The US’ Donroe Doctrine is reshaping conflicts in Latin America and the Caribbean

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States has stepped up its diplomatic and military engagement with Latin American and Caribbean countries. After removing Maduro from power in January 2026, the US has been threatening Cuba’s Raúl Castro with a similar military intervention. 

The Trump administration’s activity in the region has been underpinned by its National Security Strategy, which outlines how the US plans to protect itself from threats such as hostile foreign influence and drug trafficking and how it can secure access to strategic resources, operationalizing the so-called “Donroe Doctrine.”¹ In its essence, the National Security Strategy reasserts the Western Hemisphere as the US’ priority sphere of influence.² It describes a set of principles that shape Washington’s relationships with governments across Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as its instruments of influence, which range from cooperation with ideologically aligned governments to direct military force.

Yet, more than a year since Trump assumed office for the second time, this strategy is yielding mixed results and is unlikely to dismantle organized crime groups’ operations and curb drug trafficking flows sustainably. Militarized security policies throughout the region, further encouraged by the Trump administration, have contributed to the fragmentation and growing resilience of criminal groups. While these policies are likely to generate short-term gains, they also risk making criminal threats more dispersed and harder to contain as groups spread to new areas, including across borders, lower the visibility of their operations, or resort to remote violence to minimize losses. 

These criminal groups’ adaptation points to context-specific conflict patterns that cannot be addressed with military force alone. It also risks heightening civilians’ exposure to violence, including by security forces, as militarized security policies weaken human rights oversight mechanisms and enable states’ excessive use of force. 

From collaboration to coercion: The US toolkit of influence in the region

Since the beginning of Trump’s second term in January 2025, the administration has relied on a three-pronged approach to advance its strategic priorities. First, it has fostered security cooperation with ideologically aligned governments. Second, it has projected its influence through multilateral bodies and nontraditional actors such as private military companies. Finally, it has escalated to threats of economic sanctions and using direct military force on governments perceived as strategically important but unwilling to align with US strategic priorities.

In line with the National Security Strategy’s principles of burden-sharing and burden-shifting, the US has made use of noncoercive interventions by delegating security responsibilities to ideologically aligned governments whenever possible, while increasing US military presence on the ground and signing bilateral security agreements across the region.³ For example, on 3 March, Ecuador and the US announced the launch of joint military operations — although thus far, the US has mainly provided logistical and intelligence support to Ecuadorian ground operations.

The Trump administration has further sought to enlist stability champions, actively endorsing like-minded political leaders during electoral processes and creating the Shield of the Americas on 7 March, a multinational coalition aimed at fostering security cooperation across the Western Hemisphere. In parallel, the US has indirectly influenced security developments, promoting the establishment of the Gang Suppression Force in Haiti, while paving the way for defense contractor and Trump supporter Erik Prince’s ongoing or prospective operations in Haiti, Ecuador, and Peru, and even considering using private companies to protect oil infrastructures in Venezuela.⁴ 

Yet, the Trump administration has also used direct military force to coerce governments that failed to meet its demands. In Venezuela, Washington proceeded with a military operation to remove Maduro after oil sanctions, a blockade on oil exports, and the seizure of six oil tankers failed to coerce the government into accepting Trump’s requests, which included regime change, greater US access to critical Venezuelan resources, and a reduced presence of competing powers such as China and Russia. While the intervention in Venezuela highlighted the US’ readiness to use military force, the swift nature of the operation also suggests that the Trump administration is willing to pursue military action when it perceives them as low-cost push-and-pull interventions. 

The same calculus has likely driven the decision to carry out over 50 strikes against boats suspected of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific waters that killed around 190 people (see map below). These operations have allowed the US to project steadfast counter-drug actions against criminal groups it has defined as foreign terrorist organizations, without sustained engagement or significant risks, while boosting the credibility of US military threats.

Yet, the use of direct military force in Venezuela remains an outlier thus far. The Trump administration has leveled threats of military interventions at several countries since taking office, and some governments in the region have managed to temporarily defuse them by conceding to US demands. The Cuban government’s engagement in back-channel negotiations with Washington, which has pressured the island to introduce economic reforms and curb foreign influence through a blockade on oil imports to asphyxiate the country’s economy, has thus far delayed prospects for military intervention.

US pressure is effectively prompting local governments’ compliance

The Trump administration has been successful in ensuring that many governments meet its demands to rein in the footprint of other foreign powers. To wit, Panama has canceled port concessions to a Hong Kong-based company to scale down China’s presence in its canal,⁵ while Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez has put the country’s oil and mineral resources at the US’ disposal, curtailing China’s influence in these sectors.⁶ 

Most governments also heeded Washington’s call to share the burden and step up military confrontations with organized crime groups. This tendency is likely to continue in 2026, as hard-line security policies remain politically attractive: They have featured as a recurrent electoral promise in countries with elections in 2026, including Costa Rica, Colombia, and Peru. These policies also allow governments to claim symbolic victories against criminal organizations, even as they demonstrate compliance with US demands. A militarized security approach is likely to lead to a drop in gang violence during the remainder of Trump’s term in countries where executive powers are highly centralized, judicial constraints are weak, and gangs are less sophisticated and scattered around smaller territories. However, it will also lead to deadlier clashes between security forces and criminal groups, along with more leeway for security forces to target civilians, increasing populations’ exposure to conflict in the immediate term. 

Even before Trump began his second term, a growing number of Latin American and Caribbean countries were resorting to emergency measures and militarized responses to fight organized crime in the region, largely drawing on the popularity and apparent success of President Nayib Bukele’s policies in El Salvador.⁷ Under these measures, which usually involve suspending some civil rights, military forces are often more involved in public security operations and prison management, contributing to an increase in confrontations between security forces and criminal groups. 

The Trump administration’s push for a steadfast response to drug-trafficking organizations only accelerated this pre-existing trend, swaying some governments — particularly those with greater ideological affinity — into aligning with Washington’s approach. For example, Argentina, Ecuador, and Peru have designated certain gangs and cartels as terrorist organizations. Meanwhile, conservative forces in Brazil have been lobbying Washington to include Brazilian gangs such as First Capital Command and Red Command in the US list of foreign terrorist organizations. Some countries have even offered their territory as an operating ground for the US military: Trinidad and Tobago allowed the US to install radar that supported the operation to arrest and extract Maduro. 

Facing US threats of tariffs or even direct intervention, countries with progressive governments have also intensified military operations against armed groups — even if they had previously favored addressing violence through prevention initiatives or negotiations. As a result, state-led offensives in Mexico and Colombia — and the subsequent armed groups’ retaliation — drove an 18% uptick in clashes between security forces and armed groups across Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025 (see graph below). In fact, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro had resumed military pressure against groups that had not made progress in negotiations since mid-2024. But after a meeting with Trump in February 2026 amid heightened bilateral tensions, Petro further intensified military operations and airstrikes against armed actors both governments identified as priority targets, including the General Central Staff dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). 

Similarly, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum had already shied away from her predecessor’s “Hugs, Not Bullets” policy since taking office in October 2024. In 2025, she stepped up the military deployments, extraditions, and operations against cartels to appease Washington, prompting over 1,000 clashes between security forces and criminal groups that year, the most since 2019. Sheinbaum has also accepted greater coordination with US forces, as long as operations remained under Mexico’s leadership, as happened in the February 2026 operation that led to the killing of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel’s leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho.”⁸ This strategy has helped Mexico avoid direct US strikes on its soil. However, the reported death of two CIA agents participating in a raid alongside Chihuahua police forces in April has opened the debate about suspected CIA operations bypassing agreements with Mexico’s federal authorities.⁹

Not only is Trump fostering a hardline response to crime across the region, but his apparent disregard for international law and human rights standards is breeding a climate of impunity that has contributed to an overall rise in the lethality of state interventions. The deadliness of security operations across the region has been rising significantly, totaling almost 6,900 people reportedly killed in 2025, the highest since 2018 (see graph above). Forms of remote violence, namely aerial bombardments and, in the case of Haiti, the use of drones by a special task force, have exposed civilians to shelling and caused the number of people killed from clashes between security forces and gangs to skyrocket. 

Organized crime groups adapt to US-sponsored military pressure

In some countries, the implementation of militarized security policies and states of emergency has coincided with a decrease in violence levels in 2025, including in Jamaica, Honduras, and Trinidad and Tobago. Domestic authorities have been quick to interpret reductions in violence as decisive blows to criminal groups. However, patterns across the region indicate that rather than being dismantled, criminal groups have adapted to their new environment, including relocating across borders, opting for less-visible forms of violence, or selective targeting through the use of explosives and weaponized drones. 

In Haiti, gangs in Port-au-Prince have avoided direct confrontations with security forces, who have gained a tactical advantage by increasingly using drones. However, the gangs have also stepped up kidnappings for ransom — a practice they had scaled down in recent years — and spread into new territories to accumulate more resources before the Gang Suppression Force is fully deployed. 

In countries where organized crime groups’ revenue sources are most diversified, the spread of militarized security strategies has led to counterproductive results, such as group fragmentation and intensified competition. One significant case is Ecuador, where the capture or killing of gang leaders has led to the atomization of gangs, with 37 active groups in 2025, up from 24 in 2023. Furthermore, the weakening of Los Choneros after the extradition of its leader, José Adolfo Macías Villamar, known as “Fito,” in mid-2025, was exploited by Los Lobos gang to make inroads in its rival’s strongholds — contributing to an escalation of violence. In Mexico, the killing of El Mencho risks reshaping the country’s criminal landscape by triggering intra-cartel infighting — similar to what happened to the Sinaloa Cartel after the capture of El Mayo — and altering the cartel’s alliances in conflict settings such as Michoacán. 

At the same time, armed groups in Mexico and Colombia have turned to weaponized drones to target security forces, in an effort to maximize the impact of their attacks while minimizing the costs of a direct confrontation. In Mexico, attacks with drones have spiked since 2024, and in Colombia, ACLED records at least 107 drone attacks by FARC dissidents and the ELN against security forces in 2025, a more than 200% increase compared with 2024 (see graph below).¹⁰ 

Mounting military pressure from the US and regional governments may also have unintended consequences. First, accusations of abuse and corruption are eroding citizens’ trust in security forces, particularly regional militaries:¹¹ In 2025, ACLED records 495 cases of civilian targeting by state forces across the region, with rising reports of extrajudicial killings, particularly in Mexico, Jamaica, and Brazil, as well as of abductions and sexual abuses.¹² This, combined with prison overcrowding and gangs’ efforts to grow or at least minimize losses, can push ever more youngsters — particularly minors — into the hands of criminal organizations, in search of power, opportunities, and protection.¹³ 

Second, it is diverting illicit revenue flows to new areas. Some reports suggest that US strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels have indeed dented the maritime cocaine trade in the Caribbean,¹⁴ but intensified the drug flow along the Amazon basin, from Colombia to Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil.¹⁵ Although the route is not new, this ever more thriving drug corridor risks further fueling violence in northern Brazil.¹⁶ In Ecuador, criminal gangs have continued to ship drugs to Central America through co-opted fishermen, but they have also increased the rate of shipping to compensate for the heightened risks fishermen face amid deliberate US strikes along the route.¹⁷ 

In addition, a large portion of the cocaine that reaches US and European shores is shipped through cargo vessels, whose operations have been left unscathed by US engagement in the region.¹⁸ Finally, the US focus on interdicting drug trafficking activities overlooks the fact that illegal gold mining has become the primary source of revenue for many organized crime groups in South America.¹⁹

Undoubtedly, the Trump administration will continue to prioritize security matters in Latin America and the Caribbean throughout the rest of its term, using direct military force or relying on strategic partners across the region to curb drug trafficking flows, secure strategic resources, or oust foreign powers. However, while kinetic actions may yield some tactical results in scaling down gang and drug trafficking activities in the Caribbean, criminal organizations are unlikely to be dismantled. Instead, they will continue to adapt and innovate their illicit activities, diversifying their economic portfolio, diverting their trafficking routes — and with it expanding their operations to new areas — and resorting to more covert and remote forms of violence. 

Thus, we expect that security pressure and militarized approaches alone will do little to curb violent competition over illicit economies across Latin America and the Caribbean, while significantly raising the costs on the civilian population, who are caught not only in between armed group warfare, but also in the expanding use of extrajudicial violence and abuses by security forces. 

Visuals produced by Christian Jaffe.