The U.S. Trump administration, flush from the “success” of its Jan. 3 military intervention into Venezuela, appears to be in a flight forward to ram the “Trump Corollary” against the U.S. southern neighbors. Call it the “forget China; what’s yours is ours” corollary.
On Feb. 11, Joint Chiefs of Staff head Gen. Dan Caine and Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth summoned the Defense Ministers and top officials of 34 countries of the hemisphere to Washington for an all-day meeting with top U.S. military leaders. In his opening remarks, Hegseth informed them that the U.S. is “restoring American power and American strength in our hemisphere,” and countries are expected to be “partners against our adversaries.” He specified that the U.S. expects joint training, operations and exercises, and access for U.S. forces to their “intelligence, basing, overflight, you name it.” Hegseth also expects them to join the U.S. in its “Operation Southern Spear” sinking of unidentified little boats on the high seas.
The same day, an unnamed White House official reported to media that U.S. President Donald Trump had invited six Presidents from the region for a March 7 summit in the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami. The sole “geopolitical purpose” of the meeting: to form a regional bloc to drive China out of the region, according to Infobae daily, an Argentine daily known to be close to the U.S. Embassy. Initially invited were Argentina’s Javier “chainsaw” Milei, Paraguay’s Santiago Peña, Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa and Honduras’ Tito Asfura. Peru’s President José Jeri, under threat of impeachment for working with China, has agreed to go, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry reported on Feb. 13.
