'Shield of the Americas': Trump Assembles His Fascist Hemispheric Fan Club

For nearly three years the Dominican Republic had been excitedly preparing to host the region’s biggest multilateral event: the 2025 Summit of the Americas, bringing together the leaders of nearly every government in the Western Hemisphere. But on November 3, only a month before the summit was to take place, the DR’s foreign ministry abruptly announced the postponement of the event citing “recent climatic events” (i.e., hurricanes) and “profound divisions that currently hamper productive dialogue in the hemisphere.”

Indeed, regional “divisions”—others might say “alarm” or “outrage”—had intensified during the fall of 2025 following the US’ massive military build-up in the Caribbean, its air strikes against alleged drug boats—resulting in scores of extrajudicial killings—and the threats of a US attack on Venezuela. Past summits, including the 2022 summit in Los Angeles, had seen Latin American leaders fiercely push back against US regional policies. Fearing a potential public relations disaster, DR President Luis Abinader—following consultations with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—decided that pulling the plug was the best option.

So far there’s no word of a new date for the Summit of the Americas. This weekend, however, President Donald Trump will convene a far smaller hemispheric summit at his golf resort in Miami. The group of Caribbean and Latin American leaders that will be attending Trump’s summit—entitled “Shield of the Americas”—are fans of his aggressive interventionism, his so-called “war on narco-terror,” and his administration’s attacks on left-wing governments and movements in the region. They have earned their exclusive invitations through various forms of tribute and by pledging their continued loyalty, though it remains to be seen whether Trump and Rubio will succeed in garnering support for every point on their agenda, in particular for their effort to push China out of the region.

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Featuring a who’s who of the Latin American hard right, Trump’s divisions-free summit is reminiscent of recent Conservative Political Action Conferences (CPACs) held in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Like those conferences—in which Argentina’s anarcho-capitalist president Javier Milei and Chile’s far-right president-elect José Antonio Kast have shared the stage with MAGA luminaries like Steve Bannon—the “Shield” summit appears designed to further promote Trump-aligned far-right cultish ideologies in the Americas. As an added bonus, it will be held at the National Trump Doral Miami, ensuring a solid weekend of revenue for Trump’s resort as well as quick, easy travel to and from Mar-a-Lago for the US president.

Still, it remains to be seen whether Trump—whose overall attitude toward the region and its inhabitants oscillates between contempt and indifference—will be willing to invest real time and energy in cultivating this group of leaders.

Each of the summit invitees—numbering 12 at last count—can claim to have advanced the US administration’s regional objectives in one way or another. Many have engaged in sustained attacks against left-wing governments and movements that have resisted Trump’s imperial ambitions. Milei, for instance, has repeatedly insulted President Lula da Silva of Brazil and thrown his support behind former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, convicted last year of plotting a military coup against Lula.

Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, in addition to persecuting left-wing opponents at home, has engaged in an unprovoked tariff war against Colombia’s progressive president—and vocal Trump critic—Gustavo Petro. On March 4, for no apparent reason other than that of wanting to please Trump and Rubio, Noboa expelled the entire diplomatic staff at Cuba’s embassy in Quito. Similarly, Honduras’ recently-elected right-wing president Nasry Asfura rescinded a medical cooperation agreement with Cuba, leading to the departure of more than 150 Cuban doctors that had been serving low-income communities. This offering will have surely warmed the heart of Marco Rubio, who has been pressuring countries around the world to terminate similar agreements in order to eliminate one of Cuba’s few sources of foreign income.

Above all, the cohort of right-wingers attending the summit have been supportive of Trump’s “war on narco-terror,” currently the main vehicle for advancing Trump’s policy of expanding US political and economic influence in the region, referred to both mockingly and seriously as the “Donroe Doctrine.” The first signs of this “war” date back to the first day of Trump’s second term, when he instructed Rubio to designate various drug cartels and Latin American gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations.” It became real when, in late July of last year, the US president ordered a massive build-up of naval and aerial military assets in the south Caribbean and directed US Southern Command (Southcom) to conduct illegal aerial strikes against suspected drug boats, leading so far to over 150 extrajudicial killings of mostly unknown civilians.

On January 3, following months of threats of US intervention in Venezuela, US forces conducted an unprovoked military attack and invasion of Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, who were flown to New York to await trial on dubious charges. The next day, the members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, by its Spanish initials) met and discussed a statement denouncing the illegal attack on Venezuela. Nine governments opposed the statement and effectively blocked its release. The leaders of those governments, except for that of politically unstable Peru, are now on the “Shield of the Americas” invitation list. Two other leaders who’d been elected but hadn’t taken office—Kast of Chile and Asfura of Honduras—defended the attack, and have been invited as well.

A number of governments have gone even further in embracing Trump’s “narco-terror war.” After the US administration designated the fictitious Venezuelan drug organization “Cartel de los Soles” as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, later identifying Maduro as its leader, the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, and the DR (all “Shield” invitees) did the same. Given the lack of real evidence that this so-called cartel exists, the US Department of Justice removed the term from its indictment of Maduro; however, the terrorist designation remains in the books in the US and in those four Latin American countries.

Many of the governments represented at the Miami summit have adopted the term “narco-terror” in official discourse and policy statements. Noboa, whose security forces are allegedly responsible for forced disappearances and widespread human rights abuses, has launched his own “war on narco-terror” in Ecuador. On March 3 the US and Ecuador announced joint military operations targeting “terrorist organizations” with US special forces supporting Ecuadorian commandos to “combat the scourge of narco-terrorism,” per Southcom. Other summit invitees, including Argentina, the DR, Bolivia, and El Salvador appear to be getting in the game as well and Paraguay, like Ecuador, has signed a Status of Forces Agreement with the US administration, allowing the presence of US troops and providing them with immunity from local prosecution.

It’s possible that the Trump administration considers that framing US military expansionism in the hemisphere as a combined war on terrorism and drug-trafficking is helpful in garnering public support, though there’s not much indication that it has, outside of the Republican MAGA base. But it’s hard to claim, with a straight face, that President Trump is genuinely determined to fight drug trafficking knowing that he recently pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year sentence for his role in enabling the importation of more than 400 tons of cocaine to the US. Or when one considers that one of his primary partners in his drug war is President Noboa, whose family’s business appears to be implicated in cocaine trafficking, according to a recent investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

As of the writing of this article, there are few details about the agenda of the summit except that apparently “security” and “foreign interference” will be discussed. Regarding “security,” Trump, Rubio, and Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth—who are all reportedly attending—probably won’t need to do much to convince their allies to double down further on the “narco-terror” threat. Given recent events, it’s likely they’ll focus more on shoring up regional support for the war with Iran, which has so far received mostly tepid backing, with the exception of presidents Milei, Kast, and Santiago Peña of Paraguay, who have all cheered on the joint US-Israeli attacks. They may also seek more overt backing for the intense US regime change effort targeting Cuba, which involves an oil blockade that could soon cause a “humanitarian collapse,” according to the United Nations. Trump and many Republicans have said that when they’re done in Iran, “Cuba is next.”

By “foreign interference” the White House is presumably not referring to US interference in Latin America and the Caribbean, which has been a constant for many decades but has reached new heights under Trump. Instead, the term is widely understood in Washington as primarily a reference to China’s growing regional influence. Here it is far from certain that Trump and his team will make much progress given the massive economic benefits derived from Chinese trade and investment. China is currently the top trading partner for Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Paraguay and the second biggest trading partner for nearly all of the other countries represented at the summit.

Many of these leaders have engaged in strident rhetoric against the PRC, but ultimately have quietly chosen to strengthen relations with the world’s second-biggest (and soon biggest) economy. Milei, for instance, referred to the Chinese government as “assassins” and said that he refused to do business with communists. He has completely changed his tune now: At Davos this year he called China “a great trading partner” and said that he plans to visit Beijing this year.

According to a schedule that the White House shared with the media, President Trump will participate in the “Shield of the Americas” summit for two and half hours and then fly back to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon. With 12 other heads of state present, it’s doubtful that much will be achieved. There will be speeches—one can expect a long, rambling speech by Trump in which he’s likely to congratulate himself again for his “success” in Venezuela—there will doubtless be many selfies taken with Trump, but it’s unlikely that there will be anything resembling real dialogue.

Instead, the summit’s goal appears to be, first, offering the leaders limited face time with Trump as a sort of recompense for their loyalty and various good deeds. Some of these leaders have already received decisive support from Trump. Shortly before a key congressional election in Argentina, the US Treasury offered Milei’s government a $20 billion bailout, which stabilized the country’s economy and helped Milei’s party clinch a major electoral victory. Late last year, Trump interfered in a big way in Honduras’ election by endorsing Asfura’s candidacy and threatening to exact an economic punishment on the whole country if voters didn’t elect him. Asfura ended up winning by a razor thin margin that was contested by his opponents.

For leaders of some of the smaller countries, participating in the summit is itself a big reward, one that allows them to show domestic constituencies that their pliant behavior has paid off in the form of privileged access to the US president. For Trinidad’s Persad-Bissessar, who supported Trump’s boat strikes even after Trinidadian civilians were killed, and Guyanese president Irfan Aali, who promised US oil companies “preferential treatment” in their bids to operate in Guyana’s booming oil sector, the participation in such an exclusive event with Trump is, in itself, the reward.

Finally, it’s likely that, through this brief summit, Trump and Rubio are hoping to consolidate a hemispheric posse of sorts—a group of obedient allies who will continue to defend the administration’s interventionism and its violations of sovereignty and international law and that will eagerly participate in the expansion of the US’ militarized security agenda.

Still, it remains to be seen whether Trump—whose overall attitude toward the region and its inhabitants oscillates between contempt and indifference—will be willing to invest real time and energy in cultivating this group of leaders. His appointment of Kristi Noem as “special envoy” to the summit, as part of a maneuver to remove her from the position of Homeland Security Secretary, doesn’t send the most positive signal to his far-right guests. Even they may be cringing at the thought of the future of the summit being in the hands of a firebrand immigration enforcer who played a key role in the persecution and stigmatization of migrants that beckoned primarily from Latin America and the Caribbean.