Trump's “Wars on Everything” in LATAM
Data shows efforts to reduce drug flows, improve security, and combat criminal groups in the region are failing, but those were never the US motives
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The administration of Donald Trump has rolled the “Wars” on terrorism, drugs, and migration into one. And the US using the resulting “omniwar” as a justification for a massive increase in US power projection across the Western Hemisphere.
The North American country is imposing a level of aggressiveness and direct intervention in the region not seen since the height of the Cold War. Through military strikes, economic threats, naval blockades, drone strikes, election interference, and favors to Latin American leaders who subordinate themselves to US interests, Trump has employed strongman tactics to get what he wants in Latin America.
The tactics have not achieved a reduction in drug flows to the US, increased security, or a reduction in power of the groups the US considers “terrorists,” but members of the administration have made it increasingly clear that those were never the underlying motives for US actions.
Trump spokespeople have adopted the portmanteau “Donroe Doctrine,” to describe US plans to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere,” according to the 2025 US National Security Strategy.
The nickname is a variation of the Monroe Doctrine —a legal argument that was invoked to justify US assassinations, invasions, blockades, the financing of death squads, and the installation of dictatorships across the Americas, primarily but not exclusively, in the 20th century.
The Monroe Doctrine led to egregious human rights violations across the Americas and a history of covert as well as open US interference and intervention in the region that most people today strongly reject.
However, it did largely achieve the goals of its proponents. US expansionism created an effective “Empire” in the vast majority of Latin America. States in the region either became clients or subordinates, or th
ey risked becoming active enemies of the US.
Under Trump, however, US actions have been chaotic, self-contradicting, and at times even counterproductive (even from the point of view of those who espouse a return to some of the darkest days of Latin American history)
Under Trump, however, US actions have been chaotic, self-contradicting, and at times even counterproductive (even from the point of view of those who espouse a return to some of the darkest days of Latin American history)
Military actions have yielded mixed results and have failed to achieve either increases in security in the regions where the US military is operating or the flow of drugs.