Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed a memorandum of understanding with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White on Thursday to “collaborate on the global growth of mixed martial arts.” The New York Post gave the ceremony exactly the kind of attention-grabbing headline that the Trump administration might have been looking for: “Rubio and UFC will sign deal to use cage fights for diplomacy.”
The details of the agreement were somewhat more boring. It enlists the UFC into the “sports diplomacy” programs run by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The bureau spent around $52.5 million on “citizen exchanges,” which includes sports diplomacy and other non-academic cultural events, in FY 2025. Examples include the Global Sports Mentoring Program for women sponsored by espnW.
In other words, rather than turning the United Nations into the Thunderdome, the new deal seems to be a way to give a leg up to a private sports league. President Donald Trump has been a longtime fan of UFC and a longtime friend of White. The martial arts news site Uncrowned noted that State Department backing “is worth real money” when it comes to booking international venues.
“We’re excited about what this brand means about America’s ability to expand and reach out to other parts of the world,” Rubio said at the signing ceremony. “It will be an American company and an American brand—even if it may be their fighters—bringing this sport to these places, and that’s the definition of American soft power.”
Ironically, the Trump administration has been trying to dismantle the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs since Trump’s second inauguration. Rubio initially froze the bureau’s budget by around 93 percent and proposed abolishing U.S. government-sponsored cultural and educational exchanges altogether. Although Congress restored the bureau’s budget, the administration is asking again to cut it by 68 percent, mostly by cutting educational programs, such as the Fulbright scholarship.
But Rubio seems to have found another use for the bureau: cozying up to private sports leagues. In January, the National Football League signed a memorandum of understanding with the State Department to sponsor international flag football tournaments, training camps, and exchanges. Thursday’s agreement brings UFC under the same fold.
UFC is hosting a $60 million match at the White House on Trump’s birthday. Lawyers in a lawsuit to halt the match called it a “volcano of corruption” and “the first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds” in a filing on Wednesday. The White House called the lawsuit “an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” tactic.
“The White House is the people’s house. It belongs to the people of the United States,” Rubio said at Thursday’s signing ceremony. “For them to be able to see this event with their White House in the background as part of our celebration of 250 years is a gift to the American people.”
And a gift to Trump, whose favor advisers compete to curry. Earlier this year, the FBI also partnered with UFC to train its agents in self defense. Rubio himself has been pushing out Vice President J.D. Vance as Trump’s heir apparent. On April 12, while Vance was bringing back news of the failed U.S.-Iranian peace talks, Rubio was watching a UFC match in Miami with the Trump family. In other words, the real “sports diplomacy” here is Rubio’s outreach to Trump.
