When Marco Rubio arrives in Latin America this weekend on his first foreign trip as Donald Trump's secretary of state, he'll find a region reeling from the new administration's shock-and-awe approach to diplomacy.

A key focus of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Central America this week — his first trip as America’s top diplomat — will be to counter China’s growing influence in the region, the State Department’s top spokesperson said this week,

The new Secretary of State already has said the Hong Kong-based operator of Panama Canal-adjacent ports could be a “big national security and defense problem.”

The accusation takes place during the same week that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to visit the country in his first international trip since assuming the role