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Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio has called for clos­er se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Caribbean na­tions, warn­ing that transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works pose what he de­scribed as the most ur­gent threat to the re­gion.

Ru­bio de­liv­ered the re­marks dur­ing a closed-door ses­sion at the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment, out­lin­ing what he framed as a re­newed US fo­cus on the West­ern Hemi­sphere un­der Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

“We be­lieve that per­haps the most ur­gent se­cu­ri­ty threat in the re­gion—that in­cludes us, but ob­vi­ous­ly all of you—is the threat of these transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions,” he said, not­ing that some groups pos­sess fund­ing and fire­pow­er ri­valling that of the states.