As Secretary of State Marco Rubio begins his first overseas trip on Saturday in Panama, Central American countries are largely reeling under the weight of President 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 Mr. Trump’s policies, like mass deportations and a halt in foreign aid.
“It’s every country for himself,” said Michael E. Shifter, the 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 Mr. Trump’s team in the lead-up to his presidency, the region faced consistent rebuffs. Now, with Mr. Trump in office and treating Latin America as a critical focus — as noted in his Inaugural Address, in which he mentioned Panama six times while traditional foes like Iran and Russia were never raised — the stakes are high.
Mr. 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 Mr. Trump says he wants to bring home — and leaving the spigots of foreign assistance open. One of Mr. 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.
Nations like 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 Mr. 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 Mr. Rubio on the Panama Canal, the topic will still be top of mind when the leaders meet Saturday.
Mr. 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.
Mr. Trump may not be serious about using the U.S. military to retake the canal, analysts say, instead staking out an extreme negotiating position in order 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 Mr. 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 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 are eager to bid.
In exchange, Mr. Rubio could ask Panama to sign a safe-third country agreement, which would see it absorb non-Panamanian migrants. Analysts say Mr. Rubio could use the threats to retake the canal to pressure Panama to accept those asylum seekers or get them to 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 Mr. 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 undocumented Guatemalans lived in the United States as of 2022, according to the Pew Research Center, making it one of the largest sources of illegal migrants 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. Mr. 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, Mr. 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, Mr. Ramiro said.
Guatemala’s president, Bernardo Arévalo, faces intense internal opposition and will most likely try to find an ally in Mr. 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 percent of the country’s exports, including coffee and bananas.
El Salvador
Of all of the countries in the region that Mr. 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. Mr. Bukele’s antiglobalist and what he calls “anti-woke” 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, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Bukele’s leadership before discussing the two main issues Mr. 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 on Friday, Mauricio Claver-Carone, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, told reporters that the United States was committed to efforts “to revive that agreement.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Bukele declined to comment.
During Mr. Rubio’s visit, Mr. 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,” María Elvira Salazar, a Republican congresswoman, said this past week. “And Bukele’s prisons are very big.”
Costa Rica
Mr. 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 Mr. Trump.
“It is going to be about international trade issues, capital flows, and investment,” he told reporters last week.
Mr. 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 Mr. 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 Mr. 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, Mr. Rubio mentioned the Dominican Republic as one of the countries in Latin America that was “doing it the right way.”
By that, Mr. 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 some 90 percent of the Haitian capital.
Some one 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 re-elected 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.
Reporting was contributed by Mary Triny Zea from Panama City; Jody García from Guatemala City; Gabriel Labrador from San Salvador; and Hogla Enecia Pérez from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.