Washington, (APP – UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 24th Jan, 2025) Marco Rubio will make his first trip as US secretary of state to Central American nations including Panama, a spokeswoman said Thursday, after President Donald Trump threatened to seize the Panama Canal and clamped down hard on migration.
Rubio, the first Hispanic and first fluent Spanish speaker in the top US diplomatic position, will be the first secretary of state to travel first to Latin America in more than two decades.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Rubio would travel starting late next week to Panama as well as Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
“It’s about making sure that if we’re going to be safe and prosperous and in good shape, we’ve got to have an interest in our neighbors — and in today’s world, it’s certainly South and Central America,” Bruce said.
“There’s a reason why this is the first trip. It signals how seriously he takes it,” she said.
Bruce did not describe the details of any expected conversations on the Panama Canal. Trump in his inaugural address Monday vowed that the United States would be “taking it back.”
Rubio in his confirmation hearing did not suggest military force but said the United States needed to address serious concerns about Chinese influence near the vital waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Panama, which has long been friendly to the United States, complained to the United Nations over Trump’s threat.
President Jose Raul Mulino, during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said that the canal “belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama.”
