Tag Archive for: Department of State

Marco Rubio To Visit Panama On First Trip As Secretary Of State

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Panama on his first trip abroad as the top U.S. diplomat after President Donald Trump’s calls to seize the country’s canal, three unnamed officials told Politico on Wednesday.

The trip, which is scheduled from late January into early February, also includes stops in El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, according to the outlet. The plans are reportedly tentative.

“We won’t continue to ignore the region as other administrations have,” Tammy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the State Department said on Wednesday, the outlet reported. “Engaging with our neighbors is a vital element in addressing migration, supply chains and economic growth, which are key to Secretary Rubio’s pursuit of foreign policy focused on making America strong, prosperous, and safe.”


Bruce added that Rubio chose to prioritize the Western Hemisphere first because “it’s where we live.”

Rubio is expected to visit the country in an attempt to advance two of the president’s key campaign promises: curtailing illegal migration through Central America to the U.S. southern border and reasserting American control over the Panama Canal, officials told the outlet.

“The Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama,” Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. “The Panama Canal is not a concession or a gift from the United States.”

“We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back,” Trump said during his inaugural address, characterizing former President Jimmy Carter’s treaty ceding the canal to Panama as a “foolish gift.” Trump also expressed concern over Chinese management of the certain ports along the canal.

China has expanded its footprint in the canal significantly over recent years, with the China-based Landbridge Group acquiring control over Margarita Island — home to Panama’s largest Atlantic port — in 2016. Additionally, the Panamanian government renewed in 2021 the lease of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports PPC, which operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal, two major trade hubs in the canal’s Pacific and Atlantic outlets, respectively.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Rubio warned that Chinese companies would have no choice but to “shut [a port] down and impede our transit,” should China order them to do so, noting that there are no “independent” Chinese companies.

U.S. critics say that China’s increasing presence in the area endangers the neutrality of the canal, one of the stipulations in Carter’s treaty.

Carter signed a treaty in 1977 to gradually cede the Panama Canal, which the U.S. constructed under President Theodore Roosevelt, to its host country. The treaty also mandated that all U.S. military bases in Panama be transferred to Panamanian control, drastically reducing the American presence along the strategically important waterway.

The president has also called for the U.S. to assert control over Canada and the Danish territory of Greenland.

The Senate unanimously confirmed Rubio as secretary of state Monday with a vote of 99-0.

The State Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

Thomas English

Contributor

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White House and Department of State leakers in battle over refugee costs

Can you believe it!  Reuters is reporting on four anonymous leakers (inside and outside the Department of State) who are saying chief White House aide Stephen Miller is trying to skew numbers to make the refugee program look more expensive than they claim it is!

Former Asst. Sec. of State Anne Richard

Most interesting to me is that a former State Department “official” is in on the effort to skewer Miller (and Trump of course!).

Can you say ‘Obama shadow government’!

Note: Sorry I’m giving you a quicky post here.  I am preparing for something this evening and have no time for more comment and analysis, except to say that getting at the true cost of the overall migration of impoverished third world refugees to middle America is almost impossible because in most states, the welfare offices do not track and separate out the different classes of immigrants using social services, medicare, or sending kids to school.

For federal budget planning, I’m guessing Miller is trying to get at the true cost to admit the refugees in the first place which is where the federal budget costs are initially incurred for decision-making needed by September.

Here is Reuters on the ‘Deep State’ undermining the White House (again!), getting more cocky by the day aren’t they!

Is Simon Henshaw leaking?

Two studies that President Donald Trump hopes will buttress his case to cut the number of refugees are at the heart of a fight between senior White House adviser Stephen Miller and career U.S. government officials over immigration policy, four current and former officials said.

Trump in March ordered the U.S. State Department and other agencies to tally only the costs of resettling refugees but not the benefits that policy experts said refugees can also bring, including tax revenues, professional skills and job creation. [Virtually impossible, and are we going to tally medicare, schools, housing, SSI and criminal justice system costs for how many years?—ed]

Is Larry Bartlett leaking?

A current official said Miller had convened meetings with State Department staffers to discuss the refugee cost reports. When department specialists proposed including refugees’ economic contributions in the studies to produce a more balanced assessment, Miller rebuffed the idea, one current and one former U.S. official said.

The White House said Miller did not hold meetings on the specific subject of the cost reports and that Trump’s overall fiscal year 2018 budget proposal sought to “make transparent the net budgetary effects of immigration programs and policy.”

The current and former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believe, however, that the administration wants to help make a case to restrict refugee flows by creating a skewed analysis.

“It’s a policy outcome in search of a rationale,” said a former U.S. official familiar with the debate.

Continue reading here and prepare to be outraged!

EndNote: If Henshaw and Bartlett are not the leakers, they better find out who is! They are responsible for whoever is talking to the press!  Like it or not, they work for President Donald Trump!

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