Reading Time: 4 minutesSince returning to the White House in 2025, Donald Trump has pushed a muscular foreign policy that has broken with long-standing conventions and taken risky actions to reassert Washington’s role in Latin America. From capturing former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to negotiating directly with the Castros in Cuba, Trump 2.0 has made it clear: The old rule book has been thrown away.
Amid today’s big-stick diplomacy, the new play Public Charge—showing at Manhattan’s Newman Theater until April 12—rekindles a different approach to U.S. foreign policy through the eyes of diplomat Julissa Reynoso. The former U.S. ambassador to Uruguay and deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs under the Obama administration, Reynoso also served as assistant to the president, chief of staff to the first lady, and later as U.S. ambassador to Spain and Andorra during the Biden presidency.
Add to that resume playwright. Yes, Reynoso is not only the subject of Public Charge, she’s also its author, alongside writer Michael J. Chepiga. The two have produced a show that provides a first-hand account of Latin America policy during the Obama administration, when the State Department was helmed by Hillary Clinton, for whom Reynoso campaigned in 2008.
