GUATEMALA CITY — Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday delivered a robust defense of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and praised President Donald Trump’s widely panned proposal for the United States to take control of the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Rubio, nearing the end of his first trip abroad as America’s chief diplomat, said the administration was essentially forced to shut down USAID because of “insubordination” within its ranks by staffers who refused to comply with demands to justify its budget and its programs.
He said Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. take over Gaza was in fact a “very generous” offer to reconstruct and develop the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Mr. Trump suggested Tuesday during a news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled elsewhere and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“It was not meant as a hostile move,” Mr. Rubio insisted during a news conference in Guatemala City. “It was meant as a, I think, a very generous move.”
He said Gaza is “akin to a natural disaster” and he echoed Mr. Trump’s arguments that the 2 million Palestinians who call it home can no longer live there because there are unexploded munitions, debris and rubble. Mr. Trump has suggested the Palestinians could relocated to Egypt or Jordan, although both U.S. allies have rejected the suggestion in blunt terms.
PHOTOS: Rubio defends dismantling of USAID, praises Trump's proposal for US control of Gaza Strip
“In the interim, obviously people are going to have to live somewhere while you’re rebuilding it,” Mr. Rubio said.
At USAID, almost all the agency’s workers overseas are being pulled off the job and out of the field under a sudden Trump administration order.
Mr. Rubio said the original intention was to keep the agency running while reviewing how money was being spent. But he said the new admilnistration team received no cooperation and employees were acting in “contravention” and “insubordination.”
“It is not the direction I wanted it. It’s not the way we wanted to do it initially, but it is the way we will have to do it now,” Mr. Rubio said. “What would be a gift to our geopolitical rivals is billions of dollars in foreign aid that is not aligned to the national interests in the foreign policy of the United States.”
Immigration, a Trump administration priority, has been the major focus of Mr. Rubio’s trip, a five-country tour of Central America.
During his visit to Guatemala, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said his country will accept migrants from other countries being deported from the United States.
Under the “safe third country” agreement announced by Mr. Arevalo, the deportees would then be returned to their home countries at U.S. expense.
“We have agreed to increase by 40% the number of flights of deportees both of our nationality as well as deportees from other nationalities,” Mr. Arevalo said, speaking during a news conference with Mr. Rubio.
The Guatemalan president’s offer came days after El Salvador Monday announced a similar but broader agreement.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said his country would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes. Mr. Rubio said U.S. officials were still studying the “legalities” of the El Salvadoran offer.
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