Rubio goes to Caribbean to assert US interests after Venezuela strikes, Iran threats [View all]

Source: ABC News/AP

February 23, 2026, 8:00 AM


WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to the Caribbean country of St. Kitts and Nevis this week to reassert the Trump administration’s interests in the Western Hemisphere just a month after the U.S. military operation that removed then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power.

With the eyes of much of the world on the U.S military buildup in the Middle East and President Donald Trump’s threats to attack Iran, Rubio will make a one-day visit to St. Kitts on Wednesday to participate in a summit of leaders from the Caribbean Community, the State Department said.

Rubio has long championed a greater U.S. role in the Western Hemisphere and aims to keep it in focus even as Trump's Republican administration has now shifted its top foreign policy priority to Iran, around which American forces are now massing in even larger numbers than in the run-up to the Jan. 3 Venezuela operation that captured and deposed Maduro.

Maduro has been accused in a U.S. court of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. and has pleaded not guilty.

Read more: https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/rubio-heads-caribbean-reassert-us-interests-after-venezuela-130406377