Rubio fills void at Americas summit left by absent Trump
LIMA, Peru — When presidents gather this week in Peru at the Summit of the Americas, they may be tempted to walk past Vice-President Mike Pence and make a beeline for another person who has President Donald Trump’s ear on Latin America: Sen. Marco Rubio.
In Trump’s absence from the meeting, the Florida Republican is playing an even more prominent role. He began the week presiding over a Senate hearing on the summit, lunched Thursday with Pence at the White House to discuss the trip and starting Friday, when he arrives in Lima, will meet one-on-one with about a half-dozen heads of state — around the same number as Pence himself.
The American president cancelled what would’ve been his first presidential visit to Latin America as he weighs a possible U.S. military strike in Syria in retaliation for an apparent chemical attack on civilians.
Rubio, in a phone interview from Washington, called Trump’s absence understandable but a nonetheless disappointing example of how Latin America often takes a backseat to more pressing national security challenges. In his absence, he said he and Pence, who was picked by Trump to lead the U.S. delegation and is the administration’s main envoy to the region, would work with leaders to take tougher action on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who at the U.S. administration’s urging was the only Western Hemisphere leader barred from the gathering.