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By Jesus Mesa
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Colombia became the 19th member of a U.S.-led coalition targeting drug cartels across the Western Hemisphere this week, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth welcomed the country's new government into the alliance known as the "Shield of the Americas."
Hegseth met Wednesday in Panama with Colombia's new defense minister, Jorge Eduardo Mora, a retired major general, days after right-wing President Abelardo De La Espriella was inaugurated. Hegseth said Colombia had authorized "joint military operations to destroy terrorists and terror networks," while the Trump administration has pledged $1 billion in security assistance to the new government.
The meeting was part of a gathering of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, the operational arm of the Shield of the Americas. It was held in Panama, which has become an early focus of President Donald Trump's Latin America policy because of his interest in control of the Panama Canal.
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Which Countries Are in the Shield of the Americas?
What began as a 12-country pact announced in March has expanded to cover nearly the entire hemisphere outside Mexico, Brazil, Cuba and Canada. Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago signed the original joint declaration on March 5.
Bahamas, Belize, Guatemala and Jamaica joined around the same time. Chile followed in the spring under newly inaugurated President José Antonio Kast, and Peru joined in early August under President Keiko Fujimori. Colombia is the newest and largest addition.
How the Shield of the Americas Coalition Works
Trump unveiled the initiative during a summit at his golf resort in Doral, Florida, on March 7, framing it as a coordinated hemispheric response to drug trafficking organizations he has designated as terrorist groups, including Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and El Salvador's MS-13.
The coalition is built around intelligence sharing, coordinated military operations and a mutual assistance structure that lets member countries request help from partners, including the United States, when facing cartel or gang threats. Last week, U.S. Southern Command announced a new Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere to unify military command across the alliance. Marine Corps General Francis Donovan, the task force's commander, told member delegations in Panama the coalition needs to "be a functional organization to fight the enemy" and focus on results.
Hegseth used his appearance in Panama to invoke what he called the "Donroe Doctrine," a reference to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine reworked around Trump's name. "We will defend our hemisphere from external threats," he said, citing narco-trafficking and foreign influence. He also urged coalition allies to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, which has been pushed by human rights groups to investigate U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats, attacks that have killed more than 200 people since September.
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Kristi Noem has served as the administration's point person for the initiative since March, when Trump named her special envoy for the Shield of the Americas the same day he removed her as homeland security secretary. Noem was replaced at the Department of Homeland Security by GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin. At the March summit, Noem thanked Trump for the new assignment, calling the coalition "a powerful example to the rest of the world about what's possible," and said she would work alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Hegseth to target cartel networks.
What Joint Military Operations Has the Shield of the Americas Conducted?
The coalition's approach was put into practice days before the Doral summit, when U.S. and Ecuadorian forces carried out a joint strike in Ecuador against Comandos de la Frontera, a Colombian armed group operating in the Amazon. U.S. Southern Command called it the first land-based military operation conducted under the coalition's framework.
The alliance has also backed a broader U.S. military campaign in the region. Since September, the Pentagon has carried out dozens of strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific as part of Operation Southern Spear, killing more than 200 people. In January, U.S. special operations forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a raid that Trump administration officials have cited as evidence of the coalition's reach, although the operation took place before Venezuela joined the alliance.
Panama hosted the coalition's largest multinational exercise to date this month. Panamax 2026 brought together roughly 1,700 troops from 19 countries, including the United States. Hegseth also said this week that Colombia's new government had authorized joint military operations "to destroy terrorists and terror networks," although Bogotá had not independently confirmed the scope of the authorization as of Wednesday.
What Republicans and Democrats Are Saying About the Alliance
The alliance has drawn a sharply divided response in Washington, with Republicans largely backing the administration’s military campaign while Democrats have pushed back against U.S. military operations abroad and questioned the president’s authority to order them without congressional approval.
Most Republicans have defended the administration’s approach. Rubio has said the president has the authority to order military operations, calling them “targeted strikes against imminent threats against the United States.”
A small number of Republicans, including Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have broken with their party to back war powers resolutions.
Congressional Democrats have repeatedly tried and failed to curb the military campaign, including strikes on vessels suspected of smuggling drugs off Venezuela. Senators Tim Kaine from Virginia and Adam Schiff from California, led war powers resolutions in the Senate seeking to halt the strikes without congressional authorization. Both efforts failed largely along party lines.
“There has been no authorization to use force by Congress in this way,” Schiff said ahead of one vote, arguing the campaign risked drawing the United States into a broader conflict.
Senator Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia and senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has separately criticized the administration for withholding legal justifications and intelligence details from lawmakers, calling one closed-door briefing arrangement “corrosive to our democracy.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Edward T. Cummins.
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