Marco Rubio is the most powerful Latino U.S. politician ever. Heaven help us all

The pet pulled off a neat trick: Little Marco spoke in Spanish in front of a room full of heads of state from across Latin America.

Its owner — well, at least the owner of its soul — grinned and joked, “I think his Spanish is better than his English.” After President Trump, it’s Pentagon Pete’s turn to tease Little Marco.

“I only speak American,” Defense Minister Hegseth retorted. The auditorium was silent except for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who meekly protested, “I only speak Cuban.”

Trump patted him on the back. Well done son Marco.

The meeting, which took place over a weekend dominated by war with Iran, was short but told a lot about the times Latinos lived in. Rubio, the most powerful Latin politician in US history, could also be with Trump and Chihuahua Hegseth: “Hello Taco Bell.” The man who played an outsized role in forcing a president who campaigned against costly foreign wars and chaotic regime changes to do both has been brought back to dishonorable stature.

Really little Marco.

It’s a reminder that no matter how high and mighty you are in the Trump White House, a Latino is still an exotic “other.”

Tokenizing someone is always an ugly thing, but Rubio doesn’t deserve the tears. He made a career by wearing his t-shirt Latinidad Like a shiny guayabera when appropriate, he long presents himself as the child-faced exception to the corrupt, ineffective Latin politician archetype. This stance fueled a 27-year career; Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, U.S. senator, former presidential candidate, secretary of state and national security advisor. This has led many conservatives and more than a few Latinos to believe that not only can he mount a strong run for the White House, but that he can win if he does so.

All it cost Rubio was his morals and backbone. All he had to do was roll.

We Latinos deserve better, but we still don’t deserve much.

The story liberals and conservatives always tell about America’s largest minority is that we will irreversibly change the United States; The first group argued that this would be for the better, while the second insisted that we would cause the collapse of this country. Rubio proves that at our worst, Latinos often show that we are the worst kind of Americans in our rush to assimilate and be embraced.

We are the ones the American psyche sees as permanent invaders, but thousands are signing up with the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other agencies in Trump’s Leviathan of deportation. Even as Trump disparaged Latinos during his first term and in his years out of office, a growing number of them were warming to him. other Latinos — until Trump gets more votes in 2024 than any Republican presidential candidate ever.

It takes a certain type of person to go from the child of Cuban immigrants (the favorite son of the exile community who transformed Miami from a retirement haven into one of the capitals of Latin America) to tell European leaders last month that they and the United States were “opening our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass immigration that threatens the integrity of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.”

It takes the worst kind of Latino.

I called Rubio sales person in the previous one column After applauding the extrajudicial capture of Venezuelan despot Nicolás Maduro. He’s definitely still a sellout; What else do you call someone who once fiercely opposed Trump but now favors him like a fool? But the saddest part of Rubio’s rise is that his followers see it as the culmination of the long-held dream of Latinos that once one of us takes office, everything will be better for our ancestral Latin American countries and for us.

Unfortunately no. He lives by a realpolitik maxim attributed to various Latin American caudillos: Anything for my friends; law for my enemies.

Strongmen like Nayib Bukele and Javier Milei, presidents of El Salvador and Argentina, are pampered and receive foreign aid; University students on education visas who criticized the Trump administration were caught migration. Rubio now oversees a foreign policy in which the United States dictates how Venezuela is governed, bombs Iran as if the country is a Pachinko game, and drags Cuba into slow collapse. He’s the holy child of Bush-era neoconservatism and MAGA, and Rubio is just getting started.

This is how it was primed to be used by Trump and Hegseth as a punchline to Latinos. The setting: The inaugural meeting of the Inter-American Shield, a coalition of Western Hemisphere countries ostensibly banded together to fight drug cartels, at the Trump golf course near Miami. It seemed like one of the smaller supergroups in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; Instead of Mexico there was Costa Rica, instead of Brazil there was Bolivia. The band even has a terrible logo. You know how frivolous the conversation is when Trump’s point person on this is Kristi Noem, whom he literally just fired as Secretary of Homeland Security.

After Trump made a short speech, it was Rubio’s turn. It was a chance for the Secretary of State, whom the Atlantic recently called “brilliant and well-spoken,” to channel his inner Simón Bolivar or José Martí. The Secretary of State thanked everyone present in English, but then praised Trump for his “courageous leadership” and boasted that the president was “one of the most historic figures in American history.”

Then Rubio looked at his master, whose eyes were shining.

President Trump signed a proclamation committing to combat cartel criminal activity at the Shield of the Americas Summit held Saturday at the Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla.

(Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press)

“Well, if I…” she began, before Trump interrupted her by generously saying, “Sure. Please.”

That’s when Little Marco spoke perfect Spanish. Rubio’s comments were not much different from what he said in English; Except that what they plan to do by following Trump will “make future generations grateful for the work we do today.”

That last statement sums up Rubio. Latin America has longed for prosperity and peace free from American intervention for centuries. This hope fueled revolutions, music, film, culture and the best the region has produced, and enabled US-backed tyrants to crush these movements.

That’s the torch Rubio now carries with pride.

“All my life I have been rushing to get to my future,” he wrote in his 2013 memoir “American Son.” Rubio’s future is now. And our present—not just Latinos, but all Americans—is worse because of it.

Dios mio.