Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the U.S. State Department sent President Laura Fernández an invitation to a U.S.-led security meeting, but the ministry hasn’t said when it reached her office. Fernández didn’t attend the 22 September meeting in New York; Foreign Minister Manuel Tovar went instead, and officials dismissed him two days later. The ministry confirms delivery to Costa Rica’s diplomatic service, not whether Fernández saw the invitation before registration closed on 19 September.
The Invitation and the Missed Meeting
The ministry gave San José daily La Nación a copy of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s invitation on Friday, 9 October, after the newspaper asked about it. The letter invited Fernández to the Shield of the Americas meeting at U.N. Headquarters, 405 East 42nd Street, at 2 p.m. It was addressed to a head of state or government, with registration due by 19 September.
“We are sharing the respective invitation sent virtually by the State Department, passed on through ordinary diplomatic channels,” the ministry said. It hasn’t disclosed when the invitation arrived or when staff forwarded it to Casa Presidencial. Those missing dates leave unresolved whether Fernández or her staff could have responded before the deadline.
Fernández was in Barranquilla, Colombia, on 22 September for security talks with Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella. In a 21 July interview, she said she would skip the U.N. General Assembly to focus on issues at home. She has blamed an “error” in passing on Rubio’s invitation, but hasn’t identified who received it or when.
Tovar had spoken publicly about a high-level Shield of the Americas meeting in New York at least since 17 September. He led Costa Rica’s delegation. On 24 September, Casa Presidencial said: “Tovar attended the session without giving prior notice or informing the President of the Republic of his participation.” It said his negligence caused “great strategic damage” by keeping Fernández out of the session. Tovar hasn’t given his account of the dispute or answered La Nación’s interview requests. Apart from a brief farewell message, his only public comment has been a Bible verse on X: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
A Coalition of Governments
Donald Trump launched the Shield of the Americas on 7 March 2026 in Doral, Florida, according to San José news site Delfino. The U.S.-led coalition’s agenda covers organised crime, drug cartels, irregular migration and the influence of outside powers in the hemisphere. The New York session was its second meeting.
Rubio said Trump would join later. Trump arrived after the meeting began and led part of the session, though the invitation card sent in Rubio’s name didn’t mention him. The U.S. State Department’s public schedule, released the evening before, listed only Rubio’s meeting with Shield heads of state and foreign ministers. CR Hoy reported that the official agenda didn’t mention Trump.
The 15 participating governments issued a joint declaration against 24 groups they described as narco-terrorist. They also said they would seek a consultation at the Organization of American States under the Rio Treaty, a 1947 mutual-defence pact. Paraguay said on 18 September that President Santiago Peña would attend; the Dominican Republic listed President Luis Abinader’s participation the next day.
What the Record Establishes
Fernández won Costa Rica’s 1 February 2026 election for Pueblo Soberano, the governing party aligned with her predecessor, Rodrigo Chaves. At an official event at the Golfito marina on the southern Pacific coast, she apologised to U.S. Ambassador Melinda Hildebrand for missing the meeting.
The ministry’s release establishes that Washington addressed the invitation to Costa Rica’s head of state through diplomatic channels and that it reached the ministry. It doesn’t establish that Fernández saw it. The report said nothing suggested Costa Rica was leaving the Shield of the Americas, and no visa, travel, trade or investment rules had changed because of the dispute.