MIAMI — US President Donald Trump will meet today with a dozen right-wing leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss issues facing the region, from organised crime to illegal immigration.
The “Shield of the Americas” summit also aims to serve Washington by boosting US interests in the region and curbing those from foreign powers like China.
Trump has already staked bold claims in Latin America with the ouster of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and working with his replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, to claim Venezuelan oil reserves for America.
The summit at Trump’s golf club in Doral, Florida — not far from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach — marks the latest instance of the president moving ahead with his so-called “Donroe Doctrine” of asserting expanded US authority in the Western Hemisphere.
The summit comes soon after Trump ordered US strikes alongside Israel in Iran, which has embroiled nations beyond the region in conflict, upended the world’s energy and transport sectors, and brought chaos to usually peaceful areas of the Gulf.
Trump has also implied in recent days that communist-run Cuba is “next” after taking out leaders in Venezuela and Iran.
Among the leaders to attend the Florida summit are Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele — whose security crackdown is seen as a model for many in the region.
Most of the right-wing heads of state share concern about the rising power of drug cartels in Latin America, a phenomenon that has spread to countries considered fairly safe until recently such as Ecuador and Chile, said Irene Mia, a Latin America expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
“All those countries used to be quite secure and didn’t really have an issue with organised crime, but they’ve seen increasing levels of organised crime because of the reconfiguration of the drug trade,” Mia told AFP.
The strained security situation, which has contributed to the Latin American right wing’s recent string of electoral victories, means the trend of US intervention has received less pushback than in the past, she added.
Some of the leaders, like Ecuador’s Noboa, have worked to strengthen their ties to Washington since coming to power.
Just this week, the US and Ecuador announced joint operations to combat drug trafficking that has turned one of the previously safest countries in Latin America to among the deadliest in just a few years.
Late Friday, the US military and Noboa separately released video of a house exploding in a forested area of Ecuador, calling it a successful blow against “narcoterrorists.”
