OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:57 PM – Friday, December 19, 2025
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held an end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C. The event was lengthy, lasting over two hours, while covering a wide range of U.S. foreign policy topics under President Donald Trump.
Rubio opened his speech by explaining that the Trump administration had agreed that American foreign policy required a full “recalibration,” because “many of the institutions, policies, assumptions that our foreign policy was operating under were built upon a world that no longer existed.”
Rubio argued that, in the years leading up to the second Trump administration, U.S. foreign policy had drifted away from the notion that the national interest should reflect the interests of the United States —creating the need for a significant course correction.
“The core principle behind our foreign policy needs to be our national interests,” Rubio continued, defining the U.S. national interests in the context of foreign policy as decisions “that will make America safer, or stronger, or more prosperous — hopefully all three, but at least one of those.”
Rubio went on to field questions about specific foreign policy decisions, specifically on the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Gaza war, and ongoing turmoil with Venezuela.
Speaking on the ongoing negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Rubio stated, “It’s not our war… but I think everybody would agree there’s only one nation on earth, there is only one entity on earth that can actually talk to both sides and figure out whether there’s a way to end this war peacefully, and that’s the United States.”
Rubio also highlighted that he believes President Trump has held more meetings about the Ukraine-Russia war than he has on “any other subject, including trade,” suggesting that reporters need to get off the administration’s back.
“What we’re trying to figure out here is, what can Ukraine live with and what can Russia live with. Sort of identify what both sides’ positions are and see if we can sort of drive them towards each other to some agreement,” he continued. “We don’t see surrender any time in the near future by either side, and so only a negotiated settlement gives us the opportunity to end this war.”
Shifting to the Israel-Hamas war, Rubio discussed the second phase of the peace agreement proposed by President Trump, specifically focusing on the disarmament of Hamas.
“If Hamas is ever in a position in the future that they can threaten or attack Israel, you’re not gonna have peace. You’re not gonna convince anyone to invest money in Gaza if they believe another war is going to happen in 2-3 years,” Rubio stated.
“I would just ask everyone to focus on, what are the kind of weaponry and capabilities that Hamas would need in order to threaten or attack Israel as a baseline for what disarmament needs to look like,” he continued. “Who is going to invest in a place that is going to get destroyed again in a future war?”
Regarding increased tensions with Venezuela, Rubio proclaimed that the “single most serious threat to the United States from the Western Hemisphere is from transnational terrorist criminal groups primarily focused on narcotrafficking.”
He maintained that several nation-states have expressed a willingness to cooperate with the United States on the issue of tackling narcotrafficking, further noting that Mexico’s cooperation is at the “highest it’s ever been in their history,” along with other states such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama, among others.
“There’s one place that doesn’t cooperate — and it’s the illegitimate regime in Venezuela. Not only do they not cooperate with us, they openly cooperate with terrorists and criminal elements. For example, they invite Hezbollah and Iran to operate from their territory.”
“On top of that, we know that they are in cahoots with drug trafficking organizations, it’s not just that they don’t work with us against these organizations, okay, it’s that they openly cooperate with these guys and allow them to operate,” he continued.
Rubio concluded by reminding the public that socialist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, in addition to a “bunch of people in his government,” were indicted by a grand jury in the Southern District of New York for narcotrafficking — further justifying the ongoing efforts.
“Until President Trump started doing something about these narcotrafficking links, nobody disputed that Maduro and his regime were in cahoots with narcotraffickers — not to mention the fact that they unleashed Tren de Aragua… That’s what President Trump has been focused on.”
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