Latin America gets into dealmaking mode for Rubio’s visit

MEXICO CITY — As Secretary of State Marco Rubio begins his first overseas trip Saturday in Panama, Central American countries are largely reeling under the weight of President Donald Trump’s confrontational approach, including threats of military force to reclaim the Panama Canal and coercing nations into accepting military planes filled with deported migrants.

The visit comes during a tense period for the region, which has been grappling with the potential economic repercussions of Trump’s policies, like mass deportations and a halt in foreign aid.

“It’s every country for himself,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue research institute in Washington. U.S. leaders know “how fragmented the region is and how easy it is to pick them off,” he said. “And that’s what Trump does best.”

Despite several attempts to secure meetings with Trump’s team in the lead-up to his presidency, the region faced consistent rebuffs. Now with Trump in office and treating Latin America as a critical focus — his inaugural address mentioned Panama six times, while traditional foes like Iran and Russia were never raised — the stakes are high.

Rubio will land in Panama on Saturday, then move on to Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Talks are expected to center on immigration, curbing China’s influence in the region and thwarting the flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl, into the United States.

Latin American nations want to maintain the status quo in their U.S. relations: keeping trade open, maintaining American investments — which Trump says he wants to bring home — and leaving the spigots of foreign assistance open. One of Rubio’s biggest requests will most likely be that these countries sign “safe third country” agreements, to accept asylum-seekers from other nations that are seeking refuge in the United States.

Countries such as El Salvador and the Dominican Republic view this as an opportunity to reinforce their ties with Washington, whereas Panama, already in the spotlight, is on edge, gearing up to defend its interests in the talks ahead.

Here’s a look at the five countries Rubio will visit and the biggest issues on the table.

Panama

Although President José Raúl Mulino of Panama this past week ruled out negotiations with Rubio on the Panama Canal, the topic will still be top of mind when the leaders meet Saturday.

Trump falsely accused Panama of allowing China to station troops on the canal and of treating U.S. ships and goods unfairly by charging exorbitant fees. The Panama Canal Authority, which operates the waterway independently of the government, has denied those claims.

While there are no Chinese troops to be seen on the waterway, a Hong Kong-based company called CK Hutchison Holdings has operated two seaports at each end of the Panama Canal for decades.

Trump may not be serious about using the U.S. military to retake the canal, analysts say, instead staking out an extreme negotiating position to clinch another deal. He may be eyeing lower fees for American goods traversing the canal or greater cooperation on migration.

The other major issue Rubio and Panamanian leaders are likely to discuss is immigration and the Darién Gap, the perilous jungle route between Panama and Colombia that hundreds of thousands of migrants have used in recent years to make their way to the United States.

Panama has struggled to slow the flood of migrants traversing the gap, with more than 520,000 people passing through in 2023. That number declined to 302,000 in 2024.

Last summer, Mulino signed an agreement with the Biden administration that tightened security in the gap. Around the same time, President Joe Biden also blocked the vast majority of asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border and allowed agents to turn people back quickly.

Panama will likely ask the United States to invest more in Panama if it seeks to curb Chinese influence in the region.

Panamanian politicians and business leaders complain that when the country puts out tenders for big infrastructure projects, U.S. companies are often absent while Chinese ones are eager to bid.

In exchange, Rubio could ask Panama to sign a safe third country agreement, which would see it absorb non-Panamanian migrants. Analysts say Rubio could use the threats to retake the canal to pressure Panama to accept those asylum-seekers or get them to kick out CK Hutchison Holdings from those ports.

Guatemala

Guatemala has emerged as a country eager to show it is open to cooperating with the Trump administration, particularly when it comes to migration. The Guatemalan government was the first country to receive U.S. military flights carrying deportees, which have served to support Trump’s claim that migrants are criminals best dealt with by force.

Rather than speak out about deportations, the government launched the “Return Home” plan to reintegrate Guatemalan deportees.

“For us, the most important thing is to present ourselves to the U.S., to the new administration, as a reliable and strategic partner in the region,” Guatemala’s foreign minister, Carlos Ramiro Martínez, said in an interview this past week.

About 675,000 Guatemalans lived without permanent legal status in the United States as of 2022, according to the Pew Research Center, making Guatemala one of the largest sources of illegal migration after Mexico, India and El Salvador.

Guatemala also shares a border with Mexico, and migrants from around the world trek through it on their journeys north. Rubio could call on the nation to do more to prevent migrants from reaching Mexico, analysts say.

When asked if Guatemala would host asylum-seekers deported from the United States as part of a safe third country agreement, Ramiro said nothing was off the table ahead of the visit. “I’m not ruling anything out because the negotiation is still ongoing,” he said at a news conference this past week.

Also on the table will be countering illicit drug trafficking and organized crime, Ramiro said.

Guatemala’s president, Bernardo Arévalo, faces intense internal opposition and will most likely try to find an ally in Rubio, both to shore up his position at home and to protect the economy. The United States is Guatemala’s primary trading partner, accounting for more than 30% of the country’s exports, including coffee and bananas.

El Salvador

Of all of the countries in the region that Rubio is planning to visit, El Salvador stands out for having already established a somewhat warm relationship with the Trump administration.

“Within the inner circle of MAGA loyalists, Bukele has a lot of appeal,” Manuel Meléndez Sánchez, a Salvadoran political scientist at Harvard University, said of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele.

The Salvadoran government’s recent crackdown on vicious gangs that terrorized the country has enthused traditional law-and-order Republicans. Bukele’s antiglobalist and what he calls “antiwoke” policies have captivated American conservatives. And his embrace of technology, including bitcoin as an official currency, has won over tech billionaires like Elon Musk.

In a phone call between the leaders last week, Trump praised Bukele’s leadership before discussing the two main issues Rubio is likely to resurface during his visit: illegal immigration and a crackdown on gangs.

A priority for the Trump administration is to get the country to take in non-Salvadoran deportees from the United States.

The country signed a similar deal in 2019 after Trump administration officials cut off some aid to El Salvador, accusing the country of not doing enough to curb illegal migration. But the agreement never took effect and was terminated by the Biden administration.

In a briefing call Friday, Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, told reporters that the United States was committed to efforts “to revive that agreement.”

A spokesperson for Bukele declined to comment.

During Rubio’s visit, Claver-Carone added, he will also try to persuade El Salvador to accept deported members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, a Venezuelan criminal group that has spread its reach into the United States.

“If Caracas does not accept them, Bukele will receive them,” Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., said this past week. “And Bukele’s prisons are very big.”

Costa Rica

Rubio’s visit will most likely focus on American investment, migration policy and the continuing fight against international drug trafficking, according to Costa Rican authorities.

President Rodrigo Chaves anticipates a more transactional relationship with Trump.

“It is going to be about international trade issues, capital flows and investment,” he told reporters last week.

Trump’s criticisms of the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act — and his overall stance against American companies investing overseas — have been received nervously in Costa Rica, a hub of semiconductor manufacturing. The Biden-era program was meant to reduce the United States’ reliance on China for microchip production by encouraging neighboring countries to enter the industry.

Beyond trying to maintain U.S. investments, Costa Rica will portray itself as a crucial ally in the war against drugs during negotiations with Rubio. Costa Rica has become a major transshipment point for cocaine destined for the United States, contributing to the country’s record-high murder rate since 2022.

Arnoldo André, Costa Rica’s minister of foreign affairs, described the joint fight against organized crime and drug trafficking as “issues that we are sure we will be able to reconcile with the new U.S. authorities.”

If Trump wants Costa Rica to continue to clamp down on drug trafficking, economic investments must be maintained, current and former government officials say. Or poverty may make the country ripe for the cartels that run amok in the region.

Dominican Republic

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Rubio mentioned the Dominican Republic as one of the countries in Latin America that was “doing it the right way.”

By that, Rubio may mean the Trump way. The Caribbean country is building a wall along its border with Haiti, and the government has pledged to deport 10,000 Haitians a week — a move human rights groups have criticized as rife with abuses.

The Dominican Republic, a country of 11 million, shares an island with Haiti, a nation that has descended into chaos since the assassination in July 2021 of its last elected president, Jovenel Moïse. Gangs earning income from illegal checkpoints, extortion and kidnappings have used the political vacuum to expand their territory to control about 90% of the Haitian capital.

Some 1 million Haitians have fled their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration, many crossing the porous border into the Dominican Republic.

Riding a wave of nationalism, President Luis Abinader was reelected last May in a landslide, bolstered by anti-Haitian sentiments that run rampant among the population, while pledging stricter immigration policies.

The Dominican Republic has also emerged as a key security partner for Washington, cracking down on drugs and gun smuggling routes that fuel violence across the region. The Trump administration wants more cooperation there.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.