Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, has urged Latin American countries to adopt a more aggressive approach against drug cartels, warning that the Trump administration may otherwise act unilaterally in the region.
Hegseth’s remarks come in a context of escalating US intervention in the region, both militarily and in elections, which culminated in the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro – the first US ground military attack on a South American country.
For months, the Trump administration has used the so-called “war on drugs” to justify strikes on small boats that have killed 152 people and the months-long military build-up along Venezuela’s borders – although the US president later admitted that his main objective was the country’s vast oil reserves.
“America is prepared to take on these threats and go on offence alone if necessary. However, it is our preference, and it is the goal of this conference, that in the interest of this neighbourhood, we all do it together with you,” said Hegseth in a speech to defence leaders from countries aligned with Donald Trump at US Southern Command in Miami.
Representatives from 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries attended the event, named the 2026 Americas Counter Cartel Conference. The attendees included delegations from Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, but three key nations with a significant share of drug production or trafficking – Colombia, Mexico and Brazil – did not attend.
In recent decades, the US has invested billions of dollars in military aid to Latin American allies, yet cocaine production is at a record high and global drug prices are at historic lows.
White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller – seen by many as one of the main advocates of the attack on Venezuela – argued that drug cartels can only be defeated with military force.
“What we have learned after decades of effort is that there is not a criminal justice solution to the cartel problem … The reason why this is a conference with military leadership and not a conference of lawyers is because these organisations can only be defeated with military power,” Miller said.
Citing earlier measures by Trump that designated cartels in Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia as foreign terrorist organisations, Miller said such groups “are the Isis and the Al-Qaida of the western hemisphere and should be treated just as brutally and just as ruthlessly as we treat those organisations”.
David Marques, programme manager at the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, described the exclusively military approach to drug trafficking as “a very absurd simplification”.
“Military power alone is not sufficient to deal with this challenge,” he said, adding that narco-trafficking involves complex transnational supply chains.
“If the fight is not multi-dimensional, it will be fruitless, and will produce only death and spectacular, politically ‘sellable’ actions, but very little efficiency in tackling the business that is supposedly being targeted,” said Marques.
Marques added that countries such as Mexico “have used military forces to deal with cartels for decades, and the result has not been positive”.
“The US created the concept of the ‘war on drugs’ in the past, and no longer uses that framing internally – look at how it has handled cannabis, for example – but continues trying to impose it externally with an interventionist zeal,” he added.
Earlier this week, the US and Ecuador announced the start of “joint operations” to combat drug trafficking groups, although few details have been disclosed, and analysts have noted that, US military advisers have long been active across the region.
In his speech, Hegseth said that “for too long, leaders in Washington abandoned the simple wisdom of the Monroe doctrine”, referring to the “America for Americans” foreign policy set out in 1823 by the US president James Monroe and later invoked to justify US-backed military coups in Latin America.
The defence secretary urged countries to remain “Christian nations, under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders” and not be led astray by “radical narco-communism, anarcho-tyranny … and uncontrolled mass migration”.
