Omission of presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, however, exposes failure of US president’s ‘theatrical’ doctrine, say experts
Donald Trump will welcome the leaders of at least 10 Latin American countries to a palm-dotted golf resort in Miami on Saturday as the president continues his quest to transform the US’s standing in the region and outmuscle China.
Since returning to power last year, Trump has launched a dramatic – and at times deadly – crusade to, as the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, put it, “reclaim our back yard”.
Vows to “take back” the Panama canal were followed by airstrikes on alleged narco boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, overt meddling in Brazil’s judicial system, threats of military intervention in Mexico and Colombia, and, most startlingly, the abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and the use of Predator drones to help kill one of the world’s most wanted drug bosses, El Mencho, in Mexico.
Trump has also rescued Argentina’s president, the radical libertarian Javier Milei, with a multibillion-dollar bailout, and interfered in Honduras’s recent election in support of the eventual rightwing winner. He recently suggested a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, as his administration seeks to strangle the country’s struggling communist regime into submission by cutting off its oil supply, despite UN warnings of a humanitarian “collapse”.
