President Donald Trump announced the establishment of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition alongside heads of state from the Western Hemisphere at the inaugural Shield of the Americas Summit at Trump National in Doral, Florida.
Trump unveiled the coalition to counter cartels at the top of his remarks at the summit Saturday morning.
“On this historic day, we come together to announce a brand new military coalition to eradicate the criminal cartels plaguing our region, and you have a lot of it,” Trump said.
“We’re calling this military partnership the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, and that’s what you need. You have cartels. They seem to grow in this region unbelievably rapidly. It has to do with drugs, largely,” he went on to add.
The president noted in his remarks that the United States has made substantial progress in neutralizing cartels’ ability to bring drugs into the United States by sea with Operation Southern Spear.
“You saw what we were doing with the boats coming in… There’s not a lot of people coming in by boats anymore. We knocked down drugs coming in by sea, drugs coming in through water, is down 96 percent. We’re trying to find out who the other four percent are,” he said.
Trump signed a Countering Cartel Criminal Activity Proclamation at the conclusion of the ceremony. The proclamation features four pillars, including calling for the dismantling of cartels and working with allies to make it happen:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim as follows:
(1) Criminal cartels and foreign terrorist organizations in the Western Hemisphere should be demolished to the fullest extent possible consistent with applicable law.
(2) The United States and its allies should coordinate to deprive these organizations of any control of territory and access to financing or resources necessary to conduct their campaigns of violence.
(3) The United States will train and mobilize partner nation militaries to achieve the most effective fighting force necessary to dismantle cartels and their ability to export violence and pursue influence through organized intimidation.
(4) The United States and its allies should keep external threats at bay, including malign foreign influences from outside the Western Hemisphere.
Attendees of the Shield of the Americas Summit include: Javier Milei, president of the Argentine Republic; Rodrigo Paz Pereira, president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia; Jose Antonio Kast, president-elect of the Republic of Chile; Rodrigo Chaves Robles, president of the Republic of Costa Rica; Luis Rodolfo Abinader Corona, president of the Dominican Republic; Daniel Roy Gilchrist Noboa Azín, constitutional president of the Republic of Ecuador; Nayib Bukele Ortez, president of the Republic of El Salvador; Mohamed Irfaan Ali, president of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana; Nasry “Tito” Asfura, president of the Republic of Honduras; José Raúl Mulino Quintero, president of the Republic of Panama; Santiago Peña, president of the Republic of Paraguay; Kamla Persad-Bissessar, SC, MP, prime minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Trump stressed the countries on hand share “security, prosperity, free commerce, and the rule of law” as priorities.
