The Secretary of State said the Central American nation is a trusted partner in the war on drugs and the countering of illegal immigration.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Feb. 4 that Costa Rica will be exempted from the United States’ 90-day freeze on foreign aid, citing its history of cooperating in countering drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
Rubio has justified the broad freeze, saying that foreign aid is sometimes misused, but this was not the case with this Central American nation.
“We’ve issued a waiver today because in Costa Rica, we have a trusted partner and an ally who has proven that they have taken aid from the United States and used it to fix the problem, to help us to do it in a way that actually helps the United States,” Rubio said at a press conference with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles in the nation’s capital, San Jose.
“They’re stopping drugs, they’re stopping criminals, they’re identifying terrorists.”
Rubio praised Costa Rica as a “model” for other nations in the region.
He also said he wants to increase Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and FBI cooperation with that country’s law enforcement to more effectively combat drug trafficking.
The Costa Rica waiver follows a previous blanket exception issued for any organization that provides “life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”
That waiver explicitly excludes “abortions, family planning, conferences … gender or DEI ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life saving assistance.”
Rubio’s comments come after the sweeping funding changes implemented during the first two weeks of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In addition to the 90-day freeze on foreign aid, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) paused all federal grants and loans on Jan. 28, ordering agencies across the government to give written, detailed justification for the money being spent.
As with the foreign aid freeze, exceptions were made for food assistance programs, social security, and Medicare.
OMB later rescinded its memo, and federal judges have blocked Trump’s federal aid freeze.
The Trump admin also appears poised to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—although that move is the subject of tremendous legal and political pushback.
Rubio said the spending pauses were issued with an eye toward closer examination of how taxpayer dollars are being spent.
“You know, before we did the freeze, we couldn’t find out anything about some of these programs. And USAID, in particular, they refused to tell us anything,” he said.
On Feb. 3, Rubio confirmed that he was the acting director of USAID.