JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Marco Rubio's inaugural overseas trip as U.S. secretary of state has been somewhat overshadowed by the fallout over the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Rubio is currently at the end of a five-country sweep through Central America. Today, he is in Guatemala, and NPR's State Department correspondent Michele Kelemen is traveling with him. Hi there.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: So, Michele, there's a lot to unpack here. Let's start with this - Secretary Rubio held a press conference this afternoon in Guatemala with the president there. What came up?
KELEMEN: Yeah. I mean, President Bernardo Arevalo says he agreed to increase by 40% the deportation flights from the U.S. You know, Guatemala has been accepting back those Guatemalans who are in the U.S. illegally and being deported back home. And Rubio praised Guatemala for the way that they're reintegrating these deportees. He also announced some plans in the works to build infrastructure in Guatemala, to start looking at building a couple of ports and some roads. So migration and trade were really the central themes here. And by the way, Rubio called it an impactful visit, and he joked that there was a sign of just how impactful. There was an earthquake overnight that woke him up, and he said that he had actually never experienced one before.
SUMMERS: OK, I want to turn to a different topic because the news about USAID has been a big issue here in the States, but I'm curious what you've been hearing from the people that you've been meeting in the region. What have they had to say about that?
KELEMEN: Yeah. I mean, there was a statement last night that said they're all going to be put on leave Friday, and they have to be gone in 30 days, and USAID officials are really shell-shocked by that. I mean, one U.S. official told me that it feels like there's an evacuation from a war zone underway, but USAID staff are being treated as the aggressors.
There are about 200 USAID staffers at the embassy here in Guatemala. Most of them are locally hired employees, so Guatemalans who, you know, oversee the aid programs here. There are also some foreign service officers, and they really don't know what's in store for them. Rubio said that there will be exceptions for programs that are in the national interests. And, you know, he said it was USAID's fault that it had to be done this way. Take a listen to how he put it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: On USAID, unfortunately, we did not get the same level of cooperation. In fact, we had individuals, even after the orders were issued, that were still trying to push payments through in contravention and in direct insubordination. And so now we've had to do it in the opposite direction. It's not the way we wanted to do it initially, but it is the way we will have to do it now.
SUMMERS: This is Secretary Rubio's first overseas trip - five countries in total. Take stock of the trip in whole. What do you think he's achieved with it?
KELEMEN: Well, I mean, his whole message is that this is a sign that American leadership in the hemisphere is back, that this region has been ignored too long and will get more attention. Migration, as I said, was really key. He went to see a flight of migrants being deported from Panama to Colombia. Those are people who were stopped in Panama before they could make their way to the U.S. Here in Guatemala, he's going to be talking to local authorities who are cooperating with ICE on those Guatemalans deported from the U.S. And in El Salvador, he talked about the president's offer to take back migrant gang members and criminals. The El Salvadoran president even suggested that the U.S. could send U.S. citizens who are criminals, to outsource, you know, jails to El Salvador.
The other big issue, of course, was the Panama Canal. He was - that's where he started, in Panama. And President Trump wants the Panama Canal back. Rubio said he raised some concerns about the Panama Canal with Panama's president, but Panama's president says, you know, control over the canal is not up for discussion.
SUMMERS: That is NPR's Michele Kelemen, traveling with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Michele, thank you.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
