The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, embarks this weekend on his first foreign trip in the position, addressing Central America to press the highest priority of President Donald Trump, stop the illegal immigration, and bring the message that the United States wants claim control over the Panama Canal despite the intense resistance of regional leaders.
It is an unusual destination for the inaugural trip of the main diplomat of the United States, whose predecessors have generally favored Europe or Asia for their initial departures. It reflects not only the personal interest of Rubio, the first Hispanic to maintain the highest cabinet position in the nation, has in the region, but also the intention of the Trump administration to focus much of its foreign policy energy near home.
“It is not an accident that my first trip abroad as a secretary of state keeps me in the hemisphere,” Rubio wrote at the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
Limit immigration and fight against drug smuggling are important elements of that effort, but another key priority will be to stop China's growing influence on the western hemisphere, surpassed when reaffirming US control over the Panama Canal. The channel built in the United States was delivered to the Panamanians in 1999 and firmly oppose Trump's demand to return it.
Mass migration, drugs and hostile policies pursued by Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have wreaked havoc, Rubio said in the magazine's article. “Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party USA diplomatic and economic leverage, as in the Panama Canal, to oppose the United States and turn sovereign nations into vassal states.”
In fact, Rubio's first stop on the five -nations tour on Saturday will be Panama, whose president, José Raúl Mulino, says there will be no negotiations with the United States about the property of the channel. He said he expected Rubio's visit to focus on shared interests such as migration and the combination of drug trafficking.
“It's impossible, I can't negotiate,” Mulino said Thursday. “The channel belongs to Panama.”
However, Rubio said he will make clear Trump's intention. In an interview on Thursday with Siriusxm's presenter, Megyn Kelly said that Trump's desire to resume the control of the Panama Canal is promoted by legitimate national security interests derived from the growing concerns about Chinese activity and influence in America Latin
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“We are going to address that issue,” he said. “The president has been quite clear that he wants to administer the channel again. Obviously, Panamanians are not great fans of that idea. That message has been very clear. “
Chinese investments in ports and other infrastructure and facilities at the extremes of the Pacific and the Caribbean of the channel are a reason for great concern, leaving Panama and the critical shipping route vulnerable to China, he said.
Rubio added that “if China wanted to obstruct traffic on the Panama Canal, they could”, and that would be a violation of the 1977 Treaty signed by former President Jimmy Carter under which the United States then gave control.
In spite Extension of 25 years of execution to function to them. An audit on the suitability of that extension is already underway and could lead to a recidivism process.
What is not clear is whether Trump would accept the transfer of the concession to an American or European company to meet their demands, which seem to cover more than just operations.
“Somehow, Trump is pressing at an open door,” said Ryan Berg, director of the America program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a group of Washington experts. “But it will depend on how its red lines are defined.”
“There has been a lot satisfies it. “
Rubio will arrive in Panama on Saturday for meetings the next day with Mulino and the channel administrator. Then he will travel to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
His arrival will arrive only one day after the United States resumed visa processing at its embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, which had been closed on Sunday after the Colombian government refused to accept two planes of the US deportees of the United States .
The previous Secretaries of State have often traveled abroad with the so -called “deliverables” (attendance packages, new cooperation initiatives and the like, which can announce at each stop. However, as with Colombia, Rubio can only provide limited relief of a freezing of the United States on foreign assistance that Trump ordered to wait for a review of all programs.
In Latin America, these programs have generally focused on surveillance, anterarcotic operations and efforts to stop illegal migration. Rubio has established provisions for certain programs that offer assistance to save lives to be exempt from the financing pause, and exemption requests for programs in several of the countries they will visit are under review.
Among the countries for which exemptions have been presented for certain programs are Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and its neighbor, Haiti. Although Rubio will not travel to Haiti, the State Department has already allowed about $ 41 million in support of an international peace maintenance force to move forward.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press