The Trump National Doral Miami hosted a meeting on Saturday between US President Donald Trump and leaders from 14 countries in the region, convened under the Shield of Americas initiative.
Attendees included Argentina's Javier Milei, El Salvador's Nayib Bukele and Chilean President-elect José Antonio Kast, along with the leaders of Ecuador, Paraguay, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, among others.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was not invited as she has rejected US aid to fight the cartels, Trump said.
The centrepiece of the meeting was the announcement of a military alliance with a stated goal: to"eliminate the cartels" from the Western world. According to Trump, 17 nations have formally joined.
"The essence of our agreement is a commitment to use lethal military force to destroy sinister cartels and terrorist networks," he told the gathering. The same resort, owned by the president, will host the G20 summit later this year.
Cuba, Venezuela and the Panama Canal
Trump devoted a significant part of his speech to Cuba, stating that the island is in its "last moments" and that he is negotiating directly with Havana through Cuban-born US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"They want to negotiate and I think an agreement will be reached very easily," he said. He did not rule out what he called a "friendly takeover" of the island.
At the same time, he formally recognised the government of interim President Delcy Rodríguez in Venezuela, a country that has been undergoing a transition process for months under Washington's tutelage following the arrest of Nicolás Maduro.
Trump also announced an agreement on Venezuelan gold, although he did not specify the terms. On Panama, he reiterated that he will not allow "hostile foreign influence" in the eponymous canal, which he called his "favourite canal" in front of Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino.
On the sidelines of Latin American affairs, Trump referred to the intervention that the US continues to carry out in Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury.
He claimed that in three days US forces have destroyed 42 Iranian military vessels and that the country "will be hit hard".
Hours earlier, he had posted on Truth Social that Iran is no longer "the bully of the Middle East" but "the loser", a reference to the apology that the Iranian president made to the Persian Gulf countries after this week's attacks.
