In Miami, president calls for regional cooperation to counter Chinese economic and political interests
Donald Trump changed the channel from Iran to the western hemisphere on Saturday, convening a gathering of Latin American leaders at his Miami-area golf club to discuss regional interests and establishing what he called a “counter-cartel coalition”.
“Just as we formed a coalition to eradicate Isis, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels,” he told 12 regional leaders gathered at what the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit.
“We must recognize that the epicenter of cartel violence is Mexico,” where “the cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere.”
Trump gathered the summit of leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago, just two months after a US military operation to capture Venezuela’s then president Nicolás Maduro, who is awaiting trial on drugs and weapons conspiracy charges in the US.
