When President-elect Donald Trump takes office next week, Miami and South Florida will be a focus of his diplomatic agenda — for non-controversial reasons, like his nomination of Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, and controversial ones.
Starting with Panama — a small sliver of an isthmus whose canal gives it outsized geopolitical importance.
Just before Christmas, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino had to respond to Trump’s bizarre threat to seize the Panama Canal. The U.S. handed the canal to Panama in 1999 under a treaty — so international law experts say Trump’s intent to take it back is largely preposterous.
But Mulino was also struck by Trump’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Panama: 34-year-old Miami-Dade County Commissioner and Trump acolyte Kevin Marino Cabrera — who Mulino quipped is “younger than my son.”
Granted, Mulino's own ambassador to Spain, for example, is only in his mid-30s himself — and Panama's selection of envoys isn't always exactly pristine or professional, either. But people close to Mulino’s government say the Panamanian President is taken aback by Cabrera’s notable diplomatic inexperience.
That, and Cabrera’s fierce loyalty to Trump, has many worried Trump will be more domineering than diplomatic with a staunch U.S. ally that Trump accuses, falsely, of using the canal to “rip us off" with exorbitant transit fees.
READ MORE: Canal Quarrel: How PortMiami's future is tied to tiny Panama
“It is gunboat diplomacy all over again," says Panamanian international law expert Alonso Illueca of the Santa María La Antigua University in Panama City.
"We are back in the 19th century.”
Illueca says that because a U.S. takeover of the canal is highly unlikely, Trump ought to reconsider Cabrera’s nomination and take Panama more seriously — as, for example, the world's second superpower China does.
“The Chinese are recognizing the geostrategic importance of this tiny Central American country," says Illueca.
"So in that regard I encourage the new Trump Administration to just consider what are their strategic objectives by appointing Cabrera.”
“Panama punches above its weight diplomatically because of the canal. It's incumbent on a U.S. president to pick an ambassador who can address that."John Feeley
For his part, Cabrera said in a statement that he’s eager to “uphold [Trump’s] bold approach to international diplomacy.” And many point out Trump has tapped other South Floridians for ambassadorships who have no foreign service on their resumes.
Two other Miami Cuban-Americans (and significant Trump campaign donors), Benjamin Leon Jr., nominated for Spain, and Peter Lamelas, picked for Argentina, are health care entrepreneurs.
“They don’t maybe have, quote, diplomatic experience, but they have real world experience," says West Palm Beach insurance entrepreneur Robin Bernstein, who was Trump’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic in his first presidency.
"In business we're dealing with people of high rank, using diplomacy, courtesy, our integrity, all the time.”
Bernstein also argues that even if Trump’s South Florida ambassador selections aren’t diplomatic experts, they are to a degree — given where they live — Latin America and Caribbean experts. She says Trump’s picks in that sense signal the region will matter in his next White House.
“I think Latin America unfortunately has too often been overlooked" over the years, Bernstein says.
"But we here understand tourism, we understand natural disasters, certainly hurricanes; the threat of human trafficking, the drugs and narotics problem, the evils of communism.
"So I’m glad there is an emphasis on South Florida under Trump."
Off-the-charts good
But other former U.S. ambassadors in Latin America warn that the post Trump has nominated Miami-Dade County's Cabrera for — Panama — involves that diplomatically trickier issue mentioned earlier: communist China.
“When I was there," former U.S. Ambassador to Panama John Feeley told WLRN, "the Chinese sent a ‘gray wolf,’ a trade-fluent ambassador.
"This guy was off-the-charts good — he could speak as good a local Panamanian slang as I could — and it was an indication of where Panama suddenly stood on their agenda.”
"Trump's South Florida ambassador picks may not have diplomatic experience, but they have real world experience. They use diplomacy, too."Robin Bernstein
That's because during Feeley's ambassadorship from 2015 to 2018, Panama established diplomatic relations with Beijing.
Chinese companies have since poured billions into infrastructure projects in the country.
They've been drawn to the reality that the canal, under Panama's more dynamic business management — including a $5 billion expansion a decade ago to accommodate larger "post-Panamax" ships — now handles 6% of global cargo traffic, two-thirds of which is going to or from U.S. docks like PortMiami.
China does not operate the canal, as Trump also falsely claims. But its Panama ventures have helped give it an outsized presence in this hemisphere — and, to many, an alarming one considering its glaring reputation for mixing its international financing dollars in the developing world with its totalitarian ideology propaganda.
READ MORE: Panama's canal divides a country into haves and have-nots
As a result, Feeley says able U.S. diplomatic work, not a U.S. seizure of the canal, is critical in Panama to counter China.
“I think Panamanians still see the U.S. as the partner of preference at the end of the day," Feeley says.
"But that China pressure is something the U.S. sadly has not paid enough attention to. For Panama, Trump should gather some of his bigger construction donors at Mar-a-Lago and say, ‘I want an American firm building that bridge across the canal or that road into the Darién jungle.’”
Former Latin America envoys like Bernstein point out that U.S. companies complain they have trouble accessing infrastructure projects in the region, because Chinese firms often underbid for them — prioritizing their geopolitical footprint in the hemisphere — or make bribery and kickback deals with local officials, a practice Beijing has only recently started to crack down on.
Feeley believes one tack Trump could take is to make it easier for American firms to access subsidies from agencies like the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
Feeley would not comment on Cabrera’s nomination for ambassador to Panama, believing the U.S. Senate's vetting and confirmation process should play out first.
Cabrera is, in fact, vice president of Miami-Dade’s International Trade Consortium. But the Senate will also be considering less-than-diplomatic Cabrera controversies.
In 2018, he took part with the right-wing hate group Proud Boys in a menacing protest against then Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi during her visit to Miami.
He was also sued in 2022 for falsely claiming his Miami-Dade Commission District 6 election opponent took campaign donations from sex-trafficking organizations. (It was later resolved out of court).
And shortly after he took office he bullied a Coral Gables bookstore into canceling a presentation of a book that examined the widely acknowledged immigration privileges Cuban exiles have enjoyed — calling it "hate-filled" and "anti-Cuban" while admitting he hadn't read it.
Another potentially controversial Trump pick from Florida is Orlando personal injury attorney Dan Newlin, nominated as ambassador to Colombia. He contributed almost $3 million in advertising to Trump's campaign, much of it containing false information.
Either way, Feeley urges Trump to take special care when it comes to Panama — particularly since Beijing's new ambassador there, Xu Xueyuan, is one of China's more seasoned and effective diplomats.
“Panama has always punched above its weight diplomatically precisely because of the canal," Feeley says.
"So it is incumbent upon any [U.S.] president to pick an individual and a team that can address the geostrategic challenges there.”
What's certain is that under Trump, Miami and South Florida look to play an outsize role in those diplomatic challenges — whether the envoys he's plucking from this street turn out to be effective or not.
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