President Luis Abinader has extended an invitation to the media to be present when the conclusions of the meetings in the Dominican Republic with US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio are presented at the Presidential Palace’s Salón de Embajadores on 6 February 2025.
Rubio is scheduled for meetings at the Ministry of Foreign Relations in the early morning of 6 February, to be followed by a meeting with President Luis Abinader and government officials at the Presidential Palace starting with his arrival to the government seat at 11:45am.
The invitation, sent to news outlets, specifies that the event will take place at 2pm on Thursday, 6 February 2025 and instructs journalists to attend in formal dress code for business meetings.
Rubio arrived on Wednesday at 8pm and was received by his counterpart Minister of Foreign Relations Roberto Alvarez at Las Américas International Airport (SDQ). This visit marks the final leg of his first tour through Latin America, following stops in Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.
Before arriving, the media had announced the good news that there would be a waiver for Haitian financial support.
Earlier, the media had announced the suspension of financial support to the Multinational Force supporting Haiti, as well as the halt of aid to the Dominican Republic from USAID. President Abinader had indicated that he would address these issues directly with Rubio during their meeting.
Additionally, Rubio is expected to discuss other significant matters, including the ongoing crisis in Haiti and the issue of Dominican migration to the United States via Mexico. On the agenda also is rare earth elements mining in the Dominican Republic, semi-conductors manufacturing here, and the Summit of the Americas, scheduled for the Dominican Republic in November 2025. This could be the first time a US President comes on an official visit.
The media also reports that in his previous stop in Guatemala on his Central American and Caribbean tour, Rubio had signed for continued financial backing for the drug wars and President Bernardo Arevalo offered to house deportees that may subsequently be repatriated to their home countries. Arevalo nevertheless, stressed during the conversations: “However, the permanent answer to immigration is to bring development so that no one has to leave the country,” Arévalo said. A high-level Guatemalan delegation, including from the private sector, will travel to Washington in the coming weeks.
Migration and the influence of China in the region were other key topics for the meetings of Rubio in previous stops of this tour in Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala, before the visit to the Dominican Republic.
President Luis Abinader said on his 3 February 2025 press conference that the Dominican Republic would not accept deportees from other countries.
Read more in Spanish:
CDN
Michigan Review
Diario Libre
US Embassy Guatemala
Tico Times
WJTV
Reuters
Keranews
6 February 2025