Rubio faces Senate grilling on Iran, Cuba and Trump budget cuts

Marco Rubio faced Senate questioning as both secretary of state and Donald Trump’s national security adviser, putting him at the center of a budget fight and two foreign-policy crises at once. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing titled “Review of the FY27 State Department Budget Request,” and Rubio was also set to appear before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, turning back-to-back sessions into a test of the administration’s priorities on diplomacy, sanctions and war.

The Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 State Department budget request totaled $33.6 billion including rescissions, even as the broader foreign affairs budget was being presented alongside a proposed 30% cut to foreign affairs funding and a 50% increase in military spending. That contrast sharpened the stakes for lawmakers who were expected to demand details on where the money was going, what strategy it served and how the administration justified shifting resources away from diplomacy while enlarging the Pentagon’s share.

Rubio’s testimony came as the Iran war entered its fourth month and marked his first public congressional appearance since the conflict began. Congressional Research Service said the April 8 ceasefire between the United States and Iran remained in place but was on “life support,” after intermittent fighting resumed in May and the Strait of Hormuz suffered major disruption. Those developments gave senators a live crisis to probe, including the cost of the operation, the durability of the ceasefire and the administration’s next move if the lull collapsed.

Cuba added another layer of scrutiny. On May 1, Trump issued Executive Order 14404 imposing sanctions on people responsible for repression in Cuba and threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy. In late May, the State Department said it designated 11 Cuban regime elites and three government organizations under that order. Rubio had already approved the re-creation of the Cuba restricted list on January 31, 2025, and added Orbit, S.A. after it partnered with Western Union and other companies to process remittances to Cuba.

The Cuba sanctions regime reaches back to February 1962, when John F. Kennedy proclaimed the embargo, and Congress has repeatedly shaped the policy through sanctions, travel rules and remittance limits. That history made Rubio’s hearings more than a routine budget presentation: lawmakers were poised to use them to measure the administration’s foreign-policy hierarchy, with Iran, Cuba and the State Department’s own funding all colliding on Capitol Hill.