Trump meets Latin American leaders turning his attention to the Western Hemisphere

President Trump has urged Latin American leaders to come together to fight violent companies as his administration appears to show that it is still committed to strengthening US foreign policy focused on the Western Hemisphere, as it faces five global challenges.

The gathering, which the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit, came two months after Trump ordered a US military operation to capture Venezuela’s then-president. Nicolas Maduroand took him and his wife to the United States to face conspiracy charges.

In his opening speech, Mr. Trump said the leaders gathered “in the belief that we will no longer tolerate and will no longer be able to tolerate lawlessness in our country.”

He was joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, newly appointed Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas – Western Hemisphere, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were also in attendance.

Mr. Trump focused part of his words on the cartels that run in Mexico, saying that the “epcenter of cartel violence” originates in the country. He added that the cartels are fueling and orchestrating “deep bloodshed and chaos” in the region, before signing a declaration that the president said would establish an American counter-cartel coalition.

“The only way to defeat these enemies is to unleash the power of our soldiers,” said Mr. “We have to use our soldiers. You have to use your soldiers.”

What is even greater is the decision of Mr. Trump joined Israel to start a war on Iran last week, a conflict that has left hundreds dead, disrupted world markets and disrupted the Middle East.

The president’s time with Latin American leaders will be limited: He will fly to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, to attend the ceremony Six US soldiers died in a drone strike on the command center in Kuwait, one day after the US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran.

But with this conference, Mr. Trump was looking to turn to the Western Hemisphere, at least for a while. He is committed to reasserting US dominance in the region and rolling back what he sees as years of Chinese economic encroachment on American turf.

“Under previous leaders, we were frustrated with every other theater and every other border in the world except our own,” Hegseth told state leaders and defense ministers gathered in Florida this week for anti-drug talks. “These elites are reducing our power and our presence in this hemisphere, choosing to ignore the good that was not good.”

The leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and the Dominican Republic joined Republican presidential candidate Trump National Doral Miami, a golf course that will also host the Group of 20 summit later this year.

The idea of ​​a conference of like-minded conservationists from all over the hemisphere emerged from the ashes of what would have been the tenth edition of the Summit of the Americas, which was canceled during the US military build-up off the coast of Venezuela last year.

The then host Dominican Republic, under pressure from the White House, had barred Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from attending the regional meeting. But after leftist leaders in Colombia and Mexico threatened to walk out – and without Mr.

The Shield of the Americas moniker was intended to speak to Mr. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy on the region uses US military and intelligence equipment unseen anywhere since the end of the Cold War.

Missing from the event are the two countries that dominate the region – Brazil and Mexico – and Colombia, which is the center of the US’s anti-drug strategy in the region.

Richard Feinberg, who helped organize the first Summit of the Americas in 1994 while serving on the National Security Council in the Clinton White House, said the difference would not be significant.

“The first conference of the Americas, with 34 nations and a comprehensive agenda carefully discussed for regional competitiveness, thoughtful inclusion, consensus and hope,” said Feinberg, who is now a professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. “The hastily called Shield of the Americas mini-summit included a bent defense, with a dozen or so attendees gathered around one prominent figure.”

Since returning to the White House, Mr. Trump has made countering Chinese influence in the heartland a top priority. His national security strategy promotes the “Trump Corollary” of the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which sought to prevent European immigration to the Americas, focusing on Chinese infrastructure projects, military cooperation and investment in the region’s resource industries.

The first sign of a very effective method was to equip Mr. Trump in Panama to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and review long-term port contracts held by a Hong Kong company amid US threats to retake the Panama Canal.

Recently, the US arrest of Maduro and the promise of Mr. Trump’s “running” of Venezuela threatens to disrupt oil exports to China – the main buyer of Venezuelan crude before the attack – and bring into Washington’s orbit one of Beijing’s closest allies in the region. Trump plans to travel to Beijing later this month to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But even the leaders who are very close to Mr. Trump has been reluctant to cut ties with China, said Evan Ellis, an expert on China relations in the region at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In many countries, China’s trade-oriented diplomacy fills a critical financial vacuum in a region with major development challenges ranging from poverty alleviation to infrastructure problems. In contrast, Mr. Trump has been cutting foreign aid to the region while rewarding countries that follow his immigration campaign – a policy that is widely unpopular around the world.

“The United States provides taxes, deportations and military, while China provides trade and investment,” said Kevin Gallagher, director of Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, who has written extensively on China’s economic ties to the Americas. “Leaders in the region would do well to remain neutral and abstain, so they can escalate the US-China rivalry to their own benefit.”