The new president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, has confirmed the entry of his country into the so-called Shield of the Americas, an initiative promoted by the Administration of Donald Trump to strengthen military and intelligence cooperation against drug cartels and other transnational criminal organizations.
The incorporation represents a profound shift regarding the foreign policy of Gustavo Petro and returns Colombia to the core of the strategic allies of the United States in Latin America. De la Espriella announced in his inauguration speech, held on August 7 in Cali, that one of his first decisions would be to sign the agreement.
Colombia is, therefore, the last country that has formally announced its adherence to the initiative, although the U.S. government has not yet published, as of the date of this article, a consolidated list in which it appears alongside the twelve original political members. The new president had already hinted in June that Colombia would join the bloc as soon as he took office and has proposed that the Colombian operational headquarters be established in Medellín.
The announcement coincides with the promise from Washington to mobilize 1 billion dollars in security assistance for Colombia, within the new offensive of De la Espriella against armed groups, drug trafficking, and coca cultivation. Reuters and The Guardian confirmed both the entry into the Shield and the U.S. support package.
What is the Shield of the Americas
The Shield of the Americas, officially called in English Shield of the Americas, is a platform for political, military, and security cooperation led by the United States. Its operational instrument is the Anti-Cartel Coalition of the Americas, created to coordinate the actions of the participating countries against drug trafficking and organized crime.
Its immediate origin is found in the Anti-Cartel Conference of the Americas, held on March 4 and 5, 2026, in Florida under the direction of the Pentagon and the U.S. Southern Command. Representatives from 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries signed a joint declaration at that time.
The document committed to strengthening information exchange, improving the interoperability of security forces, protecting strategic infrastructures, and forming a coalition against “narcoterrorism” and other regional threats. The declaration formally emphasized respect for the sovereignty and legislation of each State, but did not establish an international organization with a founding treaty, permanent secretariat, or mutual defense obligations. The official text can be consulted at the U.S. Department of Defense.
Two days later, on March 7, Trump gathered twelve Latin American and Caribbean leaders at his Doral complex in Florida. There he politically launched the Shield of the Americas and presented the fight against the cartels as a military campaign, comparable in its approach to the international offensive against terrorist organizations.
The initiative also has a special envoy, Kristi Noem, responsible for coordinating relations between Washington and the participating countries.
Which countries are part of the Shield of the Americas
It is important to distinguish between the countries that made up the political core of the presidential summit and the broader group that signed the security declaration.
The twelve Latin American and Caribbean members recognized by the Department of State as members of the Shield of the Americas are:
- Argentina
- Bolivia
- Chile
- Costa Rica
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Guyana
- Honduras
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Dominican Republic
- Trinidad and Tobago
In addition, the United States joins them, the driving force and main military support of the alliance. This relationship of twelve countries was reiterated by Washington in the joint statements published during May and June. The Department of State collects the official list.
In the previous military conference, Bahamas, Belize, Guatemala, Jamaica, and Peru also participated. These countries signed the anti-cartel declaration, although they did not appear in the subsequent list of twelve political members of the Shield. Therefore, it is not accurate to present the 17 signatories interchangeably as full members of a formal alliance.
Peru has expressed its intention to deepen its incorporation, but it was already part of the initial security commitment. The novelty in August is Colombia: the Government of De la Espriella has announced its entry into the political and operational core, something that had not occurred under the presidency of Petro.
The objectives: cartels, migration, and Chinese presence
The fight against the cartels constitutes the central justification of the project. The Trump Administration considers that organizations dedicated to drug, arms, and human trafficking have ceased to be merely a police problem and must be treated as terrorist threats susceptible to receiving a military response.
The Shield proposes: Share intelligence on leaders, infrastructures, and finances of the cartels; Coordinate operations between military and police forces; Strengthen border control, ports, airports, and maritime routes; Facilitate training, equipment, and U.S. assistance; Protect critical infrastructures against organized crime; Combat drug, arms, and human trafficking and reduce irregular migration flows to the United States.
But the initiative has a second geopolitical dimension. Washington also aims to regain influence in Latin America and curb China's expansion in sectors such as ports, telecommunications, energy, raw materials, and strategic infrastructures.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington interpreted the summit as an opportunity to articulate a broader strategy against China's presence in the hemisphere. The Shield would thus serve to reward with economic cooperation, intelligence, and military material the governments considered reliable by the White House. CSIS analyzed this strategic aspect before the summit.
an alliance marked by ideological affinity
The initial selection of participants turned the Shield into something more than a security platform. Most of its members were led by conservative governments or openly aligned with Trump.
Among its main supporters were Javier Milei, Nayib Bukele, Daniel Noboa, and Santiago Peña. José Antonio Kast also participated, initially as the elected president of Chile and later as the representative of the country.
This composition fueled the perception that Trump was creating a kind of "international of the American right," parallel to the regional forums where governments of different orientations coexist, such as the Organization of American States or the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
The Chatham House analysis center considers that this political homogeneity constitutes one of the main weaknesses of the project. If the continuity of the Shield depends on its members maintaining ideologically close governments to Trump, electoral changes could undo the coalition or limit intelligence sharing. Chatham House warns of the fragility of an overly ideologized alliance.
Mexico and Brazil, the great absences
The most relevant absences are Mexico and Brazil, the two largest economies in Latin America. Neither were present at the launch Canada, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela nor the Colombia then governed by Petro.
Mexico's position is particularly delicate. Trump identifies Mexican cartels as one of the main threats to U.S. security, but Claudia Sheinbaum's government rejects that Washington could carry out military operations unilaterally on Mexican territory.
This divergence reduces the potential effectiveness of the Shield: a coalition against the cartels can hardly control the main continental networks without full cooperation with Mexico, the origin or transit point of a good part of the routes that reach the United States.
Brazil, for its part, has maintained a strategy based on regional autonomy, multilateral cooperation, and the rejection of a new military subordination to Washington. The Brazilian exclusion also limits the block's ability to act on the Amazon, the South Atlantic, and the borders with almost all South American countries.
Trump later stated that Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia had been invited and chose not to attend. However, various media and analysts interpreted the composition of the summit as a deliberate selection of governments politically close to the White House.
The criticisms: militarization and national sovereignty
Critics of the Shield fear that the fight against drug trafficking will serve to expand the military intervention capacity of the United States in Latin America.
Washington has stated that conventional police forces are not enough to defeat the cartels. At the founding conference, senior U.S. officials defended the use of military power and warned that the United States could act on its own when it considered its security threatened. Reuters reported on the shift towards an openly military response.
The main objections are: The risk of replacing judicial investigations with military operations; The possibility of U.S. attacks without clear authorization from the affected country; The weakening of civilian control over the armed forces; The eventual violations of human rights; The dependence of member countries on Washington's armament and intelligence; The use of the anti-drug fight to contain China or pressure non-aligned governments.
There is also a historical criticism. The strategy recalls previous U.S.-sponsored anti-drug campaigns, including Plan Colombia, which improved certain state capabilities but did not eliminate the production or international trade of cocaine. Pressure on a route or an organization often causes its displacement to other territories, the so-called "balloon effect."
Colombia returns to the Shield its main anti-drug partner
The Colombian adhesion has special value for Trump. Colombia has experienced Armed Forces, decades of cooperation with the United States, and a strategic position between the Caribbean, the Pacific, Central America, Venezuela, and the Andean region.
De la Espriella has linked his entry into the Shield with the end of Petro's negotiation policy, the resumption of an offensive against armed groups, and the recovery of aerial spraying of coca crops. His Government wants to present Colombia as the main operational center of the continental fight against drug trafficking.
For this reason, it can be stated that De la Espriella has been the protagonist of the last relevant incorporation to the Shield of the Americas. More precisely, it is Colombia —by decision of its new president— that has just joined. De la Espriella does not join in a personal capacity.
The alliance thus gains the country with the most recent experience in anti-drug cooperation with Washington. But it maintains intact its main contradiction: it aspires to build a continental response while leaving Mexico and Brazil out and fundamentally relying on governments aligned with Trump. Its future will depend on whether it manages to transform into a stable mechanism of cooperation or is reduced to a political bloc subject to the electoral changes in the region.