❓WHAT HAPPENED: The United States Department of War unveiled a new strategy to combat drug cartels in Central and South America through military action.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: General Francis Donovan, Acting Assistant Secretary of War Joseph Humire, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and security officials from Latin America and the Caribbean.
📍WHEN & WHERE: March 5, 2026, at SOUTHCOM Headquarters in Doral, Florida.
💬KEY QUOTE: “The Western Hemisphere is our neighborhood,” declared General Donovan.
🎯IMPACT: The conference highlighted the U.S.’s commitment to using military power to protect the homeland and emphasized the importance of regional cooperation against cartels.
SOUTHCOM HEADQUARTERS, DORAL, FLORIDA—The United States Department of War laid out a new vision for the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to destroy the criminal drug cartels of Central and South America through military action at the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference at the U.S. military’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) headquarters in Doral, Florida. General Francis Donovan, commander of SOUTHCOM, opened the conference, emphasizing to security and defense officials from across Latin America and the Caribbean the need for the nations of the Americas to work together—while stressing that the United States will act alone if it must.
General Donovan stated that the United States has a “clear mandate in the Western Hemisphere to defend the United States homeland,” but “when necessary, we will not hesitate to act” even without regional partners. The general pointed to the early January raid in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of Marxist narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro as an example of this shifting dynamic, as U.S. power increases in its backyard.
“The Western Hemisphere is our neighborhood,” General Donovan stated, adding, “As allies and partners, we must take aggressive action together.”
ORDER, MIGRANTS, & THE CARTELS.
Meanwhile, Acting Assistant Secretary of War Joseph Humire reminded the delegation of U.S. interests in the region dating to the Monroe and Jackson administrations. “We are not going to cede an inch of territory in this hemisphere to our enemies or our adversaries,” echoed White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, adding, “Under the leadership of President Trump, we are using hard power, military power, lethal force, to protect and defend the American homeland.”
Miller told the delegations that it is unacceptable that foreign terrorist and criminal cartels can operate unimpeded in their territories, likening the groups to the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere. “These organizations can only be defeated with military power,” Miller stated.
“The key condition to human flourishing is order and prosperity,” he continued, arguing, “For too long we’ve been caught in a vicious cycle where nations in this hemisphere have not provided their citizens with basic security. Miller noted that this lack of order and security increases illegal mass migration to the United States, empowers and enriches the cartels, and drains the economy of our neighboring nations.
“Those people who are stealing your children, stealing our families, stealing your human capital are part of these terrorist organizations,” Miller impressed upon the delegates, while blasting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for spending years telling Western Hemisphere nations that they must work with, not against, criminal cartels and human traffickers.
THE ‘DONROE DOCTRINE.’
Keynoting the morning was Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who stressed the importance of holding the first hemispheric defense conference in more than 30 years. “This is about what we together can do,” Sec. Hegseth stated, while also recalling the Monroe Doctrine and the role of the United States in cultivating security, peace, and prosperity in the Western Hemisphere, in partnership with its neighbors.
“This is the essence of the Monroe Doctrine,” Hegseth said, pledging that foreign adversaries no longer be allowed to meddle in the Americas and interfere with the interests of America and its neighbors. He went on to lament the “benign neglect” of American elites, which turned out not to be benign at all. While the U.S. grew preoccupied with other parts of the world, criminal drug cartels and human traffickers rose to power in America’s hemisphere, creating chaos and profiting from it.
The Secretary of War continually emphasized that the cartels and their terrorist operations are not just a problem facing the United States, but all nations of the Western Hemisphere. “Well, President Trump recognizes the wisdom of the Monroe Doctrine, and the days of us betraying our own citizens are finished,” Hegseth said, while stating that the doctrine is now back, dubbing its revival the “Donroe Doctrine.”
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