The Shield of the Americas Is the Trump Corollary’s Military Edge

(Orlando J. Pérez – Just Security) On March 5, 2026, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller explained the Trump administration’s strategy for the Western Hemisphere during a conference at the U.S. Southern Command’s headquarters in Doral, Florida. Drug cartels, he declared to Latin American military leaders, are “the ISIS and the al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere and should be treated just as brutally and just as ruthlessly.” Miller explained that the U.S. government invited military leaders — and not lawyers — to the conference because “these organizations can only be defeated with military power.” . Miller’s remarks came at the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference, a prelude to the “Shield of the Americas” Summit that President Donald Trump hosted at his Doral golf resort two days later, on March 7. The summit was part of the administration’s effort to build a hemispheric security architecture organized around military force, ideological alignment, and the explicit exclusion of governments that do not fall in line. The administration’s policy is a sharp break with the recent past and risks further undermining the cause of democracy throughout the hemisphere. – The Shield of the Americas Is the Trump Corollary’s Military Edge