someone who cares about you, Oriales, who never forgot the true story of the familyof Rubio and left a message on his cell phone that the senator shared with reporters: "Tony, love advice from someone who cares about you. Don't mess with me. Los Puritos are people like you, and they come here for the same reasons we do, to improve their lives. Please don't contact them."
Rubio's idea was to expel illegal immigrants who did not have the benefits of Cubans - rejecting Obama's policy of tolerance and regulation - while favoring those with legal status or the possibility of regularization as long as they were subjected to strict checks.element.As a policy maker you have to find a balance."
When the negotiations failed, Rubio did what he always did: he did not stop, but turned the page, he decided to use this platform for his campaign for the presidency, launched in 2015. In addition to sugar and other Cuban businessmen, Tony now has new financiers, from the Tea Party, and Republicans close to George W. Bush, like many of his advisors.
Although Rubio beat out his former mentor Jeb Bush for the presidential nomination – betraying those who helped him when they began to stand in his way is another trait that sets him apart from Trump – the former Florida governor will end up reconnecting with the “prodigal son.”He served as Secretary of State in Trump's second term.
But in 2015, Rubio and Trump were rivals in the primary race and openly attacked each other during debates.Rubio mocked the fortune he received from the candidate, participating in TV shows and mocking Trump's orange tan - "I would challenge anyone who changed that color", he once said.On the other hand, reducing his opponent who was young in 25 years, poor and small - that is what prevented him from becoming an American football player, as he dreamed -, Trump called him Little Marco, which Rubio protested once, drawing attention to the hands of his opponent at the time, which were not the same size: "You know what they say about people with small hands, right?"
Trump, as we know, won the primaries and Rubio retired just in time to steer his campaign toward a successful Senate re-election bid.The two politicians became close during Trump's first term, despite the insults they exchanged during the debate over the Republican nomination.Rubio even publicly apologized for insulting Trump, which goes against his principles as a Christian family and "embarrasses his children."
Play the entire scene.Recently, one of his advisers said the two exchanged jokes behind the scenes of debates at the time, while other Republican candidates distanced themselves from Trump because they saw him as toxic or simply because they didn't like him."The thing about Marco is that he's a guy who's very comfortable with other guys, he's the type of guy who likes to hang out with two kids, and I told him they're close to the two kids," a source told The New Yorker.
Both other connections have.Behind the man who presents himself as having rigid principles and the discipline of athlete, a flexible politician who can go back to his own convenience lives.Although Rubio is more thoughtful and less unpredictable than Trump, he shares the same modesty of withdrawal without even admitting that he has backed up.When Trump discovered that the 2020 election had been stolen, Rubio defended after Democrat Joe Biden's victory, the legality of the election and then raised doubts about the Wisconsin and Arizona elections, approaching the speech of his prospective boss.
Trump and Rubio pair
There are other reasons why Trump appointed Marco Small as Secretary of State and later National Security Advisor (NSA) in his second term—before Rubio, only Henry Kissinger had held both roles in the Nixon and Ford administrations (1969-1977).
Rubio says he is an admirer of Kissinger, the diplomat and theorist of US foreign policy during the Cold War, whom he knows personally - Kissinger will die in 2023 at the age of 100. But Rubio is well aware that he lacks the prestige and power of diplomacy that created the Vietnam War and US dictatorship.That apparent modesty sits well with Trump.
In fact, one of Rubio's strongest points seems to be his ability to put himself in a position to do the best in any situation, even if he is speaking in the ear of the president.His plan to influence Trump comes from his soft and gentle position, which pleases his boss, and his inevitable purpose, which includes his sense of humor and rational spirit that helps him to explain the inconsistent decisions of Trump, making them look good - even when they are not.
Another key point that makes Rubio dream of the presidency is the emergence of immigration as a central issue in US politics and intervention in Latin America as part of the solution, which is actually already behind the recent invasion of Venezuela.He has met several times with El Salvador's hardline president, Nayeb Bukele, to prosecute immigrants, particularly Venezuelans, accused of joining criminal organizations.However, in his opinion, the "liberation" of Venezuela and Cuba can be a more permanent solution.
Since 2000, the year after Hugo Chávez took office as president, Venezuelan immigration to the United States has increased 600 percent, according to the Pew Research Center, to more than 700,000 people in 2024. The Cuban immigrant population increased again between 2021 and 2024, with more than 60 Cuban immigrants in the United States.immigration
For the political scientist Guillerme Casaoes, foreign policy expert and professor at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), now at the Florida International University, anti-communism and immigration - especially the recent waves of Cuban and Venezuelan migrants - are among the three domestic issues that contribute to the centrality of Latin America in the current foreign policy of the Trump-Rubio, he says it is the high drugthe America.Even more than during the Cold War.
"In the post-World War II context, concerns about Latin America were more a reflection of the Cold War dispute, the fear that the Soviet Union would occupy the political spaces and dominate the regions that were closely connected to this natural North American backyard, than an absolute priority as it is now."
Choosing Rubio as secretary of state would fit into this logic, because he built his political career on a "conservative perspective for Latin America, largely interventionist," the professor says.
The performance in Venezuela revived Rubio's popularity in the Latino community
In mid-2025, the Trump administration canceled the humanitarian visa program for Cubans, the so-called parole that Rubio's grandfather received when he came to the US for the second time – which had been extended to Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans under the Obama and Biden administrations (CHNV program).It also, for the first time since the Revolution, imposed restrictions on immigrant, tourist, and business visas for Cubans.The move put more than 350,000 Venezuelans and 300,000 Cubans at risk of deportation.
As a result, graffiti with "traitor" in Rubio's name appeared in his electoral base, Miami-Dade County, once a Democratic stronghold.
Less than two months later, the Trump administration began bombing Venezuelan ships and shouting the label of narco-terrorism against the government of Nicolás Maduro and Gustavo Petro, the leftist president of Colombia, home of Rubio's wife's parents.
Maduro's seizure is crucial to restoring Rubio's popularity among his base.In addition, it tightens the siege against Cuba, which depends on oil from Venezuela, the only country that maintains strong international ties with the island.
Even the press of the United States can know, until now, where Trump ends and Rubio begins to distinguish the foreign policy of the current government.For Ross Douthat, a reporter for the New York Times, Rubio leaves the words of international politics to Trump while the actions are up to him.
Published in December of last year, the day before the invasion of Venezuela, the column gives some examples of the victories of Rubio in the policy of Ukraine (Trump wants to end the war by handing over land to Putin, but also gives Zelensky military support to defend Rubio);The military campaign in the Middle East (long wanted by the Hawks) and the bombing of Venezuelan ships.
And he concluded: "While the confirmation of the attempts of regime change in Venezuela is coming out - drugs! oil! Trump's destruction of the Monroe Doctrine! - we are clearly involved in an old-fashioned anti-communist action that can be expected from a Miami boy as Secretary of State."
Now all Rubio needs is to remove the Chavistas from power once and for all and overthrow the Cubans, two efforts that will fail, according to a profound expert on Venezuela - he was twice as an election observer - and the author of "The Island", the first book report on Cuba published in 1976.
"The Trump administration has already learned that Venezuela is not Iraq, so it had to settle for removing Maduro, but maintaining Chavisism. Perhaps it did not realize that Cuba could be the new Vietnam, which survived the Japanese, Chinese, French and North Americans. Another parallel, with the opposite sex, is that there are only two populations on the planet that eat Israel. It got even worse in Pasaran," Morais challenges.
