WASHINGTON — Weaning Caribbean countries from their dependence on Venezuelan oil and combating illegal immigration will top Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s tour of three Caribbean nations this week, a visit that comes as the Trump administration increasingly focuses its attention on the Western Hemisphere.
The State Department said Rubio will push for the region to diversify its energy supplies when he visits Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname starting Wednesday, just days after President Donald Trump announced new sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports and threatened tariffs on all goods imported into the United States by other countries that buy oil from Venezuela.
Another main issue for Rubio will be the situation in Haiti, where a multinational peacekeeping force has been in place for months struggling to prevent gangs from taking over the country. Rubio spoke Tuesday with the president of Kenya, which is leading that force, although the State Department account of the call made no reference to Haiti.
“The challenge, obviously, is Haiti,” said Mauricio Claver-Caron, Trump’s special envoy for the Western Hemisphere. “And, obviously, we all know and we share the deep commitment to tackling this challenge in Haiti.”
But in a conference call with reporters Tuesday, he did not offer details on what the Republican former Florida senator would suggest on Haiti policy. Rubio has extended waivers on an overall U.S. foreign aid freeze to continue to fund the security force in Haiti, but it remains unclear how long they will last.
“This trip is going to add in the urgency of the moment and in the urgency of the situation to the development and implementation of a very targeted strategy in regards to Haiti to try to ensure that these gangs do not take over, obviously, Port-au-Prince but then expand beyond that,” Claver-Caron said without elaborating.
Energy, he said, will be the top topic of conversation while Rubio is in the Caribbean.
“We are in a historic moment in the Caribbean for energy security, which has been the Achilles’ heel of the Caribbean for so long and its economic development with disproportionately high electricity and energy prices,” Claver-Caron said.
He said Rubio’s visit comes at a time of a “historic opportunity for energy security in the Caribbean, which will improve people’s lives, will improve also the opportunities and the relationship with the United States and what that means, and obviously, will strengthen our neighbors, which we seek.”
On Monday, Trump announced he was tightening U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports and would slap a 25% tariff on all goods sent to the U.S. by countries that import Venezuelan oil on April 2. But just hours later, the Treasury Department said it would extend a sanctions waiver for the U.S. company Chevron to continue to send Venezuelan oil to the United States until the end of May.
“The fact that now their own countries — Guyana, Suriname — are able to have and really surpass Venezuela in its oil production and be able to work with its neighbors there in the region is a huge opportunity for the Caribbean,” Claver-Caron said.
He also suggested the U.S. was prepared to field questions from regional leaders about U.S. sanctions on Cuba that target programs that send doctors and nurses to the region and elsewhere. American officials have said the programs resemble organized human trafficking because the medical professionals are not paid directly.
Latin American leaders have denounced the U.S. sanctions, saying they deprive their people of much needed medical assistance, but Claver-Caron dismissed those complaints and said if the leaders Rubio meets with focus on that, it will be a waste of time.
“If they choose to overshadow this trip with the issue of Cuban doctors, it’ll be a lost opportunity, because again, the huge opportunity here is energy security, economic development that has plagued this region, and the biggest challenge that we have is Haiti,” he said.