Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip to the Dominican Republic this week highlights not only the close relationship between the two countries but the nexus between South Florida Republican politics and the Dominican neighbors to the south.
Yet amid the pomp and circumstance that accompany an official state visit, open questions remain about what kind of ally the United States in Dominican President Luis Abinader.
If history is any lesson, Abinader will help the Trump administration secure some early symbolic victories without making any substantive progress at addressing the real problems in his country.
First and foremost, the Dominican Republic is a major transit hub for drug trafficking – it’s the cocaine capital of the Caribbean.
There are almost daily headlines in the DR about record amounts of drugs seized by government authorities. But due to pervasive corruption in the country, for every kilo seized, untold amounts are allowed to reach their final destination – the United States.
The Biden administration did little to address this problem. Border Czar Tom Homan identified this crisis in the Caribbean – America’s “third border” where “Dominican narco-traffickers have exploited our weak immigration system and set up strongholds in the Northeastern U.S.”
As Homan noted, “When officials at the highest levels of our government create the border crisis, then go easy on countries that contribute to the problems, it is American citizens who ultimately suffer.”
Fortunately, President Trump and Secretary Rubio have made it clear that it’s a new day. An America First foreign policy will not tolerate surface-level posturing from leaders like Luis Abinader.
Yet due to the longstanding ties of Rubio and others in the South Florida community, there is a natural disposition to continue to blindly support Abinader and not ask the real questions.
When the Dominicans needed to signal to the Biden administration they were tough on Venezuela, authorities seized a plane that Nicolas Maduro used for his drug trade.
Yet no one has asked why the Dominican Republic allows its runways to be clogged with Maduro’s drug aircraft. Indeed – a second plane continues to sit in a Dominican hangar, likely until Abinader cashes it in as another political stunt.
Rubio and the new administration should not fall for this. Connie Mack, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented Florida’s 14th congressional district, recently wrote that while the Biden administration praised the DR as a “democratic bright spot,” Abinader allowed his “country’s runways and airports to be central to Maduro’s cocaine drug trafficking superhighway to the United States and Europe.”
So while Samantha Power steered $100 million to the Dominican Republic, President Trump has allowed Elon Musk and DOGE to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Dominicans have to be looking at this development nervously, as the U.S. has given the Caribbean nation nearly $700 million in the past ten years.
But several members of Congress – including former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Representative Troy Nehls – have urged the State Department to answer what exactly the United States is getting by sending hundreds of millions to the Dominican Republic.
After all, the drug trade is alive and well in the DR, and its related issues of human trafficking and sex trafficking continue to be thriving industries.
Worse yet – Representatives Nehls and McCaul identified that the programs funded by American taxpayers are being misused by Abinader’s government, whose weaponization of the justice system has targeted American citizens and legal permanent residents.
As President Trump recently stated, “Latin America needs us much more than we need them.”
This couldn’t be truer for the Dominican Republic, which should not receive additional foreign assistance until their President is going to seriously tackle the drug trade and stop the use of lawfare in his country.
Until that happens, Secretary Rubio and his allies will need to move past their predisposition to support the Dominican Republic and not elevate a false ally like Luis Abinader.
