The United States is increasing its military presence in Latin American countries. The U.S. military has sent hundreds of soldiers to conduct training in Panama, an activity they will repeat later in Honduras and Colombia, The New York Times reported. The military detachment is preparing to take part in special operations against drug trafficking cartels, sources for that outlet said.
The move is seen as another step in the ‘Donroe doctrine,’ a play on words used to describe Donald Trump’s policy to revive former president James Monroe’s theory of maintaining a hegemonic presence on the continent, linked to increased interventionism.
The military deployment involves a group of 600 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division battalion, of whom an initial group has already been sent to a military facility in the Panamanian jungle. Those U.S. forces will also take part in joint training with the militaries of Colombia and Honduras. The increase in U.S. military presence in Latin America has reopened the debate over Washington’s role in the region.
The Trump administration has made its objective clear. The Pentagon published the new National Security Strategy at the end of last year, where it underlined: “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.” The Defense Department officials who drafted the document say it is necessary to revive that policy to achieve “a sensible and forceful restoration of American power and priorities” and “to restore U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.”
Since then, Washington has shifted its focus — and hardened its stance toward neighbors to the south. Since last summer, the U.S. military has been bombing alleged drug-running speedboats in the Caribbean off the coasts of Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia. Earlier this year, Trump ordered a military operation in Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro and overthrow the Chavista regime from within, elevating Delcy Rodríguez to the role of interim president. Weeks later, he stepped up pressure on Cuba by tightening the energy embargo, precipitating a humanitarian crisis. In between, he pressured former Colombian president Gustavo Petro and offered his support to right-winger Abelardo de la Espriella, who took power after winning the election in June.
Trump interfered in Argentina’s electoral process to back Javier Milei, and in Honduras his support for conservative Nasry Asfura gained him a new ally. Gradually he is weaving a network of supporters to extend his influence in the region.
In March, at his Doral golf club in Miami, the Republican leader signed the creation of the so-called Shield of the Americas, a club of defense ministers from the Western Hemisphere to combat drug trafficking and take part in joint military operations.
Shortly after De la Espriella won Colombia’s presidential election, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the president had authorized Washington to carry out joint military operations on Colombian soil, something that, however, has so far not gone beyond that statement. “Colombia has already asked the Department of War to join the fight against narco-terrorism, authorizing joint military operations to destroy terrorists and terrorist networks,” he said during a trip to Panama City, where he announced that Colombia had joined the Shield of the Americas.
Beyond the alliance-building, debate over the military deployment gained traction after it emerged that the troops sent to Panama — which will collaborate with the militaries of Colombia and Honduras — will form part of a new command for Western Hemisphere operations that will be headquartered in Miami.
Hegseth has also opened a new office at the Pentagon to oversee military activities against Latin American drug cartels.
The U.S. embassy in Panama this week denied The New York Times story, calling it “categorically false.” According to the diplomatic mission, there are 120 U.S. military personnel in the Central American country attending a two-week jungle operations course. When it ends, on October 25, they will return to their base at Fort Drum, New York. The embassy added that the training center has operated for more than a year with Panamanian and U.S. instructors, and that the soldiers are there at the invitation of the Panamanian government. Ambassador Kevin Marino Cabrera added that Panamanian personnel and soldiers from other nationalities are participating in the course.
John D. Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to the isthmus, explains that this is not a single contingent but five rotations of 120 soldiers each. “Historically, the U.S. has sent platoons of 30–40 at a time to train,” he said via text message. “Six hundred at once is enormous; 120 is larger than usual, but not overly exaggerated.” For the former diplomat, however, the newspaper story leaves a deeper question. “The most relevant question is what they will do after the training in Panama,” he asked, referring to the idea of having a significant contingent ready to conduct operations in the deep tropical jungle.
Debate in Colombia
In Colombia — the largest of the three countries where U.S. soldiers might train, with thousands of miles of Amazon jungle and the world’s largest cocaine production — the presence of U.S. military personnel is not entirely unusual. Activities such as advising or training are possible without major difficulty, although they have sparked debate in the past. The presence of military bases or operations carried out directly by foreign troops must be approved by the Senate, and the discussion has turned on defining which actions can be carried out without that prior approval.
The most recent case dates to 2020, when the then commander of the Armed Forces, Luis Fernando Navarro, said the First Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) would arrive in the country to provide tactical advice and “improve operations against drug trafficking.” After a legal action that led to the suspension of its presence, the Council of State found that the temporary presence of foreign military personnel to advise, train or instruct, without participating in operations, without exercising command and without carrying weapons, does not constitute a transit of troops. For that reason, the SFAB has returned to the country several times.
So far, the Colombian government has not submitted any request to the legislature for activities that require its permission, among which training is not initially included. The Council of State itself reported that in the first month of the current term it received no request for an opinion regarding the entry or participation of foreign troops. That is something opposition politician and second vice president of the Senate Alejandro Ocampo reminded the president of this Thursday: “You have not asked Congress for authorization for foreign troops to transit in our country,” he wrote on X. The senator’s intervention recalled Hegseth’s August statement that President De la Espriella had authorized “joint military operations.”
All this is taking place in a broader context, as explained by Laura Bonilla, a security expert and deputy director of the Paz y Reconciliación Foundation. She mentions the Shield of the Americas, the broad coalition of countries aligned with Trump that has begun to develop as a kind of hemispheric alliance. Although its contours are still unclear, at the operational level the Coalition of the Americas Against Cartels, or A3C, is already functioning to combat drug cartels. It includes 18 Latin American countries, including Colombia, Panama and Honduras. The war on drugs that the Donald Trump administration has promoted underpins the actions the United States has taken in the region, even when those actions are more military in nature than judicial or police-like. That is evidenced, for example, by the deployment of an as-yet unspecified number of Reaper drones to Colombia and Ecuador in early October.
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