While Donald Trump’s war against Iran monopolises the spotlight, the US president is still keeping an eye on America’s backyard. And his latest initiative there is all about military force too.
Trump’s second front
At Donald Trump’s Doral golf club in southern Florida last Saturday, more than a dozen Latin American leaders joined the United States president for the launch of a new initiative called the Shield of the Americas. Described by Trump as a coalition to combat drug cartels, it promises to expand multilateral and bilateral co-operation to enhance border security, counter “narco-terrorism” and drug trafficking and to secure critical infrastructure.
“The heart of our agreement is a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks,” Trump said.
Those present included the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Paraguay, the prime ministers of Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, and the president-elect of Chile, José Antonio Kast. All are from the right or far right and Trump has praised most of them in the past or, in the case of Tito Asfura of Honduras, endorsed them when they were running for office.
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Notably absent were Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, who are from the left or centre-left and whose countries between them account for more than half the region’s population and GDP. Colombia and Mexico are the biggest sources of drugs entering the US and despite their absence from Saturday’s summit, both have been co-operating with the US on anti-narcotics operations in recent weeks.
“Every leader here today is united in the conviction that we cannot and will not tolerate the lawlessness in our hemisphere any longer. The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries. We have to use our military,” Trump said.
The day before the summit, Ecuador’s defence ministry said its military had used US intelligence and support to bomb a drug-trafficking base near the Colombian border. But although US forces were present at an Ecuadorean base during the operation, the foreign ministry said they were only there temporarily, an important clarification given that foreign military installations have been outlawed in Ecuador since 2008.
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has been struggling to get gang violence under control and his hope will be that US military support might help with that fight as well as securing better treatment over tariffs and other economic issues. Polls point to crime and insecurity as the biggest concern among Latin American citizens and the problem posed by drugs gangs is getting worse, with cocaine production in Colombia increasing by 50 per cent in 2023 alone.
Alongside Trump for the launch of the Shield of the Americas were secretary of state Marco Rubio and, fresh from her firing as homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, who is the president’s special envoy for the initiative. But the event saw no announcement of long-term funding and no ideas about how to address the causes of the problem, including poverty, corruption and weak states.
For Washington, the initiative is in keeping with the Trump corollary to the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which seeks to expand US influence over the western hemisphere. Already this year, this has seen the US use force to abduct Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, to attack vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific and to enforce a near-blockade on Cuba.
Trump is also seeking to reduce China’s influence in Latin America, where it has long since supplanted the US as the biggest trading partner. The final clause of the declaration establishing the Shield of the Americas says the US and its allies “should keep external threats at bay, including malign foreign influences from outside the western hemisphere”.
No prizes for guessing who those are.
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