{"id":230793,"date":"2025-02-05T07:19:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T11:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/?p=230793"},"modified":"2025-02-05T09:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T13:09:12","slug":"marco-rubio-in-costa-rica-addresses-waivers-for-us-foreign-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/2025\/02\/05\/marco-rubio-in-costa-rica-addresses-waivers-for-us-foreign-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Rubio in Costa Rica addresses waivers for US foreign aid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Secretary Marco Rubio and President Rodrigo Chaves \/ CR Canciller\u00eda \/ X<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke up about changing the perception US foreign policy treats its enemies better than its friends during his visit on 4 February in Costa Rica. Speaking at the conclusion of the meeting, Costa Rica President Rodrigo Chaves announced new agreements would strengthen that country\u2019s fight against international organized crime, with waivers to the freeze of aid in that area for Costa Rica. Chaves said the issues of cyber security was discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US Secretary of State Rubio would say during the same presentation: \u201cI am here today \u2013 we\u2019ve issued a waiver today \u2013 because in Costa Rica we have a trusted partner and an ally who has proven that they have taken aid from the United States and used it to fix a problem, to help us, to do it in a way that actually helps the United States. They\u2019re stopping drugs. They\u2019re stopping criminals. They\u2019re identifying terrorists. This is foreign aid that furthers the national interest.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his stopover in Costa Rica as part of a tour of Central America and the Caribbean, Rubio spoke of reaching several agreements around illegal immigration. He stated: \u201cAnd one of my priorities is to ensure that the US foreign policy shows \u2013 sends a signal that it\u2019s better to be a friend than an enemy; it\u2019s better to be an ally than a troublemaker. And unfortunately, this has not been the case in the past \u2013 in several administrations in the past. And this is a complaint that I heard time after time \u2013 with my time in the Senate \u2013 that sometimes it\u2019s better to be the United States enemy than friend. Because if you are your friend, you\u2019re overlooked and ignored, and even criticized. But if you are an enemy, they want to come up with some arrangement, negotiate. And we cannot have a foreign policy that rewards those who want to harm us and ignore those who cooperate with us. This is going to change under President Trump\u2019s Administration, and I hope that today\u2019s visit is the initial signal to say that President Trump will be a friend to their allies and will work together with your allies, especially when it\u2019s a country like this that we take as an example, as a model that we would like other countries around the world to follow.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his presentation he explained that foreign aid has been frozen to review the programs.
\u201cThe waiver process exists so that we can review those programs. Today, here, we\u2019ve issued waivers for programs that make all the sense in the world. They make America safer. They make America stronger because the programs we\u2019ve issued a waiver for are helping our trusted partners intercept and stop drugs and terrorists from coming into the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But I issued a blanket waiver that said if this is lifesaving programs, okay \u2013 if it\u2019s providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you\u2019re not included in the freeze. I don\u2019t know how much more clear we can be than that”, he said, speaking in San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio stressed: “What is in place is \u201ca 90-day freeze through which it allows us now to review programs. Before we did the freeze we couldn\u2019t find out anything about some of these programs, and USAID in particular they refused to tell us anything. We won\u2019t tell you what the money is going to, where the money is for, who has it, which contractor it\u2019s been \u2013 in some cases it goes through four different contractors before it reaches the intended recipient. These are not my numbers. These are USAID\u2019s number.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In explaining the decision to freeze the programs, he added:
\u201cIn some cases, with USAID, 10, 12, 13 percent, maybe less of the money was actually reaching the recipient and the rest was going into the overhead and the bureaucracy. This isn\u2019t my money. This is taxpayer money. So, we\u2019re not going to eliminate foreign aid. We\u2019re going to have foreign aid that makes sense. We\u2019re going to have foreign aid that works. We\u2019re going to have foreign aid that furthers the national interest. We\u2019re going to have foreign aid that benefits our trusted partners and our allies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:
US Embassy in Costa Rica <\/a>
Spectrum News <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5 February 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke up about changing the perception US foreign policy treats its enemies better than its friends during his visit on 4 February in Costa Rica. Speaking at the conclusion of the meeting, Costa Rica President Rodrigo Chaves announced new agreements would strengthen that country\u2019s fight against international organized crime, … <\/p>\n

Read more\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[337,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230793"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230890,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230793\/revisions\/230890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}