Politics

Marco Rubio visiting Central America with the Panama Canal and immigration top of mind

Published

3 hours ago

February 2, 2025

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on his first foreign trip in office, arriving in Central America on Saturday to press President Donald Trump’s top priority — curbing illegal immigration — and to bring the message that the U.S. wants to reclaim control over the Panama Canal despite intense resistance from regional leaders.

It’s an unusual destination for the maiden voyage of America’s top diplomat, whose predecessors have generally favored Europe or Asia for their initial outings. It reflects not only the personal interest that Rubio — the first Hispanic to hold the nation’s most senior Cabinet post — has in the region but also the Trump administration’s intent to focus much of its foreign policy energy close to home.

“It’s no accident that my first trip abroad as secretary of state will keep me in the hemisphere,” Rubio wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Limiting immigration and fighting narcotics smuggling are major elements of that effort, but another key priority will be curbing China’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere, topped by reasserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal. The American-built canal was turned over to the Panamanians in 1999 and they object strongly to Trump’s demand to hand it back.

Mass migration, drugs and hostile policies pursued by Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have wreaked havoc, Rubio said in the Journal opinion piece. “All the while, the Chinese Communist Party uses diplomatic and economic leverage — such as at the Panama Canal — to oppose the U.S. and turn sovereign nations into vassal states.”

“It’s impossible, I can’t negotiate,” Mulino said Thursday. “The canal belongs to Panama.”

Yet Rubio said he will make clear Trump’s intent. In an interview Thursday with SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly, he said Trump’s desire to retake control of the Panama Canal is driven by legitimate national security interests stemming from growing concerns about Chinese activity and influence in Latin America.

“We’re going to address that topic,” he said. “The president’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea. That message has been brought very clear.”

Chinese investments in ports and other infrastructure and facilities at both the Pacific and Caribbean ends of the canal are a cause for major concern, leaving Panama and the critical shipping route vulnerable to China, he said.

Rubio added that “if China wanted to obstruct traffic in the Panama Canal, they could,” and that would be a violation of the 1977 treaty signed by former President Jimmy Carter under which the U.S. later ceded control.

Despite Mulino’s rejection of any negotiation over ownership, some believe Panama may be open to a compromise under which canal operations on both sides are taken away from the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports company that was given a 25-year no-bid extension to run them. An audit into the suitability of that extension is already under way and could lead to a rebidding process.

What is unclear is whether Trump would accept the transfer of the concession to an American or European firm as meeting his demands, which appear to cover more than just operations.

“In some ways, Trump is pushing on an open door,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “But it will depend on how his red lines are defined.”

“There’s been a lot of heavy rhetoric and it will be up Rubio to clarify it,” Berg said, adding that some kind of compromise was possible “but we’ll have to see if he’s really serious about taking it back. If that’s the case then nothing short of that will satisfy him.”

Rubio arrived in Panama on Saturday for meetings the following day with Mulino and the canal administrator. He will then travel to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

His arrival comes just a day after the U.S. resumed visa processing at its embassy in Bogota, Colombia, which had been shut down Sunday after the Colombian government refused to accept two planeloads of Colombian deportees from the United States.

Previous secretaries of state have often traveled abroad with so-called “deliverables” — assistance packages, new cooperation initiatives and the like — that they can announce at each stop. However, such as with Colombia, Rubio may only be able to bring limited relief from a U.S. freeze on foreign assistance that Trump ordered pending a review of all programs.

In Latin America, such programs have generally focused on policing, counternarcotics operations and efforts to stem illegal migration. Rubio has made provisions for certain programs offering life-saving assistance to be exempted from the funding pause, and waiver applications for programs in several of the countries he will be visiting are under review.

Among the countries for which waivers for certain programs have been submitted are Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and its neighbor, Haiti. Although Rubio will not be traveling to Haiti, the State Department has already allowed some $41 million in support of an international peacekeeping force there to go ahead.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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Politics

Florida Chamber bullish on economic outlook for state in 2025

Published

13 minutes ago

February 2, 2025

May Greene

Florida’s economic growth is outpacing other states in an upbeat forecast published by the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

The business advocacy group published its 2025 Florida Economic Forecast recently and it found the Sunshine State is outpacing national growth trends. The report concluded Florida’s economy is bolstered by industries such as technology, health care, construction and others.

“As we look into late 2025 and beyond, Florida isn’t just growing, it’s showing the rest of the nation what stable and well-planned growth looks like,” said Mark Wilson, president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce & Foundation. “The report notes that while challenges like inflation and housing affordability persist, Florida’s ability to adapt and innovate will drive its long-term success.”

There were several key factors the Florida Chamber cited as major contributors to the state’s robust economic outlook in the 16-page report. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was chief among them. The Chamber projected Florida’s GDP is expected to grow by 2.5% to 3% this year, above the national trend.

Florida’s workforce is also a significant keystone in the state’s economy. Chamber officials said job growth in the state is expected to hit 1% to 1.25% this year and unemployment rates hovering between 3.6% and 3.8%. The general monthly jobless rate in December came in at 3.4% and that’s held steady for the past three months, according to FloridaCommerce.

“Thoughtful strategies are needed to engage working-age adults who aren’t currently in the workforce, in order to increase our labor force participation rate. The Florida Chamber Foundation’s workforce development initiatives, such as the ‘Future of Work Florida’ program, are key to bridging the gap between education and high-demand careers,” the Chamber report advocated.

The report did indicate the state would have to see some changes in the housing market with median sales prices increasing and affordable homes becoming increasingly scarce. “Housing affordability remains a challenge for many Floridians,” the report stated.

Population trends will work in the state’s economic favor, though. The number of people residing in Florida is projected to tick up to 23.75 million people this year and that will keep the state first in the country for net income migration. That’s more than three times the rate of net income migration for Texas, which is the state with the second most income migration in the country.

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S&P study shows Florida had nominal increase in homeowners insurance rates

Published

2 hours ago

February 2, 2025

May Greene

Homeowners insurance rates are going up across the nation, but despite more hurricanes striking the state, Florida remains relatively stable when it comes to rate hikes.

S&P Global just released an analysis of homeowners insurance rates across America and while there were stiff increases for many states, Florida fared well in comparison. The S&P report found Florida to have one of the smallest increases in homeowners insurance in the country as of December 2024 since 2019. But there was an increase.

“The states with the lowest calculated weighted average increase in 2024 were Nevada at 4.3%, Texas at 3.4% and Florida at 1%,” the S&P analysis concluded. “Overall, the Florida homeowners market has seen improvement following legal reforms in 2023.”

S&P used rate information sourced from owner-occupied rate filings submitted to the Federal Insurance Office and each state’s largest homeowner insurance underwriters. That does not include state-backed insurance organizations such as Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which is run by the state of Florida.

While Florida recorded a nominal increase in homeowner insurance rates in the past year, S&P analysts warned the full brunt and impact from hurricanes that hit the Sunshine State in 2024 haven’t really been factored in yet.

“Back-to-back costly hurricanes this past year may impede the recovery. According to information collected by the state’s regulator, estimated insured losses so far on residential properties are $2.39 billion from Hurricane Milton and $496.8 million Hurricane Helene, with total insured losses (in Florida) equaling $3.62 billion for Milton and $2.08 billion for Helene,” the S&P study found.

Still, Florida is well below rate increases for homeowners in other states. Some were 20-fold the rate increases seen in the Sunshine State.

“Five other states reflected premiums rising by more than 20% in 2024: Montana, Iowa, Minnesota, Utah and Washington,” S&P analysts said.

Indeed, Florida appears to be an outlier as most states in the country saw at least double-digit rate increases for homeowners insurance.

“The national calculated weighted average effective rate increase for homeowners insurance was 10.4% last year. That uptick followed a 12.7% rise in the previous year. In total, 33 states had double-digit calculated effective rate increases in 2024, with the largest calculated increase occurring in Nebraska at 22.7%,” the S&P report concluded.

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Politics

Rick Scott bills target human trafficking, China

Published

4 hours ago

February 2, 2025

May Greene

The Naples Republican continues his work.

Florida’s senior Senator continues to pursue an aggressive legislative agenda, with new bills this week.

Sen. Rick Scott’s “Stopping Adversarial Tariff Evasion Act” is intended “to enhance enforcement mechanisms against tariff evasion by foreign entities, closing a loophole often used by Communist China to avoid paying tariffs” by “moving manufacturing to other countries, a practice known as ‘country hopping.’”

The bill amends the Trade Act of 1974 and the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to allow for tariffs on countries that exploit other countries for their favorable trade arrangements, while the capital is controlled by China.

“President Donald Trump is right to use tariffs as a strategic tool to protect American jobs and our best interests, and to hold our adversaries accountable when they’re taking advantage of the United States. This is especially true for Communist China, one of our nation’s biggest adversaries, that will do anything on the quest for global domination and that clearly includes lying, exploiting our laws, evading tariffs and taking full advantage of the former administration’s weaknesses to drive American manufacturers and businesses out of the global market,” Scott says.

Meanwhile, Scott is teaming up with Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson on the Stop Human Trafficking of Unaccompanied Migrant Children Act.

The goal, says the Naples Republican, is to “protect innocent children from being trafficked in our nation” as the former President facilitated.

“It is terrifying to think that over 300,000 young, innocent children have been brought into this nation, potentially forced into unsafe conditions and at risk for human trafficking. As a parent or grandparent, it’s unimaginable to think what might happen to these children, and that former president Joe Biden allowed this to happen by completely dismantling our immigration system and opening our southern border, completely ignoring the consequences or the tolls on human life,” Scott said.

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