US tells Latin America: Military force is only way to defeat cartels

MIAMI – White House official Stephen Miller told a gathering of Latin American military leaders on March 5 that drug cartels can be defeated only with military force.

The comments make explicit a shift in US policy under President Donald Trump that has seen the Pentagon regularly blow up suspected drug boats, seize the president of Venezuela in January, and aid Mexico in February in its operation to capture that country’s

most wanted cartel boss.

“We have learnt after decades of effort that there is not a criminal justice solution to the cartel problem,” Mr Miller, White House homeland security adviser, told Latin American defence leaders gathered at the US Southern Command headquarters.

“The reason why this is a conference with military leadership and not a conference of lawyers is these organisations can only be defeated with military power.”

Legal experts and Democrats have questioned the legality of the US strategy, disputing Trump administration policy that equates drug traffickers with members of terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Mr Miller said there was no difference, adding that drug cartels “should be treated just as brutally and just as ruthlessly as we treat those organisations”.

The US policy has unnerved some traditional US military partners in Latin America, including Colombia, which did not send a delegation to the gathering.

Brazil and Mexico also did not send delegations.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said he wanted the conference to focus on operations that lead to closer cooperation against drug trafficking.

He drew applause for promising to make available resources to Southern Command, which oversees US forces in Latin America and for years has complained about being short on resources.

It will now need to compete for US troops, warships and aircraft as the US war against Iran unfolds.

Mr Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the goal was to gather like-minded, pro-Washington governments to provide more structure to new kinds of cooperation in the region.

That includes this week’s announcement that US military forces are assisting Ecuador to combat drug trafficking.

“The very recent example of Ecuador will serve as the model for other countries attending the conference,” Mr Berg said.

He added that the conference would also set the stage for an Americas summit hosted by Mr Trump in Miami this weekend where the US is expected to advance a counter-China agenda.

China’s influence

Many Latin American nations now see China, not the United States, as their top trading partner, and Mr Trump has taken aim at Chinese ties there.

That includes Panama, home to a strategic canal that he has threatened to take back by force, if necessary.

His national security strategy, published in December, argued that the US should revive the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine declaring the Western Hemisphere as Washington’s zone of influence.

Mr Hegseth joked this could be called the “Donroe Doctrine” to laughter in the crowd.

Critics say the rhetoric represents modern-day imperialism and that US military actions in Venezuela and the Caribbean have added to fears in a region where Washington has a troubled history of military interventions.

Addressing a region with many religions and ethnicities, Mr Hegseth said it remained to be seen whether Latin American nations would remain Western and Christian.

“We face an essential test whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God,” he added. REUTERS