Marco Rubio takes a victory lap on his first tour of Latin America

Marco Rubio’s first trip abroad as Donald Trump’s secretary of state, which took him to Central America and the Caribbean this week, has been something of a victory lap, at least in front of the cameras. Hugs and smiles with the host presidents, who welcomed him with open arms; walks through idyllic spots, such as the one he took with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in front of his residence overlooking Lake Coatepeque; and images of high symbolic value for his supporters back home, such as the supervision of a deportee flight from Panama to Colombia or the confiscation of a plane seized from Venezuela that was being held in the Dominican Republic.

The former Cuban-American senator returns home with a briefcase full of agreements that benefit Washington’s interests, mainly related to Latin America’s role in stopping undocumented migrants and accepting deportees, combating drug trafficking, and keeping Chinese influence away from the region. But now comes the hardest part: defining the fine print of these pacts. And it won’t be easy, as demonstrated by the first disagreement that has arisen with the government of Panama even before Rubio left the region.

While still on the last leg of his tour in Santo Domingo, Rubio was forced to respond on Thursday to President José Raúl Mulino, who in the morning had denied and described as an “intolerable falsehood” information from the U.S. State Department that assured that U.S. government vessels were not going to pay charge fees for using the Panama Canal. “It seems absurd that we would have to pay fees to transit a zone that we are obligated to protect in a time of conflict,” said Rubio at a press conference, but underscoring that this is just an expectation and that “Panama has a process of laws and procedures that they need to follow as it relates to the Panamanian port.”

Rubio began his regional tour last Saturday in Panama, a country that was awaiting him nervously after several weeks of threats from Trump in which he had declared his desire to strip the country of its sovereignty over the canal that links the Atlantic with the Pacific. Mulino’s government was willing to give in on almost everything to avoid this and, among other things, agreed not to renew its New Silk Road agreement with China, a loan initiative to promote and finance infrastructure and development projects, after the head of US diplomacy warned that Chinese influence in the canal was “unacceptable” to Washington.

A “transactional narrative”

The visit was also preceded by the first victories of Donald Trump’s tariff diplomacy, which last week obtained important concessions from Mexico, Canada and Colombia. Katya Salazar, executive director of the Due Process Foundation, an organization based in Washington, believes that, despite the harmony shown by the presidents in front of the cameras with Rubio, his tour has been marked by the same threatening tone that has defined the U.S. Administration since January 20.

“Unlike other visits by senior officials to Central America, my impression is that on this trip the narrative was not about how we can work together, but rather it was a transactional narrative: either you support me or the United States will not be on your side and that will mean less investment, less support, fewer purchases, less acceptance of your exports,” says the Peruvian lawyer. In her opinion, this is also reflected in the concrete and “difficult to make” commitments accepted by Latin American governments. “I can imagine Marco Rubio presenting things in a way that countries had no other alternative but to accept,” she says.

What has probably helped ease the tension of the visit in this context is the fact that Rubio, a Cuban-American raised in Miami, speaks fluent Spanish and knows the context of the countries he has visited. In fact, he has given all the press conferences after the meetings with the presidents in the language of the hosts and then delivered the same message in English to the media in his country.

For Manfredo Marroquín, founder of Citizen Action, the Guatemalan chapter of Transparency International, this has been a factor that has helped the relationship with the presidents, even though he believes that the United States has returned to the policy of the “carrot and stick.” “For many, it was surprising to see a Rubio who was quite well-behaved in the meetings he held and with clear messages, but also with diplomacy, without losing his manners, as his boss Trump does. And I think that the countries also appreciated that, because they were perhaps expecting a much tougher messenger, and they found one who extended a hand and did not display the aggressiveness that had been expected.”

Perhaps the happiest host was the president of El Salvador, whose ways of doing politics are close to those of the Trump administration. Nayib Bukele offered to receive national and foreign deportees and to help the United States outsource its prison system. “We are willing to admit only convicted criminals (including American citizens) in our mega prison [Cecot] in exchange for a fee. The fee would be relatively low for the United States, but significant for us and would make our entire prison system sustainable,” he wrote on his social networks. “No country has ever made an offer of friendship like this,” Rubio declared in response to the offer.

In Costa Rica, a country that has also become a recipient of migrants, mainly Nicaraguans, the Secretary of State offered U.S. help to combat the wave of crime associated with drug trafficking and to advance the battle against China by limiting the operation of Chinese companies in the development of 5G technologies in Costa Rican territory. Meanwhile, in Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo pledged to increase by 40% the number of deportee flights and to accept people of other nationalities.

“I don’t think there was any discussion. It was simply something that the United States requested, and Guatemala said ‘Amen,’” says Marroquín, from Acción Ciudadana. “Now the Arévalo government has to rush to meet the minimum conditions, which it doesn’t have, to receive all these people and be able to offer them some kind of space so that they can look for job opportunities according to their background.”

Among the agreements reached with Guatemala is a pledge to send a mission of U.S. Army engineers to expand the ports of the Central American country, a decision aligned with Washington’s objective of positioning itself in strategic places to counter China’s presence in the region.

In exchange, Arévalo received significant support from Rubio in his fight to defend democracy and fight corruption, his main campaign promise, which was met with strong resistance from sectors of the judiciary and the Attorney General's Office. For Marroquín, this message was one of the most important outcomes of the visit for Guatemala. "It is a watershed with the expectations that the 'Corrupt Pact' had that Trump's arrival would mean a retaking of power by them and weakening the Government, and it was quite the opposite," he says.

Finally, Rubio took advantage of his trip to the Dominican Republic to refer to the Haitian crisis, whose solution, he said, requires a coordinated response for which he asked for more support from developed countries. In front of President Luis Abinader, he made it clear that the United States will not ask his nation to “assume a massive wave of Haitian migrants.” “No country in the world can tolerate that, and this country cannot be required to do so,” he insisted. In addition, he assured that, despite the freezing of international aid by Washington, he has signed an exception to continue supporting the international peacekeeping mission in Haiti led by Kenya.

The conversation in Santo Domingo also focused on the exploitation of rare minerals in the Dominican Republic, a project that he said will be announced in the coming weeks and for which the United States will be “a strategic partner.” In this matter, as in many of those agreed upon during the tour, the details are still to be known and will be defined in the coming weeks.

“I think it was such an impactful visit that there was an earthquake,” Rubio joked on Tuesday at the National Palace in Guatemala, saying that he had felt the first earthquake of his life in the Guatemalan capital, something unusual for a Miami native, who is more accustomed to hurricanes. Despite the scare, the first secretary of state of Latin American descent returns home with the feeling that he has accomplished his task on his first trip abroad.

With additional reporting by Kenny Cabrera in Santo Domingo.

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