Podcast: Trump Diplomats Depart an OAS Mission in Turmoil

This is the transcript of episode 78 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.

FIALLO: There is a multifaceted crisis at the OAS. This General Assembly has been a missed opportunity to address issues that are truly pressing, that require difficult conversations, and that haven't been discussed.

GRESSIER, HOST: That’s Dominican Ambassador Josué Fiallo, ex-president of the Organization of American States Permanent Council. A wave of departures of U.S. diplomats from the multilateral shows the United States isn’t immune from an OAS crisis fueled by dueling ideologies and dubious finances.

On today’s episode: top U.S. diplomats ditch Trump’s OAS delegation, El Salvador puts positive spin on sluggish economic growth, and a trial approaches for the murder of a Nicaraguan exile in Costa Rica.

U.S. diplomats leave OAS mission

According to a Reuters report last week, a wave of senior U.S. diplomats posted to the OAS have resigned or been fired in recent months amid clashes with Leandro Rizzuto Jr., Donald Trump's ambassador.

Before the OAS Assembly met this week in Panama, Reuters revealed the departure of the U.S. deputy chief of mission, chief of staff, a senior political advisor, and at least one other foreign service officer, leaving the leadership of the U.S. mission empty.

The string of departures comes after clashes with Rizzuto, whose management style struck career officials as confrontational and erratic.

Rizzuto denied the allegations while acknowledging that several senior diplomats had recently resigned or been fired. He said he is trying to shift the OAS's focus from human rights and democracy to economic issues — with a few exceptions like Nicaragua, which this week drew widespread criticism at the General Assembly.

The organization receives 49 percent of its funding from the U.S., and according to the federal budget request for 2027, the U.S. contribution is being cut. The organization is also grappling with a crisis of internal governance and identity.

Washington’s distrust of the organization has been fueled by allegations of financial irresponsibility against the Surinam-born Secretary-General Albert Ramdin.

Last week, the U.S. pulled the visa of Xaviera Jessurun, the Surinamese chief of staff handpicked by Ramdin to work with him in Washington.

This crisis is not new. Last year, Fiallo told us the OAS “could be on the verge of a collapse” under Trump’s threats to withdraw from multilaterals that the U.S. has long promoted. And that was before U.S. forces invaded Venezuela.

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In March, after experts in a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned U.S. boat strikes against civilians accused of drug trafficking, Washington again rejected international oversight.

But rather than the U.S. departing the OAS, its own diplomats are the ones packing their bags and aborting the mission.

Sluggish economic growth in El Salvador

In April, the World Bank updated El Salvador's economic growth projection for 2026 — from 3.0 to 3.2 percent. The Bukele government ran with the two-tenths of a percentage point.

High-profile ruling party legislator Christian Guevara posted “good news!” in  an AI-generated image on X.

What the optimism papered over, but which the World Bank did not, is that El Salvador has the lowest projected economic growth in all of Central America for 2026.

The Bank credited “strengthened security measures” for a reduction of crime with boosting market confidence, but  warned of low productivity, limited human capital, large fiscal deficits, and restricted access to external financing.

That last bit is odd, considering Bukele is gaining increased access to IMF and other funding.This growth doesn’t tell us who benefits from that expansion. In April, the price of a basic food basket in El Salvador reached $256.70, $9 more than a year ago.

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Economist Tatiana Marroquín told us that growth figures must be analyzed with the last three decades, and that this year’s figures are in keeping with that trend.

So what’s driving the economy? A large part isn't domestic policy. It's money sent home from abroad: remittances.

In 2025, Salvadorans received nearly $10 billion in remittances, an 18 percent increase from 2024 and a record high. That's roughly a quarter of the country's entire GDP coming from family members living outside El Salvador, most of them in the United States.

It’s a vulnerability. Another economist we consulted, Rommel Rodríguez, says the Trump administration's tightening of immigration policies threatens that flow of dollars.

Trial to ahead in Samcam murder case

Now, to Costa Rica. June 19 marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of retired Nicaraguan Major Roberto Samcam. As a refugee, he was killed in front of his home in San José, Costa Rica.

After a year of investigation, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. And a trial against the suspects is expected to begin in 2027.

A few months before his death, the major had reported Nicaraguan government espionage networks in Costa Rica to the local intelligence authorities and warned he was in danger.

So far, there are five suspects in the attack, but only four are in custody. The fifth is the Nicaraguan citizen Kenny Hosman Navarrete, who, according to Costa Rican investigators, has ties to the Army’s Defense Intelligence Directorate. He may also be the one who orchestrated the attack from a prison in Alajuela, Costa Rica.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office has already filed formal charges against the suspects who carried out the murder, but one of the hard-hitting international attorneys representing Samcam’s family in the prosecution, Almudena Bernabeu, told digital outlet Confidencial that, to the best of her knowledge, Navarrete has not yet been charged.

Samcam’s family was given a deadline to file a complaint for the trial. Bernabeu expects a date to be set for the trial to begin in 2027.

Claudia Vargas, Samcam’s widow, told another outlet, Divergentes, that while initiating this trial is a step forward, “justice must be served not only against those who carried out the crime, but also against those who planned it.”

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Samcam’s murder is not the only one committed against Nicaraguan refugees in Costa Rica. Bernabeu said in her interview with Confidencial that “there is a desire on the part of the current regime in Nicaragua to silence these people, and they are sparing no effort to achieve this.”

His murder caused panic among Nicaraguan exiles in Costa Rica, who demanded international protection and a thorough investigation and accused the Ortega-Murillo regime.

The Costa Rican government had not previously commented on the matter, but this week, Foreign Minister Manuel Tovar condemned Samcam’s murder before the OAS General Assembly.

That show of concern contrasts with recent statements by Costa Rican President Laura Fernández, who said that the Nicaraguan people “chose” their government. He clarified that Costa Rica is indeed worried about the state of human rights and democracy in Nicaragua.

This episode was written by Yuliana Ramazzini, Leyrian Colón Santiago and Megan Mandrachio, who’s interning with El Faro English from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.