WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is to embark on his first major tour of Central and South America this week as a worried region watches Venezuela’s slide into crisis.

On Thursday, Washington’s top envoy will lay out his vision for relations with the United States’ southern neighbors in a speech in Texas before jetting on a five-nation voyage.

The political and economic turmoil in Venezuela will top the agenda as Tillerson rallies support for Washington’s tough stance against President Nicolas Maduro’s regime.

But Tillerson will also tackle crime and immigration in US neighbour Mexico, after President Donald Trump threatened to tear up a North American trade pact and build a border wall.

And, in his talks with senior officials, he will help prepare four major diplomatic events, starting with April’s Summit of the Americas in Peru and June’s G7 meet in Canada.

Then, later this year on Nov.30 to Dec.1, Latin America will for the first time host the G20 Leaders’ Summit of the world’s great powers in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

“We’re going to have a year of high profile events,” a senior State Department official told Washington reporters at a background briefing on the trip ahead.

“The secretary’s speech will, I think, set the stage for all of that,” he said, explaining Tillerson’s stop over at the University of Austin, in Texas on his southward leg.

In addition to the international timetable, several major Latin American economies hold elections this year, including Venezuela, which plans to vote before the end of April.

Washington has vowed not the recognize the result of that vote, which it says was set up in violation of Venezuela’s own constitution simply to entrench Maduro’s beleaguered regime.

Less controversially, but still critically for the democratic health of the continent, other players will also go the polls.

Mexico votes in July, perhaps delaying high-wire negotiations between Washington and President Pena Nieto’s government to save the NAFTA trade deal and fight organised crimes.

There will also be a Colombian election in May and a Brazilian election in October.

Venezuela will be top of the agenda at each of the stops: Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and then a few hours in Jamaica on the homeward leg.

All the stops but Jamaica are members of the Lima Group set up to coordinate a joint Americas response to the Venezuela crisis, and Jamaica has joined meetings and played a role.

Agence France-Presse