“Marco Rubio’s first visit to the Indo-Pacific as secretary of state last week was an entirely forgettable, regrettable affair,” Foreign Policy reports.
“The original plan was for Rubio to travel to Japan and South Korea—key U.S. security allies—to shore up increasingly strained ties, not least due to President Donald Trump’s threat to impose paralyzing tariffs on Aug. 1 if the two countries do not agree to new bilateral trade agreements by then.”
“Instead, because Rubio moonlights as acting national security advisor, he was forced to postpone these trips in order to remain at the White House for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit. That left Malaysia as the only country he still made it to on what was supposed to have been a regional tour.”
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