Vice President JD Vance is building a foreign policy resume that could prove a formidable rival to Secretary of State Marco Rubio should the pair face off in the 2028 presidential election.
Most recently, the vice president flew to Hungary to boost Washington’s alliance with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, with the Tuesday visit coming as he has emerged as a key figure in United States relations with Europe, along with countries such as Iran and Venezuela.
Vance’s vocal presence on the world stage, as noted in his scathing overhaul of U.S.-European relations at last year’s Munich Security Conference, could pose a critical challenge to Rubio if they end up as Republican rivals competing for the 2028 presidential nomination. President Donald Trump has declined to signal which man he favors to preserve his legacy — even as speculation that his two leading henchmen could end up as competitors has grown — and striking differences between the men’s styles have become pronounced over their past 14 months in power.
Vance’s often harsh, ideological complaints against allies have separated him from Rubio’s typically softer approach to the “America First” agenda as the country’s chief diplomat.
“JD has been great — gets a little bit tough on occasion. We’ve got to slow him down just a little bit on occasion. He says his mind,” Trump joked in February. “Then we have the opposite extreme. … Marco does it with a velvet glove — but it’s a kill. The result is the same. They do it very differently.”
The vice president’s style was highlighted during his trip to Hungary this week, when he once again waded into the European foreign policy debate.
As he stood beside Orban on Tuesday, Vance touted the Hungarian leader as a stalwart “partner for peace” in seeking to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Similar to his Munich address, which jarred allies and marked a key realignment in the European-U.S. relationship last year, Vance took jabs at the European Union establishment, rebuking policies from “bureaucrats in Brussels” he suggested have prolonged the Ukraine war, failed to “stand up for the values of Western civilization,” and undermined the democratic process by attacking Orban’s bid for reelection.
During the same speech, Vance provided an update on the war in Iran as details have emerged about his role in mediating difficult talks aimed at nailing down a peace deal between Tehran and the United States. Iran reportedly preferred to negotiate with Vance on a deal over several other top White House officials. Trump confirmed last month that Vance is involved in talks. As of this week, there has been discussion about a possible in-person meeting between a U.S. delegation led by Vance and an Iranian delegation, according to Axios.
“The vice president has always been a trusted voice on all foreign policy topics, and the president appreciates his work to see whether the Iranians can meet the reality of this current moment,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Politico on Monday.
Vance spoke as a voice of authority on the war during remarks in Turkey.
“If the Iranians want to exact a certain amount of pain, the United States has the ability to exact much, much greater pain,” he said. “The president doesn’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that. That’s why we’re negotiating so aggressively. Whether it’s positive or negative, we’re going to get a response from the Iranians by 8 tonight.”
Iran and Turkey are not the only theaters Vance is involved in. The vice president has expanded his foreign policy credentials in Venezuela as well. He was “deeply involved” behind the scenes in the historic U.S. military operation that captured then-Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and took over the South American country, telling the Daily Mail that “I was [on] the phone with the president and the entire team for about six hours for the entire course of that operation.”
At a briefing on the Venezuela takeover in early January, Vance said he’s been chairing a meeting with top White House officials “every other day … to talk about next steps, to try to ensure that Venezuela is stable.
“I’m going to be as involved as the president wants me to be,” Vance said. “So far, that’s been very involved.”
U.S. operations in Venezuela have thus far been an overall success from the Trump administration’s perspective. The White House’s efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, which Vance has also been involved in, have been less productive.
Last August, it was Vance who led a summit with senior security officials in the United Kingdom to discuss the war, alongside British Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Vance also holds close personal ties to U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, who has been a lead negotiator in talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Vance and Discroll helped shape a peace proposal that the U.S. presented to both countries last fall, which Rubio initially questioned and ultimately proved unsuccessful, according to the Guardian.
Vance has managed to stake out a major role in shaping the White House’s foreign policy agenda and other issues as vice president. It hasn’t been enough to sway Trump to publicly back his second-in-command as the 2028 nominee.
Instead, the president has held his cards close, hailing Vance, but at the same time, repeatedly celebrating Rubio as “the greatest secretary of state in the history of the United States.” The State Department’s chief has enjoyed broad support for his work in carrying out Trump’s America First agenda, while delicately appeasing increasingly fragile coalitions that have balked at Vance’s tone. And he has been singled out by Trump as one of several figures credited for negotiating an end to the war in Gaza, among other conflicts, and successfully juggling multiple, difficult roles in the administration.
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As speculation intensifies about which man will rise to the top in 2028, Vance and Rubio have downplayed reports about their rumored rivalry. Vance in February described Rubio as “my closest friend” in Trump’s Cabinet.
“Marco’s doing a great job,” he said during a Fox News interview. “I’m trying to do as good of a job as I can. The president’s doing a great job. We’re going to keep on working together. I think the president is very smartly saying we’ve got three years to go, and how about everybody focuses on the job the American people elected us to do rather than something that is very far in the future.”