US State Secy Marco Rubio heads to Central America, amid Trump’s row over Panama Canal

Panama City [Panama], February 1 (ANI): US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Panama Saturday (local time) for his first trip since holding the job as US top diplomat.
According to CNN, Rubio's choice to visit Central America - Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic - is intentional and meant to drive forward the Trump agenda by "paying closer attention to our own neighbourhood."
Discussion about the Panama Canal is also "a priority" during Rubio's trip. He is also expected to emphasize efforts to counter China in the region.
However, aid officials and some US officials say this effort - and priorities like countering illegal migration and drug trafficking - have been undermined by his sweeping foreign assistance freeze.
But, according to CNN, the US administration's plans to specifically work with its partners in the Western Hemisphere remain unclear.
One test will be how the Trump administration leverages its close relationship with El Salvador. US officials are in talks with the country to strike an asylum agreement that would allow the US to send asylum seekers who are not Salvadoran to El Salvador to seek protection.
The matter is expected to be discussed during Rubio's meetings with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele and other officials.
"During the first Trump Administration, El Salvador was one of three countries that had a Safe Third Agreement with the United States, which will also be a topic of discussion,"
Trump's special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone said during the first Trump Administration, that El Salvador was one of three countries that had a Safe Third Agreement with the United States, and it will be a topic of discussion this time also.
"Those extraordinary measures, which are frankly the envy of a lot of countries throughout the Western Hemisphere, has really made him one of the most consequential leaders not only on security but a great ally on migration," Claver-Carone said as quoted by CNN.
"We're looking to do a new agreement that might include the members of the Tren de Aragua, who will want to go back to Venezuela rather than having to share the prison with the Salvadorean gangs like MS-13. It's part of what we want to discuss and how President Bukele can help us," he added. (ANI)