(AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged Latin American nations to use military power against the “cancer” of drug cartels, offering to support them with US missile strikes targeting narco kingpins. Trump, currently waging a war with Iran, laid out a muscular position for advancing Washington’s interests in the Western hemisphere, pronouncing that communist-led Cuba was “in its last moments of life”. He also advocated tough action by allies against organized crime blighting the region.
He formally launched a 17-nation “counter cartel” coalition that the White House described as a pledge from governments to use “hard power” against security threats. “We’re working with you to do whatever we have to do. We’ll use missiles. You want us to use a missile? They’re extremely accurate,” Trump told a dozen right-wing leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean at his Doral golf club near Miami. “‘Piu,’ right into the living room,” he said, suggesting the sound of a missile in flight. “That’s the end of that cartel person. But we’ll do whatever you need.”
Trump has already staked bold claims in Latin America with the ouster of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro and working with his replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, to claim Venezuelan oil reserves for America. Among the leaders attending the “Shield of the Americas” summit were Argentina’s President Javier Milei, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who has arrested tens of thousands of people in a crackdown on gangs. All three leaders posted to social media photos of them standing beside Trump. Noboa wrote in Spanish: “For too long, organized crime believed that America was its territory. That they could cross borders, move drugs, weapons, and violence without consequences. That time is over for them.”
But Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel posted on X that the “neocolonial” gathering of right-wing leaders “commits them to accepting the lethal use of US military force to solve internal problems.” Irene Mia, a Latin America expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said drug cartel violence had hit countries in the region that until recently were considered fairly safe, such as Ecuador and Chile. The strained security situation has contributed to the right wing’s recent string of electoral victories in Latin America and means the trend of US intervention has received less pushback than in the past, Mia told AFP.
Trump urged regional leaders to use military force to stamp out criminal organizations, which he likened to a cancer, saying, “We don’t want it spreading.” “The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries. We have to use our military,” he said. Trump also doubled down on his recent warnings toward Cuba, which he has implied could be “next” after taking out leaders in Venezuela and Iran. “I’ll take care of Cuba,” Trump told the leaders. “They have no money, they have no oil. They have a bad philosophy, they have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time,” he said, adding, “Cuba’s in its last moments of life.”
That warning comes a week after Trump, with Israel, launched devastating strikes against Iran, sparking a regional conflict that has upended usually peaceful areas of the Gulf. Also this week, the United States and Ecuador announced joint operations to combat drug trafficking and on Friday released video of a house exploding in a forested area of Ecuador, calling it a successful blow against “narcoterrorists.”
In addition to Milei, Bukele, and Noboa, Trump hosted the leaders of Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Jose Antonio Kast, the president-elect of Chile. The analyst, Mia, pointed to some glaring absences: Mexico and Brazil, which are currently led by leftists Claudia Sheinbaum and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “Without Mexico and Brazil, it’s not going to be very successful in tackling those issues” of narcotrafficking and counterterrorism, she said, given that Mexican cartels play a key role in the trafficking supply chain, and Brazil’s ports are critical narco-trafficking routes to Europe.
– Aurelia End, with Matthew Pennington in Washington
© 2024 AFP
