Marco Rubio Is Off To Central America With Panama Canal, Immigration Top Of Mind

Rubio's first stop on the five-nation tour Saturday will be Panama, whose president says there will be no negotiation with the U.S. over ownership of the canal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio embarks this weekend on his first foreign trip in office, heading to Central America to press President Donald Trump’s top priority — curbing illegal immigration — and bring the message that the U.S. wants to reclaim control over the Panama Canal despite intense resistance from regional leaders.

It’s an unusual destination for the maiden voyage of America’s top diplomat, whose predecessors have generally favored Europe or Asia for their initial outings. It reflects not only the personal interest that Rubio — the first Hispanic to hold the nation’s most senior Cabinet post — has in the region but also the Trump administration’s intent to focus much of its foreign policy energy close to home.

“It’s no accident that my first trip abroad as secretary of state will keep me in the hemisphere,” Rubio wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Limiting immigration and fighting narcotics smuggling are major elements of that effort, but another key priority will be curbing China’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere, topped by reasserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal. The American-built canal was turned over to the Panamanians in 1999 and they object strongly to Trump’s demand to hand it back.

Mass migration, drugs and hostile policies pursued by Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have wreaked havoc, Rubio said in the Journal opinion piece. “All the while, the Chinese Communist Party uses diplomatic and economic leverage — such as at the Panama Canal — to oppose the U.S. and turn sovereign nations into vassal states.”