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Secretary Rubio Holds a Joint Press Availability with Dominican President Abinader in Santo Domingo, February 6, 2025

February 6, 2025 · U.S. Department of State · 0:37:23

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a joint press availability with Dominican President Luis Abinader in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on February 6, 2025, the final stop of his first trip abroad as Secretary, according to the State Department broadcast. Abinader said the meeting covered security, migration, and trade cooperation, thanked the United States for support against drug trafficking, organized crime, and irregular migration, and announced he had appointed Vice Admiral Cabrera Ulloa as the country’s drug czar to lead joint efforts against synthetic drugs, as stated in the broadcast.

Why it matters

Santo Domingo closed Rubio’s first foreign trip — a five-country Western Hemisphere swing — and produced a named Dominican counterpart for the joint counternarcotics effort, the concrete deliverable of the visit.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, official upload (embedded above). Remarks as delivered; full transcript at state.gov.