When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to defend the budget and policies of the department he heads, in Tirana his speech was read as if he were predicting the end of the world. Some saw the warning that small states risk disappearing, especially if they do not build ships and produce medicines. Others saw a new phase of the war against Soros. Others declared the end of globalization. There was no shortage of interpretations about Canada, Taiwan, China, Kosovo, North Macedonia and various Albanian unions.

The problem is that Rubio wasn't talking about Albania. He was talking about the United States and how the American administration sees America's power in the world today. The very crux of his speech was clear: foreign policy can no longer be separated from industry, energy, borders, and strategic resources.

In this sense, Rubio's speech is interesting, but not because he announces some sudden revolution. Many of the things he talked about have been part of American politics for years. What's different is the way it's all coming together.

Rubio summed up the idea this way: a country that is unable to build ships, produce medicine, control immigration, and secure vital resources has a harder time protecting its people, its interests, and its way of life.

Here the meaning of the speech must be sought.

From diplomacy to the factory
For a long time, foreign policy and economic policy in the United States were treated as related but distinct fields. The State Department dealt with alliances, wars, treaties, foreign aid, and relations with other governments. Factories, mines, shipyards, the pharmaceutical industry, and supply chains were primarily economic matters. Rubio says that today this separation is not enough. If a country cannot produce some of the things it needs in a crisis, its foreign policy is limited. If it depends on a rival for medicines, minerals, electronics, or shipping, then that dependence is not just a trade problem. It becomes a security problem.

This is why in Washington factories, mines, refineries, shipyards, and the pharmaceutical industry are increasingly seen as part of national power.

Why Rubio talked about ships
The example of ships was not chosen by chance. In the 1970s, the United States still had a large commercial shipbuilding industry. In 1975, American shipyards were building more than 70 commercial ships per year. In 1980, the shipbuilding and repair industry employed about 180 people. Today, the situation is completely different.

In 2024, the United States built only five ocean-going merchant ships, according to the data. China's shipbuilding capacity was over 200 times greater. China, which in the late 1990s had about 5 percent of world production, now builds more than half of the world's ship tonnage delivered.

But it's not just about how many commercial ships a country produces. Behind a ship are shipyards, steel, engines, electronics, specialized workers, supply companies, and repair capacities. The same industrial base becomes important for the military navy as well.

Medicines are not just a commercial commodity
The same logic applies to drugs. A very large portion of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the United States are manufactured abroad, especially in Asia. This, in itself, is not necessarily a problem. International manufacturing has lowered costs and made many generic drugs cheaper. The problem arises when manufacturing is concentrated in too few countries.

If a product is purchased from ten different sources, the risk is lower. If a vital ingredient is produced in only two or three countries, then a war, pandemic, embargo, or transportation disruption could create shortages.

COVID-19 reminded Americans of this in the most direct way. Masks, protective equipment, and medical products that were once treated as ordinary goods have, within weeks, become security issues. It is from this experience that the idea that certain drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients should be treated as strategic products has emerged.

The mineral underground is not enough
Even more complicated is the issue of critical minerals. Phones, computers, planes, radar, missiles, batteries, electric cars, data centers, and the artificial intelligence industry use materials that until a few years ago were rarely mentioned in the political debate.

Today, lithium, graphite, gallium, germanium, and rare earth elements are part of security policy. The United States is completely dependent on imports for a number of critical minerals and to a large extent for many others. But the problem is not just extracting the mineral. You can have the mineral on your land and still be dependent on another country because you don't have the factories to process it. You need mines, but you also need technology. You need factories. You need skilled workers. You need an industry that uses the product. China has created exactly this chain. It not only extracts a lot of minerals, but it has built very large capacities to process them.

So Washington is trying to create other sources of supply, finance domestic processing, and make deals with other countries. This is economic policy, but it is now also considered foreign policy.

The chips show the difference even more clearly
Rubio didn't mention semiconductors in that sentence, but chips are perhaps the best example to understand what's going on. The United States consumes a very large portion of the world's chips, while producing only a fraction of its needs domestically.

But chips aren't just needed for phones or cars. They're inside radars, missiles, communications systems, medical devices, the electrical grid, and artificial intelligence systems. That's why bringing some of America's semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. didn't start with the current administration.

The CHIPS and Science Act was passed in 2022, during the Biden presidency, with bipartisan support and tens of billions of dollars in funding for manufacturing and research.

This is an important detail, because it shows that the policy Rubio is talking about was not invented yesterday.

The turn had started earlier.
It would be too easy to divide history into two parts: before Trump, America believed in globalization, and after Trump, it discovered industry. That’s not how it happened. In his first term, Trump imposed huge tariffs on China and turned industrial dependence into a political issue. Biden kept many of those tariffs in place and continued with industrial policies for chips, batteries, energy, and critical minerals. So while Republicans and Democrats differ on many points, something has changed in Washington at a broader level.

The belief that free trade would solve almost everything has waned. Today, both parties recognize more than ever that there are products that cannot be addressed simply by asking: Where are they produced more cheaply? For some of them, the question must also be asked: What if one day we can't buy them?

Rubio is condensing this debate into a clearer political formula: industry, trade, energy, borders, and diplomacy are part of the same strategy.

The border enters foreign policy
Here the Trump administration goes further than previous administrations. Rubio puts immigration in the same sentence as ships, medicines and strategic resources. For this administration, border control is not just an internal American issue. This is especially seen in relations with Latin American countries. Trade relations, aid and diplomatic pressure are also used to seek cooperation against illegal immigration and criminal organizations.

Even foreign aid is being viewed differently.
The same is happening with American aid abroad. Rubio says that every dollar spent must be able to be explained in terms of the interests of the United States: making the country safer, stronger or more prosperous. Hence the formula “trade instead of aid, investment instead of dependence.”

The Trump administration has sharply cut USAID programs and placed the remainder under more direct control of the State Department.

Even here the debate is not so simple.

Opponents of this policy say that American aid was not just charity. Health, humanitarian, and development programs built relationships, political influence, and an American presence in many countries. If America leaves, they argue, China could take its place. The administration sees it differently. It wants every program to have a more direct connection to American interests.

This debate will continue, but the change in approach is evident.

Energy is the opposite example.
In energy, America is in a different position than in shipbuilding or critical minerals. The United States is a very large oil producer and a significant energy exporter.

This helps to better understand what Rubio is saying. The idea is not that America should produce everything it consumes. That is neither possible nor would it make economic sense.

The problem is addiction.

A country can easily import a product from the world market if it has many suppliers and can substitute one source for another. The situation changes when a vital product comes almost entirely from a country that could become an adversary or cut off supply.

Therefore, security does not necessarily require that everything be produced in America. It can also be ensured through reserves, diverse suppliers, and agreements with reliable allies. This is a far cry from the idea of ​​a closed economy.

In the background is China.
Almost all of these topics lead to China. Not because every American problem is caused by China, but because China is the country that brings together industry, technology, trade and military power on a very large scale. In shipbuilding it has created a huge advantage. In mineral processing it has a dominant role. In many industrial chains it has become the world's main supplier. Beijing has long used industrial policy to support sectors it considers strategic.

America is now responding with tariffs, subsidies, technology restrictions, investments in chips, minerals, and shipyards. If you look at them separately, they look like ten different policies. If you look at them together, you realize they are part of the competition with China.

What is changing about globalization?
For many years, the logic was simple: If an American company could produce a good more cheaply in China, India, Mexico, or elsewhere, it would move production. The company would lower its costs, consumers would pay less, and trade would increase. For the company, this logic continues to be valid. But the state must make a different calculation. What happens if a war breaks out? If sea lanes are closed? If an embargo is imposed? If another pandemic comes? A company can save 20 percent by producing an electronic part abroad. The Pentagon can say that it cannot produce a missile without that part. A pharmaceutical company can find an ingredient cheaper in Asia. The Department of Health can say that it cannot do without it in the middle of an epidemic. This is the point where the business account and the state account are not always the same. American politics is precisely trying to find the line between the two.

America is not closing down.
Another interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt: the idea that Rubio is proclaiming America's isolation from the world. He didn't say that. The Trump administration wants America to continue to have a leading role, but for engagement abroad to be more clearly linked to American interests.

Alliances continue, but more is required of partners. Aid can continue, but it must be justified. Trade agreements are judged not only by the amount of trade, but also by the effect they have on American industry and security.

We are not talking about withdrawing from the world. We are talking about a different way of determining the cost and benefits of American engagement in the world.

Where is Albania in Rubio's speech?
Marco Rubio's speech does not warn of the disappearance of Albania because we don't build ships. It does not tell us to join Kosovo and half of North Macedonia. Nor is it an announcement of the end of globalization. It speaks to a very American problem and, at the same time, very important for every other power.

Rubio's words can also be read for Albania, but not to derive theories about state unification or border changes. It should be read much more simply. Albania has minerals, but it extracts and exports most of them without building a serious processing industry. It has oil, but for decades it has not managed to turn this wealth into a strong domestic industry and into income that citizens can really feel. There is growing tourism, but a large part of the food consumed by hotels and restaurants is brought from abroad. We have two large seas and lakes, but we do not have a fishing fleet that responds to this potential. We have agricultural land, but the countryside is emptying and the land is being left fallow. We have pastures, but the number of livestock is falling. So we have the resources, but less and less capacity to turn them into production.

COVID showed us what happens when supply chains are disrupted: a country that imports many of its basic necessities quickly discovers how dependent it is on others. Russia’s war against Ukraine made this vulnerability even clearer, with rising prices for fuel, grains, oil, and other products that Albania buys on the international market.

Then it becomes easier to understand what Rubio says: it is not enough to have natural resources, land, water, oil or minerals. What matters is what you are able to produce yourself, what you are able to process and how much you can keep your economy afloat when markets abroad are not functioning normally.

Not a single line of Rubio's speech suggests that uniting two or three weak countries automatically turns them into a strong one. On the contrary, his logic is different: strength comes from what a country produces, processes, controls, and is able to protect. Uniting weaknesses, without a productive economy, industry, energy, agriculture, and functional institutions, does not necessarily create a strong one; it may simply create a greater weak one.