U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered Costa Rica support on Tuesday to face “blackmail” from Chinese companies, before continuing his trip to Guatemala, one of Taiwan’s last allies. A country “deserves support” when facing “companies that are not secure, are backed by governments like China’s that likes to threaten, sabotage, use economic coercion to punish you,” Rubio said alongside President Rodrigo Chaves at Casa Presidencial in San José.
Chaves banned Chinese tech giant Huawei from bidding for the 5G network in 2023 due to Beijing’s refusal to sign an international cybercrime agreement. “Confronting companies like that has consequences, blackmail, threats, activities to infiltrate government agencies. And you have been very firm, and we will continue helping you with that,” Rubio added.
Rubio announced he will guarantee the flow of assistance to Costa Rica, an important U.S. partner in issues such as migration and drug trafficking. In 2007, Costa Rica broke ties with Taiwan, an island with democratic government that China claims as part of its territory, which was a turning point followed by other Latin American countries.
Rubio began his trip in Panama, where he reported progress in his efforts to reduce Chinese influence around the strategic Panama Canal. Like Panama, Costa Rica is a longtime U.S. partner that has seen increased Chinese investment in recent years.
Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba
Rubio’s tour, which also took him to El Salvador and will conclude in the Dominican Republic after Guatemala, is heavily focused on President Donald Trump’s priority of deporting undocumented migrants. The Secretary of State, a Cuban-American and first Hispanic to be U.S. chief diplomat, blamed the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua for the migration crisis.
“In my opinion, these three regimes that exist in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba are enemies of humanity and have created a migration crisis. They created it because they are countries where their systems don’t work,” he stated. Rubio also referred in Costa Rica to neighboring Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo obtained absolute powers last week through a constitutional reform.
“In Nicaragua’s case, it has become a family dynasty with a co-presidency,” he stated. Rubio is a sworn enemy of Latin American leftists, although former President Joe Biden also took a hard line against Ortega. Rubio arrived in the afternoon to Guatemala, from where thousands of people emigrate each year seeking opportunities in the United States and also the only country in Central America that recognizes Taiwan. In Latin America, only that country and Paraguay do.
In El Salvador on Monday, Rubio announced he received an extraordinary offer from President Nayib Bukele to imprison “criminal” migrants and Americans sent from the United States in a mega-prison. “Obviously there are legal issues to consider. We have a Constitution, we have all kinds of things, but it’s a very generous offer,” Rubio told the press in Costa Rica.
The prisoners would be held in the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), considered Latin America’s largest prison, on the outskirts of Tecoluca, 75 km southeast of San Salvador. Bukele enjoys great popularity for his offensive against gangs, based on a state of exception that, since 2022, has left about 83,000 detained without judicial order, many of them innocent, for which he is criticized by human rights groups.
