How Rubio’s trip abroad was overshadowed by foreign policy at home, from USAID to Trump's Gaza plan
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio may have hoped to spend his first trip abroad focused exclusively on issues close to his heart: immigration, counternarcotics and curbing Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere.
Instead, the five-nation tour to Central America — a destination he deliberately chose for his maiden voyage as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat — was overshadowed by a massive Washington-centered upheaval in U.S. foreign policy.
Just two weeks into his new job, the Miami-born former Florida senator did stay true to his original intent in meetings with the leaders of Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. He secured significant agreements on migrant deportations, and at least one country said it's exiting China’s oft-criticized Belt and Road development and infrastructure initiative.
And his fluency in Spanish, which he used almost exclusively in those discussions and about 50% of the time in public, appeared to have impressed his hosts.
But the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development and Trump’s surprise proposal for a U.S. takeover of the Gaza Strip — both of which were widely panned and led to speculation that Rubio had been sidelined even before stepping into the field — dominated his public engagements and downtime.
Here's a look at the main developments from the trip:
Without a doubt, the controversial unraveling of the world’s premier foreign aid agency was the biggest distraction from Rubio’s travel agenda, particularly after he found himself in charge of it at his first stop in Panama City on Sunday.
Rubio quickly delegated his authority to another Trump appointee, Peter Marocco, who development workers believe is on a mission along with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate virtually all U.S. foreign assistance.
Trump, on his first day in office, ordered a freeze on such aid pending a 90-day review by the State Department. Rubio, who as a senator had defended foreign assistance, had earlier sought to mitigate the damage by issuing a waiver to exempt emergency food aid and “life-saving” programs.
By Tuesday, when Rubio was in Guatemala, an order came down to shut down all but the most essential USAID missions and repatriate American staff within 30 days.
He defended the dismantlement and resulting layoffs of thousands of contract workers by accusing agency staff of “insubordination” for ignoring or refusing legitimate demands to justify their spending.
Rubio said Thursday that people will be on leave of absence beginning Friday and given 30 days to return home “if they so desire.” He said the department was willing to listen to those who have “exceptional circumstances regarding family or displacement.”
“We’re not being punitive here," Rubio said. "But this is the only way we’ve been able to get cooperation from USAID.”
As people were still processing the USAID decision, Trump’s unexpected proposal Tuesday for the U.S. to take control of the Gaza Strip, then rebuild and develop the Palestinian territory was the next bump in Rubio's journey, which was literally jolted later that night by a 1 a.m. earthquake.
Asked for his reaction Wednesday to the almost universally criticized idea, which would upend decades of U.S. support for an independent Palestinian state, Rubio sought to downplay Trump's comments.
Rubio called it a “very generous” offer that deserved to be taken seriously and suggested that any U.S. role in Gaza would be temporary. He reiterated that on Thursday, saying “to fix a place like that, people are going to have to live somewhere else in the interim.”
That's far from what Trump had actually proposed during a news conference in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Amid conflicting signals from the White House about whether U.S. money could be spent or troops deployed, Trump then doubled down on the idea, leaving it for his special Mideast envoy Steven Witkoff — and perhaps Rubio — to sort out.
Rubio, who is expected to travel to the Middle East before the end of the month, will have a hard sell on his hands as every country in the region except for Israel is vehemently opposed.
In Panama, Rubio generated headlines by repeating a Trump warning to the Panamanian president that unless steps were taken to radically reduce Chinese influence in and around the canal, the United States would be forced to do so itself.
With port facilities at both ends of the canal managed by a Hong Kong-based company, Rubio said China's presence in Panama constituted a direct threat to U.S. national security interests, particularly in the event of a conflict.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said the government was already auditing the contract with the Hong Kong firm and could make adjustments when it was complete. Rubio did win one major concession when Mulino said Panama would not renew its membership in China's Belt and Road initiative when it expires.
Uncertainty swirled on another key U.S. concern — the payment of canal transit fees for American naval vessels. U.S. officials said Sunday that an agreement in principle had been reached to eliminate those fees, and the State Department tweeted on Wednesday that a deal had been finalized. But Mulino forcefully denied the claim Thursday.
Mulino said the U.S. statement “really surprises me because they’re making an important, institutional statement from the entity that governs United States foreign policy under the president of the United States based on a falsity. And that’s intolerable.”
Rubio said later Thursday that he was “not confused” about the status of the canal agreement and understood that Panama has to follow a legal process to eliminate the fees. “They're a democratically elected government. They have rules. They have laws. They're going to follow their process,” he said.
Given that the U.S. has a treaty obligation to protect the canal, Rubio said, “I find it absurd that we would have to pay fees to transit a zone that we are obligated to protect in a time of conflict.”
Rubio’s immigration successes on the trip have the potential to lay the groundwork for Trump’s promised mass deportations. He secured agreements with El Salvador and Guatemala to receive migrants from other countries who are deported by the U.S.
In the case of El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele said he would take in not only deportees of any nation but also offered his country’s prison space to hold U.S. prisoners, including American citizens if needed. Trump and Rubio acknowledged the offer raised legal issues.
Guatemala agreed to expand its capacity to receive its own citizens sent back by the U.S. and to take migrants from other countries and then repatriate them home at U.S. expense.
Guatemala pledged during Rubio’s visit to create a border security force that would police its borders with El Salvador and Honduras.
Rubio said the U.S. would support Costa Rica’s immigration enforcement efforts by trying to provide more biometric technology to identify who was transiting that Central American nation.
And he said the U.S. would continue to pay for Panama’s deportation flights to other countries.
After watching Colombian migrants loaded onto one such deportation flight in Panama, Rubio said, “You could say our border doesn’t begin in Texas or Mexico, it begins much farther down.”
___
AP writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
