Senator Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has a special interest in Latin America. So does President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has been laying out plans to expand U.S. influence — and territorial control — across the Americas.
Since his first presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has made curbing migration and immigration to the United States a central focus of his, and his voter base has embraced it.
Much of the diplomacy over these issues will fall to Mr. Rubio, a Florida Republican, if he is confirmed as secretary of state. Christopher Landau, the former ambassador to Mexico named by Mr. Trump to be Mr. Rubio’s deputy, also has a deep background in Latin America and an interest in the region.
Mr. Trump has said he plans to impose blanket tariffs across many countries, including on goods from Canada and Mexico, two important trade partners. Mr. Rubio will have to try to defuse some of the tensions arising from that threat and from the actual imposition of tariffs, if that occurs.
Mr. Trump has also suggested taking over Canada and making it the 51st state, which Justin Trudeau, the country’s prime minister, has rejected.
“It’s not going to happen,” Mr. Trudeau told Jen Psaki on Sunday on MSNBC.
In addition, Mr. Trump has talked about annexing Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Arctic Ocean that is controlled by Denmark, a NATO ally. Leaders in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe have denounced Mr. Trump’s remarks, while officials in Greenland have said that they are open to discussions with the Trump administration, but not about territorial control. Mr. Rubio could be involved in those talks, which might center on military basing and access to natural resources.
Mr. Trump also has his eye on another piece of territory — the Panama Canal, which has been controlled by Panama since 1979.
Beyond his declarations on migrants and tariffs, Mr. Trump has created new tensions with Mexico over a proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has mocked that by proposing to rename former Mexican territories in the United States “Mexican America.” Mexico is a crucial U.S. partner on a range of issues, including trade and combating drug trafficking, and Mr. Rubio is expected to try to ensure that the two nations can continue to cooperate on them.
He will no doubt take a more combative stance on both Cuba and Venezuela. On Tuesday, President Biden announced that, in exchange for Cuba freeing some imprisoned protesters, he would remove the country from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that the Trump administration had imposed right before handing power to Mr. Biden in January 2021. Mr. Rubio could move to put Cuba back on the list.
Mr. Rubio is also expected to lead a confrontational policy toward Nicolás Maduro, who declared himself president of Venezuela for a third term after elections last year. The Biden administration sided with opposition leaders in saying that Mr. Maduro had stolen the elections, and that it appeared that Edmundo González Urrutia was the real winner. Mr. Rubio prodded Mr. Trump to impose severe sanctions on Venezuela in his first term.
Mr. Trump’s promise to conduct mass deportations will ultimately rely on countries being willing to take back their nationals. In some cases, that has been particularly difficult. Since last year, Venezuela, for example, has not accepted deportation flights. Latin American nations are also essential partners in stopping flows of migrants during their journeys to the U.S. southern border.
Mexico in particular is key to limiting the movement of migrants to the U.S. border, but other countries, like Panama, play a big role.
During his first term, Mr. Trump got countries like Guatemala to agree to take back nationals of other countries who arrived at the southern border. He could seek to revive the deals or expand them to other countries in the region, and Mr. Rubio would be charged with working out the arrangements.
