The Americas' Common Agenda Has a Clear Voice: Marco Rubio

It is no accident that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was among the first to embrace a hemispheric variation on the most famous slogan in American politics: "Make the Americas Great Again."

What reads at first as wordplay in fact carries considerable weight, because it names something that has rarely been harder to deny. The agendas of the U.S. and much of Latin America are advancing, increasingly and perhaps inevitably, in the same direction, closing gaps that have often widened in the past.

But this kind of alignment, however, does not happen on its own. It requires an articulator: someone with the political skill to translate shared interests into working policy. It would be simplistic to credit any single author for the alignment now taking shape across the hemisphere. But it is, in my view, unmistakable that Rubio has been central to it.

In recent history, hardly anyone else at the highest administration level has a better knowledge and understanding of the Western Hemisphere. The son of Cuban immigrants and the first Latino to lead the State Department, he has given the Western Hemisphere the place in American strategic thinking that durable partnership requires: not an afterthought, not a problem file, but a political vision where the United States stands to benefit as much as its continental allies.

That strategic realignment, led by Rubio, is visible in three developments that deserve close attention.

The first is the administration's greater use of political ambassadors and, by extension, of embassies as full-fledged instruments of economic diplomacy. Where economic statecraft was once quarantined in specialized bureaus, it now runs through the missions' chiefs themselves. By the secretary's own account, American ambassadors' engagements today concern very specific economic matters, from critical minerals to strategic infrastructure.

Latin America is living proof of this new model. Missions across the region are fully staffed, and a notable share are led by political ambassadors with a direct line to the White House: Bernie Navarro in Peru, Kevin Marino Cabrera in Panamá and Peter Lamelas in Argentina, among others.

Taken together, they represent an investment that speaks volumes about where the hemisphere now sits in American strategic thinking.

The second is the substance of the common agenda itself. As the U.S. recalibrates its strategy toward the region, the real work of diplomacy lies in identifying the areas where U.S. and Latin American interests converge and translating those shared interests into practical cooperation — particularly through the implementation of the 2025 National Security Strategy.

In combating transnational crime, countries across the hemisphere increasingly view the disruption of illicit economies and transnational criminal organizations not as a rhetorical objective but as a shared operational priority.

Finally, underpinning all of this is the political momentum that has made such convergence possible. The administration has made no secret of its preference for the bilateral over the multilateral. Its interests are not up for negotiation, so it seeks out, directly, the countries that already share them.

In this sense, Latin America increasingly qualifies, shifting rightward with recent election victories by Keiko Fujimori in Peru, José Antonio Kast in Chile, and Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia. An electoral map guarantees nothing, but political affinity lowers friction and removes roadblocks.

It is this convergence of factors that has enabled the Western Hemisphere shift now underway. The U.S. will reclaim its position as the principal ally for Latin American governments, who now, more than ever, are willing to share the burden of regional security and stability.

But every repositioning of this magnitude needs someone to connect its pieces and, perhaps most importantly, to lead its purpose — and that role has fallen to Rubio, who has proven equal to it.