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President Donald Trump credits Secretary of State Marco Rubio with training him to become a diplomat, comments that come as Rubio has increasingly taken on responsibility and influence over the president during the second Trump administration.
Trump outlined Rubio's orientation in describing his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and shared an anecdote about how Xi requested that Trump stop referring to the COVID-19 virus as the “China virus.” According to Trump, Xi requested that the president use a different name, a request that Trump said he decided to respect.
“I decided to do that because why should we have a problem with that?” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
“You were a real diplomat, huh?” said Børge Brende, president and CEO of the World Economic Forum.
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a meeting of global business executives on Jan. 21, 2026, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, amid ongoing diplomatic friction over his proposal to acquire Greenland from Denmark. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“I became a diplomat for the first time. Well, you know, did Marco Rubio teach me that? He said, 'Let me teach you about diplomacy,'” Trump said.
Trump has entrusted Rubio with a portfolio of responsibilities, and in addition to leading the State Department, Rubio also serves as the Trump administration's national security adviser and head of the National Archives. Rubio is the only person to oversee the White House National Security Council and lead the State Department since Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration.
“He's really smart, really effective, and he's been successful at everything he's done,” Matthew Kroenig, a former Pentagon official and current vice president of the Atlantic Council think tank, told Fox News Digital. “He doesn't see his job as containing Trump. He understands who's boss and channels those instincts in constructive directions.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to examine the president's proposed fiscal year 2026 budget request for the State Department on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 20, 2025. (José Luis Magaña/The Associated Press)
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Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants and previously served as a U.S. senator representing Florida, has become a key architect leading the Trump administration's foreign policy agenda, gaining even more visibility after the U.S. launched strikes in Venezuela and captured dictator Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.
Rubio, who has historically taken tougher foreign policy positions, had long supported the overthrow of Maduro. The first Trump administration sought to overthrow the Venezuelan strongman by imposing sanctions on Venezuela and backing opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
In 2019, Rubio predicted Maduro's fall, although he was unsure of the timeline.
“He has chosen a battle he cannot win,” Rubio said in an interview with The New York Times about Maduro. “It's just a matter of time. The only thing we don't know is how long it will take and whether it will be peaceful or bloody.”
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Following Maduro's capture, Trump announced that the United States would “govern” Venezuela until a peaceful transition could occur. The move to overthrow Maduro has drawn scrutiny, primarily from Democrats, who have questioned the legality of the operation in Venezuela, which was carried out without congressional approval.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the State Department on June 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)
Still, Rubio has said that congressional approval was not needed since the operation was not an “invasion.”
Trump speculated in Switzerland that Rubio would be remembered as “the best” Secretary of State and noted that every member of the Senate voted to confirm Rubio to his post in January 2025.
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“Hey, anyone who gets 100% approval of the vote, if you think about it, got liberal Democrats and radical right Republicans to approve him,” Trump said Wednesday. “He's the only one… At first I wasn't happy about it. I said, 'Wait a minute, I don't like that.' And now it turns out the Democrats probably wish they hadn't done that. And Marco has been fantastic.”
Fox News' Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
