Democracy Dies in Darkness
National Security

Central American security conference scrapped amid U.S. tensions with Guatemala, El Salvador

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September 7, 2018 at 10:47 p.m. EDT
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, center, places a sash on Gen. Manuel Pineda Saravia, right, during the 145th anniversary of the military school in San Juan Sacatepequez, Guatemala, on Sept. 1, 2018. Morales says he is shutting down a crusading U.N.-sponsored anti-corruption commission that pressed a number of high-profile graft investigations, including one pending against the president himself over purported illicit campaign financing. (Moises Castillo/AP)

A high-level conference intended to highlight U.S. security cooperation with Mexico and Central America was abruptly called off Friday amid flaring diplomatic tensions with El Salvador and Guatemala, according to two Trump administration officials.

Top diplomats and security officials from the United States, Mexico and Central America were scheduled to meet next week in Washington as a follow-up to the “Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America,” held in Miami last year and attended by then-Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly and Rex Tillerson, the U.S. secretary of state at the time.