Trump launches 17-nation Americas cartel coalition at Doral

The 17 nations that attended included El Salvador (President Nayib Bukele), Argentina (President Javier Milei), Paraguay, Honduras, Panama, Jamaica, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Haiti, Belize, Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. The nations absent from the coalition include Mexico — the United States' largest trading partner and the country whose cooperation is most critical for combating cartel activity at the southern border — as well as Canada, Brazil (the hemisphere's second-largest economy), Colombia, and Venezuela. The political pattern of who attended and who didn't closely tracks which governments are currently aligned with Trump and which are not. France 24 Stimson Center

Trump's proclamation launched what he called the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition, framing it as a military alliance against drug trafficking organizations that he has designated as terrorist groups under U.S. law. He said, 'The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries.' The designation of cartels as foreign terrorist organizations — which Trump completed by executive order earlier in his second term — unlocks specific legal authorities under the Authorization for Use of Military Force and the Patriot Act. ABC News PBS NewsHour

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's address to the summit went beyond operational anti-cartel strategy. He told the assembled leaders that the coalition's foundation was shared cultural and religious identity: the participating nations must remain 'Christian nations, under God.' Hegseth's framing explicitly excluded non-Christian nations from the coalition's moral framework and positioned U.S. military alliances as contingent on religious alignment. This is a departure from the traditional U.S. foreign policy position that security partnerships are based on strategic interests and international law, not shared religion. CBS News France 24

Trump's Cuba remarks at the summit escalated a pattern of executive threats against Cuba that has been building throughout his second term. He said Cuba is 'at the end of the line' and suggested it has 'no money, no oil, a bad philosophy, and a bad regime.' Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel described the summit as 'small, reactionary, and neocolonial.' Before Trump's second term, Cuban officials had signaled openness to dialogue with the United States; those contacts appear to have ended. Trump's Cuba threat at Doral followed his earlier executive order authorizing military force to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — a pattern of executive military threats against Latin American governments without congressional authorization. Wilson Center PBS NewsHour

The Summit of the Americas — which the Shield of the Americas effectively replaced — was created in 1994 by President Bill Clinton and has been held 10 times, convening all 35 nations of the Western Hemisphere except Cuba. Richard Feinberg, a former Clinton NSC official who helped design the original summit, told France 24 that Trump's version represented 'crouched defensiveness' compared to the 1994 summit's expansive vision of hemispheric partnership. The replacement of a 34-nation inclusive forum with a 17-nation ideologically filtered coalition reflects a fundamental reorientation of U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. France 24

China's trade relationship with Latin America forms the backdrop of the summit that Trump didn't address directly. China traded $518 billion with Latin America in 2024, surpassing U.S. trade with the region. In 2023, China became South America's largest trading partner. By excluding Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico — nations with large and growing economic ties to China — the Shield of the Americas coalition may inadvertently accelerate those countries' drift toward Chinese economic alignment. Analysts at Chatham House noted that the summit's ideological filtering of participants undermines the U.S.'s ability to project influence across the hemisphere's most economically significant nations. Chatham House France 24

The Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition raises unresolved constitutional questions about the scope of presidential power in foreign affairs. The Constitution gives the Senate the power to ratify treaties by a two-thirds vote. Executive agreements — which presidents use to bypass the treaty process — are constitutionally contested when they commit the U.S. to military cooperation with foreign governments. The coalition Trump announced at Doral through a presidential proclamation — without Senate approval — may commit U.S. military assets, intelligence, and legal authorities to operations inside sovereign foreign nations. The line between a lawful executive agreement and an unconstitutional treaty requiring Senate ratification has never been definitively resolved by the Supreme Court. Wilson Center Stimson Center