‘Shield of the Americas’: Trump receives 12 presidents of the Latin American right in Miami

The Summit of the Americasthe triennial meeting of the continent’s leaders scheduled in the Dominican Republic last December, was canceled after it became clear that Donald Trump would not attend. The divisions between the continent’s governments were too deep, it was argued at the time. This Saturday, the American president presents the Shield of the Americas at his golf club in Miami (“Shield of the Americas”), a new alliance with 12 leaders from the region with similar ideology. The goals are to combat drug trafficking and mass immigration, and reduce China’s influence in the area.

The meeting is one more step, perhaps one of the most significant, to launch the neoimperialist vision that distills into what the Republican Administration nicknamed the “Donroe Doctrine”: that new “America, for Americans” that James Monroe proclaimed two centuries ago and in which the White House considers that The United States must be the hegemonic power on the continent. That doctrine, reflected in the National Security Strategy, declares Washington’s top foreign policy priority. It advocates strengthening ties with governments and personalities related to Trumpism and promoting their arrival or permanence in power. At the same time, he plans to confront those he considers hostile, to the point of depose them or threaten to do so in the cases of Venezuela and Cuba.

Trump arrives at the meeting full of joy. He boasts that, after the success of the military intervention in Venezuela, the Government supervised by the United States headed by Delcy Rodríguez “he is doing a great job” and the oil that the South American country leaves in the hands of Washington “begins to flow.” Its Armed Forces have announced a major joint operation against drug trafficking in Ecuador. And in his statements about the joint offensive with Israel against Iran, he refers more and more frequently to Cuba and predicts almost daily, and without needing to be asked, that The Castro regime “is about to fall”.

The presidents of Argentina, Javier Milei, will participate in the summit; Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz; Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves; Ecuador, Daniel Noboa; Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader; El Salvador, Nayib Bukele; Guyana, Mohamed Irfaan Ali; Honduras, Nasry “Tito” Asfura; Panama, José Raúl Mulino; Paraguay, Santiago Peña, and Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissesar, as well as the elected president of Chile, José Antonio Kast. Governments like Mexico, Colombia or Brazil are left out. However, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt left open the possibility of other nations joining at the last minute, officially confirming this week a meeting that senior presidential officials had already announced in February.

The participants in the meeting at Trump’s golf club in Doral (Miami) “are the leaders of these countries that have formed a historic coalition to collaborate and stop criminal cartels narcoterrorists and massive immigration, not only to the United States, but throughout the continent. It is something that continues to be a key and absolute priority for the president,” Leavitt announced.

The State Department has described the meeting as a moment when “the United States will welcome our best, like-minded allies in our hemisphere to promote freedom, security and prosperity in our region.” ”This historic coalition of nations will collaborate to advance strategies that stop foreign interference in our hemisphere, illegal and massive immigration, and criminal and narcoterrorist cartels and gangs,” he said.

On the eve of the summit, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, traveled to Doral to visit the headquarters of the Southern Command, responsible for US forces in Latin America, and meet with his counterparts from the new alliance, in a meeting called Anti-Cartel Conference of the Americas. There, the head of the Pentagon linked mass migration to end of “western and Christian” civilization on the continent: “We face an essential test to determine whether our nations will continue to be Western nations with distinctive characteristics, Christian nations under God,” he maintained.

Hegseth also called on Latin American countries to do more in the fight against drug trafficking. “We have only just begun to work with you. You must do more and we must do more to attack narcoterrorist groups in all areas. We will dismantle narcoterrorist networks in this hemisphere and deny access to state adversaries who support them,” he urged. US forces continue the bombing campaign against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, in which they have launched dozens of attacks and killed nearly 150 people.

Also on the eve of the meeting, Trump announced the appointment as special envoy for the new group of Kristi Noem, removed as head of the Department of Homeland Security after a highly criticized management of immigration policy, mass deportations and deployment of the police responsible for controlling the borders and immigration of the United States.

While the Trump Administration has boasted of its commitment to the region—“our hemisphere,” according to State Department memes on social media—and organizes this summit, it has also set aside its participation in other regional forums. He has withdrawn from three entities and has threatened to cut funds to other institutions.

Throughout his first year in office, Trump has received many Latin American leaders at the White House, from the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele to the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who visited the Oval Office in February. The Republican has not been shy about expressing his support for the candidates of his preference in electoral processes in the region: in October he did so in favor of Javier Milei in Argentina, by conditioning US economic aid to the victory of his ally. In December he turned the electoral process in Honduras upside down by announcing the pardon of former president Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted of drug trafficking in the United States and from the same party as Nasri. Tito Asfura, the conservative candidate who ended up winning those elections after the Republican’s action.

The US National Security Strategy also specifies as one of its objectives in Latin America to eliminate, or at least reduce, China’s influence in the region, where Beijing is the main trading partner of numerous countries. Promoting business opportunities for American companies is another.

The meeting of heads of state in Doral this Saturday takes place just three weeks before Trump travels to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.