Rubio Sees Guatemala Leader Keen To Please US

Guatemala City: Secretary of State Marco Rubio was seeking cooperation on migration Wednesday in Guatemala, whose leader, an anti-corruption advocate, is eager to please the new US administration to bolster his standing at home.

Rubio is touring Latin America on his first trip which has been overshadowed by jaw-dropping actions in Washington by President Donald Trump, including dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), of which Rubio is now nominally the head.

A former senator, Rubio is a Cuban-American and fierce opponent of Latin American leftists who has quickly sought in his new role to bolster US relationships with the region's conservatives.

An exception is Guatemala, where President Bernardo Arevalo is no ideological soulmate but has been eager to avoid friction with the new Trump administration.

Arevalo welcomed Rubio to dinner Tuesday in Guatemala City's old town and will hold further talks with him on Wednesday.

A sociologist and former diplomat born in exile after a US-backed 1954 coup, Arevalo is the son of a former president and pulled off a surprise victory in 2023 on a platform of reform and rooting out corruption in one of the region's poorest countries.

Arevalo immediately faced pushback from Guatemala's entrenched conservative elite which sought to prevent him from taking office.

Right-wing parties made allegations of electoral fraud, without providing evidence, and found support in Washington from elements of Trump's "Stop the Steal" movement that refused to acknowledge his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.

Since Trump's political comeback, Arevalo has sought to avoid battles and has cooperated on the new US administration's push to expel millions of migrants.

Guatemala quickly accepted a military flight with deported citizens, shackled and flown in a military plane, unlike Colombia whose leftist leader pleaded for better treatment but backed down after Trump threatened massive retaliation.

Arevalo's administration "frankly in two weeks has turned out to be an extraordinary ally particularly in helping us deal with migration issues," said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy on Latin America.

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