Everyone who remains in President Donald Trump’s orbit for long enough eventually suffers as a result, either by ending up on the president’s bad side or by discarding all prior moral convictions in order to stay consistent with him. 

However, nobody to this point has navigated the dangerous waters of Trump world better than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been surprisingly able to stay on the president’s good side while mitigating the extent to which the president undermines our international relationships. 

Rubio has been masterful in laundering legitimate conservative foreign policy arguments through the mess that is the second Trump presidency. 

Rubio has done his best to cover for Trump's missteps 

When I say Rubio is laundering serious conservative foreign policy doctrines through Trump, I mean two different things.

First, he has been able to get the president to latch on to serious conservative doctrines in pursuit of legitimate foreign policy goals, and he has been able to mitigate the damage that Trump does when he lashes out at our allies. 

There is little doubt in my mind that the Trump rendition of the Monroe Doctrine, the idea that America ought to predominantly control what happens in our hemisphere, is influenced by Rubio, given his unparalleled focus on Latin America during his time in the Senate.

This doctrine was the rationalization for the raid that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January, and although I think that raid should have been approved by Congress, there is no doubt that the policy of regime change in Venezuela is an outcome that conservatives welcome. 

The same goes for Rubio’s more recent endeavors in Germany, assuaging any possible European concerns that they can no longer rely on the United States. He spent his speech at the Munich Security Conference making plenty of Trumpian points about trade, U.S. defense spending and immigration. 

The secretary of State can make the case that policy change in these areas is in the interests of both America and European NATO members, without the Trumpian approach of scolding or talking down to people. 

“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker," Rubio said in Munich on Feb. 14. "We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength.”

Trump has joked that Rubio did such a good job in articulating American frustrations that he ought to fire him. Rubio in Munich eloquently wove Trump’s brash demands on Europe into a coherent, cooperative effort to strengthen NATO and each of its member countries.

He is able to spin Trump’s messy impulses into coherent policy that NATO can be receptive to, and that gets applause. 

Rubio's accomplishments as secretary of State are impressive

Rubio’s ability to paper over the defects of Trump, the foreign policy mind, is impressive, and navigating around him as a person is nothing short of a miracle. 

Many within Trump's administration have struggled because they have become nothing more than yes-men, willing to go to bat for any policy the president puts forward, regardless of its effectiveness. This is precisely what has hurt Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other sycophants in the administration.

Others, such as Trump’s first secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, had less success navigating Trump because they took a more direct approach when disagreeing with him. Tillerson was fired over policy disagreements with the president. 

Where Rubio succeeds is in steering Trump toward legitimate policy while also doing damage control when the president goes rogue. In order to survive in the Trump world, you need Trump to think that the ideas are his, and that you are working in the service of him. Rubio has done that excellently so far. 

The secretary of State position is one that is likely to clash with someone of Trump’s temperament, and we are still early in Trump’s second term. I would not be surprised at all if an eventual rift between Trump and Rubio forms. However, I am glad that to this point it has not. Rubio stands on an island of competence in an extremely dysfunctional presidential administration. 

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

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