USA · updated 46m ago · 2 min read
Costa Rica President Laura Fernández Fires Foreign Minister Manuel Tovar Rivera After Trump Security Meeting
Costa Rica fires Foreign Minister Manuel Tovar Rivera for unnotified Trump meeting. Fernández said she would have attended the meeting; omission harmed Costa Rica's interests.
19 outlets told this the same way.
7 of 8 outlets skipped it: tovar had recent engagement with senior US officials including Marco Rubio.
19outlets compared
Dismissal After Trump Meeting
Costa Rican President Laura Fernández dismissed Foreign Minister Manuel Tovar Rivera on Thursday after he attended a high-level regional security meeting led by U.S. President Donald Trump in New York without informing her in advance.
Fernández’s government said the dismissal took effect immediately and that Tovar’s failure to notify her prevented the president from participating and caused what it described as “significant strategic damage.”
The meeting took place on Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and was part of the U.S.-led “Shield of the Americas” coalition focused on combating drug trafficking and organized crime.
Fernández appointed Foreign Trade Minister Indiana Trejos as acting foreign minister, with Trejos expected to assume the post after returning from the UN General Assembly.
What the Presidency Cited
Costa Rica’s presidency said Tovar attended the Trump-led session “without giving prior notice or informing” the president of his participation, and it framed the omission as the reason Fernández could not join the meeting. Fernández said she should have been the one to attend the meeting of Trump’s anti-cartel “Shield of the Americas” alliance in New York, and she linked the failure to consult her with “great strategic damage.”
The meeting occurred on Tuesday, September 22, in New York, and it took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The Reuters account cited by yalibnan said several right-wing Latin American presidents participated in the Tuesday meeting of the Shield of the Americas, an anti-cartel coalition launched in March by the Trump administration.
Shield of the Americas Stakes
The Americas Shield meeting that triggered Tovar’s dismissal included a joint declaration in which participating governments expressed their intention to apply measures against 24 organizations identified as narco-terrorists. Delfino.cr said the declaration also aimed to promote before the Organization of American States a consultation under the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR).
El Comercio Perú said the leaders who attended the meeting expressed their intention to collectively sanction 24 organized crime groups in the region that they considered an “immediate and shared threat.” El Mundo CR described the Americas Shield as an initiative promoted by the Donald Trump administration, launched in March, and it said the New York session on Tuesday, September 22, was led by Trump and included representatives from 15 countries.