Rubio Brings a Tough Trump Message to Latin America
(Bloomberg) -- Marco Rubio’s choice of Latin America for his first trip abroad as top US diplomat reinforces two of President Donald Trump’s priorities early in his second term — deportations and securing the Panama Canal from perceived Chinese control.
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The senator-turned-secretary of state leaves Saturday with additional stops on the six-day tour in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
It’s the first time the region has been chosen for a top US diplomatic envoy’s maiden trip in more than a century. Secretaries typically visit allies like Japan or Germany, while Rubio’s predecessor, Antony Blinken, spent several trips over the past year focused on the wars in Europe and the Middle East.
The choice to stay in the hemisphere resonates with Trump’s focus on undocumented migration — stopping the flow through Central America and deporting many people already in the US — as well as the president’s special interest in the Panama Canal, which he pledged “we’re taking it back” in his inaugural address.
Trump has other targets in the region as well, with Mexico in the crosshairs for 25% tariffs as soon as Saturday and special envoy Richard Grenell in Venezuela to push President Nicolas Maduro on accepting deportation flights and releasing American prisoners.
Grenell met with Maduro in Caracas on Friday in an effort to get Venezuela to accept deportation flights carrying gang members and to secure the release of American prisoners.
Rubio’s tour also comes a week after a showdown with Colombia, a brief tussle over deportation flights that ended after Trump threatened tariffs and financial sanctions.
Rubio is heading to the region as an apparent believer in Trump’s strong-arm approach. The president “has already shown that he is more than willing to use America’s considerable leverage to protect our interests,” Rubio wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Friday. “Just ask Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.”
The trip will likely be a test of Trump’s foreign policy of bluster and bullying, contrasting with previous administrations’ attempts to woo countries into Washington’s orbit, particularly those courted by China.
“The key is to see the Americas as a zone of opportunity, not solely one of threats,” said John Feeley, a career diplomat who resigned as the ambassador to Panama during Trump’s first term over values differences with the president.
Rubio also needs to “energize US business to confront Chinese commercial expansion in Panama and the region,” he said.
Trump has accused Panama of overcharging US merchant and naval vessels to transit the canal. He’s also claimed China has undue influence over the waterway given that ports on either side of the canal are operated by a Hong Kong-based firm.
Rubio, a longtime China hawk, echoed those concerns Thursday on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show, saying Beijing could use the commercial assets in Panama as a staging point for military vessels in the future.
Panama President José Raúl Mulino, who Rubio will meet, has ruled out negotiations over ownership of the canal and denied any involvement by China in its operations.
In El Salvador, Rubio is set to discuss with President Nayib Bukele cooperation against the Tren de Aragua gang, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy to the region, told reporters Friday. The Trump administration is seeking to deport members of Venezuela’s most-feared gang to El Salvador for imprisonment.
Rubio will also discuss immigration with the leaders of Costa Rica and Guatemala, and the situation in Haiti with the president of the Dominican Republic, which makes up the eastern half of the same Caribbean island, Claver-Carone said.
(Updates with Grenell, in sixth paragraph. An earlier version corrected information on former ambassador’s departure, in ninth paragraph.)
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