Secretary of State Marco Rubio has wasted no time in reshaping a decades-long foreign policy approach that’s paid “scarce attention” to America’s backyard and opened the door to China as a result.
Rubio, whose interest in Latin America was a key talking point in his nomination to his role in the State Department, made a blitz of visits and diplomatic actions to various nations in the region to secure American interests early during the administration, most recently extracting Venezuelan opposition members to the U.S. from the regime’s grasp. As the Trump administration turns its attention to issues like immigration, fentanyl trafficking and curtailing Chinese influence globally, Rubio has become one of Trump’s key liaisons in the region.
“Rubio is paying far more attention to our hemisphere than previous Secretary of State’s already with just the number of visits to the region,” Andres Martinez Fernandez, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Particularly under the Biden administration, very little scarce attention to our hemisphere. I think it was really a dangerously low level of engagement.”
During his visit to Panama, Rubio spoke with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino to emphasize that China’s influence in the Panama Canal was unacceptable, saying the U.S. would be ready to respond if the status quo did not change.
China has significant influence in the Panama Canal, owning two ports on either side of the critical seaway. American investment firm Blackrock had planned to buy the ports off of China for $23 billion, but the deal has since been delayed due to Chinese hesitance and Panamanian scrutiny. Additionally, China’s Landbridge Group acquired Panama’s largest Atlantic port, Margarita Island, for $900 million in 2016.
Panama, in response to Rubio and the Trump administration’s pressure, gave U.S. warships the ability to travel “first and free” through the canal while increasing U.S. troop presence in its many military installations in the nation.
“For decades, out of all the regions in the world, our own region has received the least consistent attention from U.S. policymakers,” Rubio wrote in an April 2024 column for The National Interest. “This cannot continue if we want security, prosperity, and freedom to win out in the Western Hemisphere.”
Further down south from Panama, Rubio and the Trump administration have applied pressure on the socialist state of Venezuela.
Rubio oversaw the rescue of five Venezuelan opposition members that were trapped in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, after the government charged them with conspiring against President Nicolas Maduro. The five persons had close ties with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who supported former presidential candidate Edmundo González in the 2024 election.
The election was highly controversial due to the government’s denial of the results and the subsequent persecution of González, who fled to Spain to escape Maduro’s influence.
Rubio openly called the Maduro regime “illegitimate” after the rescue, saying the dictator’s actions have “undermined Venezuela’s institutions, violated human rights, and endangered our regional security.”
“I think what Secretary Rubio is doing with President Trump is placing pressure on the regime while engaging collectively in efforts to protect Americans, secure American interests and isolate the capacity of the regime to disrupt U.S. security,” Fernandez told the DCNF. “It’s a tough situation, and there’s some major challenges for us.”
Rubio has also moved to solidify America’s ties with Caribbean nations and sound the alarm over Cuba’s human rights abuses. Additionally, China has reportedly set up at least four spy bases in the communist island nation, some of which are equipped with signal intelligence equipment used to intercept communications from a target location.
The secretary met with the heads of state of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Prime Saint Lucia, Grenada and Saint Kitts and Nevis to discuss continued partnership while singling out Cuba as a target of further containment in early May.
Some observers have compared Rubio’s posture in Latin America to the Monroe Doctrine, first coined during the presidency of James Monroe, which emphasized American domination of the Western Hemisphere and the exclusion of Europe from the region.
Now, as America deals with a novel foe in China, Fernandez thinks the comparison is fair, but with key differences in the modern world.
“If the goal is to protect and assert U.S. interests within our own hemisphere, that at the end of the day, that’s the core of the Monroe Doctrine,” Fernandez told the DCNF.
Illegal immigration has become a key focal point of the administration’s diplomatic outreach in the region, such as cooperating with El Salvador to house deported criminal migrants in the maximum security CECOT prison. Rubio met with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in February to solidify agreements to help stem the illegal immigration crisis.
“Secretary Rubio knows first-hand the important role our region plays in the America First foreign policy agenda,” a senior State Department official told the DCNF. “He was intentional in his selection to visit many countries in our hemisphere during his first international trip.”
“Whether it be working with regional allies to deter illegal immigration, designating cartels and gangs as Foreign Terrorist Organizations or holding tyrannical regimes accountable, Secretary Rubio remains focused on making America safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” the official added.
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