Rubio, a longtime hawk on China, began his trip in Panama where he reported headway in his push to decrease China's influence around the crucial Panama Canal.

Like Panama, Costa Rica is a longstanding US partner that in recent years received a surge in Chinese investment.

Costa Rica in 2007 switched recognition to China from Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing -- a turning point as other Latin American countries followed suit.

But US officials also see hope in the example of Costa Rica, whose relations with China have turned rockier in recent years over local concerns about Beijing.

President Rodrigo Chaves, who will meet Rubio, in 2023 effectively forbade Chinese titan Huawei from bidding for the 5G network due to Beijing's refusal to sign an international agreement on cybercrime.

"President Chaves has been a great leader in that country in regards to recognizing the threat that China poses," said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy on Latin America.

Rubio is also expected to speak in Costa Rica about how to handle neighboring Nicaragua, where strongman Daniel Ortega and his wife last week were granted absolute powers through a constitutional change.

Rubio, a Cuban-American and the first Hispanic to be the top US diplomat, is a sworn foe of Latin American leftists, although former president Joe Biden also took a hard line against Ortega.

Rubio's five-nation trip is heavily focused on President Donald Trump's top priority of sending back undocumented migrants.

Costa Rica, one of the most stable and prosperous nations in Latin America, has long supported US efforts on migration.

On Monday, Rubio visited El Salvador and said he received an extraordinary offer by the country's iron-fisted president, Nayib Bukele, not only to take in migrants but to jail Americans if Trump wants to outsource American prisons.

Rubio will arrive later Tuesday in Guatemala, a key source of migration and also the most populous nation that still recognizes Taiwan.

Trump has described China as a major adversary and has imposed punishing tariffs in what he sees as a way to correct an imbalanced trading relationship between the world's two largest economies.