Trump Unveils Military Backed Hemispheric Crackdown to Take Down Cartels
The Stated Department announced:
On March 7, 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will join President Donald J. Trump at the Shield of the Americas Summit in Doral, Florida. The United States will welcome our strongest likeminded allies in our hemisphere to promote freedom, security, and prosperity in our region. This historic coalition of nations will work together to advance strategies that stop foreign interference in our hemisphere, criminal and narco-terrorist gangs and cartels, and illegal and mass immigration.
President Donald Trump rolled out a sweeping antiâ€'cartel doctrine Saturday, rallying a 17â€'nation coalition behind a new hemispheric security pact that authorizes direct military action against cartel strongholds. The president's speech highlighted the administration's hard line, including the declaration that "the heart of our agreement is a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks." Conspicuously absent from the conference was Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
SECRETARY RUBIO(said in part): I want to welcome everybody. Bienvenido. Thank you for coming and being a part of this very important initiative. It's a critical initiative. Obviously, we start with a strong focus on security, but there is so much more here. And as you've seen from - so much more we can work together on, and as you've seen from the cabinet members that are here today. Again, on behalf of the President - he is currently on his way to Dover Air Force Base to receive, sadly, the remains of the six Americans who lost their lives in the operation against Iranian terrorism. And so he apologizes for not being able to join us for this lunch, but he knew you would understand. ...........
SECRETARY NOEM (said in part) : Well, thank you, Secretary Rubio. I appreciate all of you being here today and for making this a priority. First of all, I offer thanks to our President, who had the vision to bring all of you, as world leaders, here to have the conversation on not just protecting your countries, but also protecting your neighbors and the Shield of Americas becoming a real vision.
This is intended to be a group that works together to make sure that we're each defending our own sovereignty, we're each defending our own security and economic prosperity, but then also continuing to build on these relationships to ensure that we can do that in a way that's effective, defeating the enemies that we have amongst us in the cartel organizations, which our country has designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. But then also by adding that security element, we have an opportunity then to have economic prosperity that blesses all of our people.........