US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged Latin American nations to use military power against the “cancer” of drug cartels and offered to support them with US missile strikes targeting narco kingpins.

It’s the latest threat of military action by Trump. In January, US forces seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, who stands accused of narcoterrorism. A week ago, the US and Israel began a campaign of airstrikes against the Iranian regime.

In a speech to regional leaders gathered at his Miami-area golf club, Trump 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” and advocating tough action by allies against organized crime blighting the region.

He formally launched a 17-nation “counter cartel” coalition, which the White House described as a pledge from governments in the region 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.”

Among the leaders attending the “Shield of the Americas” summit are Argentina’s libertarian 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.

Trump has already staked bold claims in Latin America with the ouster of Maduro and by working with his replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, to claim Venezuelan oil reserves for America.

Milei, Noboa and Bukele all posted photos of them standing beside Trump on social media.

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.”

Irene Mia, a Latin America expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said drug cartel violence has 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 doubled down on his recent warnings toward Cuba, the longtime US adversary he has implied could be “next” after taking out leaders in Venezuela and Iran.

“I’ll take care of Cuba,” Trump told 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,” the US president said, adding, “Cuba’s in its last moments of life.”

“Great change will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said, adding that “they’re very much at the end of the line.”

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 both have large populations and are currently led by leftists Claudia Sheinbaum and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Colombia was also not represented.

“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.

Trump made no mention of his administration’s insistence that countering Chinese influence in the hemisphere is a top priority for his second term.

His national security strategy promotes the “Trump Corollary” to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which had sought to ban European incursions in the Americas, by targeting Chinese infrastructure projects, military cooperation and investment in the region’s resource industries.

The first demonstration of the more muscular approach was Trump’s strong-arming of Panama to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and review long-term port contracts held by a Hong Kong-based company amid US threats to retake the Panama Canal.

More recently, the US capture of Maduro and Trump’s pledge to “run” Venezuela threatens to disrupt oil shipments to China — the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude before the raid — and bring into Washington’s orbit one of Beijing’s closest allies in the region.

Trump is scheduled to travel to Beijing later this month to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

For many countries, China’s trade-focused diplomacy fills a critical financial void in a region with major development challenges ranging from poverty reduction to infrastructure bottlenecks. In contrast, Trump has been slashing foreign assistance to the region while rewarding countries lined up behind his crackdown on immigration — a policy widely unpopular across the hemisphere.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the leaders for a working lunch after Trump left for the event in Delaware. The lunch gave Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired as homeland security secretary on Thursday, the chance to make her debut in her new role as a special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas.”

“We want our hemisphere to be safer, to be more sovereign, and to be more prosperous,” Noem told the leaders.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report. 

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