Even before the month is out, the first stop is a reclamation job.

 U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Panama during his first overseas trip in the post, a source told Reuters on Thursday, as President Donald Trump makes a push for the United States to take back the Panama Canal that has angered the Central American country.

Rubio is expected to depart on Jan. 31 and travel during the first week of February, making additional stops in Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and El Salvador, according to the source who was familiar with the plans.

Planning for the trip is still ongoing and the itinerary is subject to change, the source added.

Marco is making it clear to all that the administration chose the area specifically to send a message to Latin and South America, besides addressing the contretemps erupting over the Canal Zone.

For too long, the entirety of the Biden regime's reign essentially, the region's been ignored by the US and allowed to fall into chaos with only a few bright spots like Argentina and El Salvador illuminating the dark. There is an argument to be made that POTATUS and his underling, czarina of the 'root cause of immigration' assignment, actually contributed to the precipitous decline by financing Maduro with American purchases of Venezuelan oil and importing all of the various strongmen's troublemakers and cartels into our own country through Biden's purposefully porous borders.

The arrogance and disdain of these tiny banana republics were nowhere more apparent than in the recent diatribe by the president of Honduras as she threatened to close US bases if Trump followed through with repatriating her criminal citizens illegally in the US to her national bosom.

I can only assume she thought she was talking to the next POTATUS.

...Yeesh. What happened to 'Auld acquaintance'?

"I want to say that we hope that the new US administration of President Donald J. Trump will be open to dialogue, constructive, friendly, and that it will not take unnecessary reprisals against our migrants, who make a great contribution to the US economy. 

Faced with a hostile attitude towards our brothers, we would have to consider a change in our policies of cooperation with the United States, especially in the military field, where without paying a cent for decades, they maintain military bases in our territory, and in this case they would lose all reason for existing in Honduras."

First, 'faced with a hostile attitude towards our brothers' seems to be an unnecessary poetic license since they're illegals in our country.

It's also interesting how the Honduran president says the US hasn't paid 'a cent for decades,' implying that our country runs roughshod over their little fiefdom like, oh, colonizers or something.

The agreement between the US and Honduras for military cooperation just celebrated its 70th birthday - the US suddenly didn't drop troops in during the Sandinista days. We've had a presence there for decades and built infrastructure while providing local jobs and businesses with income much as we do anywhere.

CHICA - GET OVER YOURSELF

This was a serious error in judgment, perhaps because her husband, also a previous president of tiny Honduras, had never dealt with Trump? Or perhaps the bluster was based on the absolute terror induced by the thought of all those remittances from the States - which make up 25% of the Honduran national GDP - coming to a screeching halt.   

It's hard for banana harvesting to make up that kind of cha-ching. Perhaps that's why she lashed out.

Still, it's an unfortunate start, but, oh, so typical for the region and many of its feminine heads of state. The thugocracy, like Maduro, are going to be in for a rougher ride than they've had in a long time.

Rubio is going to personally meet and greet a number of the regional heads of state on his jaunt.

...The Rubio trip — scheduled to run from late January to early February — also includes Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, the officials said.

...Late Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce confirmed the overall travel plan and said Rubio was choosing to prioritize the Western Hemisphere because “it’s where we live.”

“We won’t continue to ignore the region as other administrations have,” Bruce said. “Engaging with our neighbors is a vital element in addressing migration, supply chains and economic growth, which are key to Secretary Rubio’s pursuit of foreign policy focused on making America strong, prosperous, and safe.”

China is definitely not 'ignoring the region as other administrations have', and that's also an underlying current of the trip - sending a notice to Beijing that the United States is on guard in its own backyard once again. 

If any of them are unfamiliar with the 'Monroe Doctrine' - granted, it is kind of old, and I'm not sure they even teach it here in school anymore - they soon won't be.

...President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress contained the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.

Understandably, the United States has always taken a particular interest in its closest neighbors – the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Equally understandably, expressions of this concern have not always been favorably regarded by other American nations.

The Monroe Doctrine is the best known U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere. Buried in a routine annual message delivered to Congress by President James Monroe in December 1823, the doctrine warns European nations that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or puppet monarchs. The doctrine was conceived to meet major concerns of the moment, but it soon became a watchword of U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere.

'Puppet monarchs' aptly describes China's 'Belt and Roads' initiative, the handout and infrastructure program that gradually entangles the recipients in a lifetime of servitude to the Chinese.

They are already well on their way to being firmly established in Latin and South America, working closely with Marxist governments in countries there. It can't be seen through naive, rosy-eyed glasses as mere economic competition. In the interests of our national security, it cannot be tolerated any longer.

America has to become pro-active.

China’s role in Latin America and the Caribbean has grown rapidly since the turn of the century, promising economic opportunity but also raising concerns over Beijing’s influence. China’s state firms are major investors in the region’s energy, infrastructure, and space industries, and the country has surpassed the United States as South America’s largest trading partner. Beijing has also expanded its cultural, diplomatic, and military presence throughout the region. Most recently, China celebrated the opening of a new megaport in Peru as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The United States and its allies, though, fear that Beijing is using these relationships to pursue its geopolitical goals—like the further isolation of Taiwan—and bolster authoritarian regimes such as those in Cuba and Venezuela. U.S. President Joe Biden saw China as a “strategic competitor” in the region, but the reelection of Donald Trump, who has promised a wide array of trade measures, including tariffs on Mexico, could signal a significantly more confrontational approach to China in the Western Hemisphere.

This NBC News report on Rubio's Panama stop, surprisingly enough, goes into some detail about what the Chinese have done as far as the Canal and the wholly legitimate concerns around it.

We should have been taking care of business at home.

It sounds as if we are going to again.

Time to rock and roll, baby!