{"id":203314,"date":"2026-03-08T05:53:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/an-ideological-guest-list-trump-invites-latin-americas-rightwing-leaders-to-florida-summit-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T05:53:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:53:34","slug":"an-ideological-guest-list-trump-invites-latin-americas-rightwing-leaders-to-florida-summit-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/an-ideological-guest-list-trump-invites-latin-americas-rightwing-leaders-to-florida-summit-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018An ideological guest list\u2019: Trump invites Latin America\u2019s rightwing leaders to Florida summit – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Omission of presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, however, exposes failure of US president\u2019s \u2018theatrical\u2019 doctrine, say experts
Donald Trump will welcome the leaders of at least 10 Latin American countries to a palm-dotted golf resort in Miami on Saturday as the president continues his quest to transform the US\u2019s standing in the region and outmuscle China.
Since returning to power last year, Trump has launched a dramatic \u2013 and at times deadly \u2013 crusade to, as the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, put it<\/a>, \u201creclaim our back yard\u201d.
Vows to \u201ctake back\u201d the Panama canal<\/a> were followed by airstrikes on alleged narco boats<\/a> in the Caribbean and Pacific, overt meddling in Brazil\u2019s judicial system<\/a>, threats of military intervention in Mexico and Colombia, and, most startlingly, the abduction of Venezuela\u2019s president<\/a>, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, and the use of Predator drones to help kill one of the world\u2019s most wanted drug bosses<\/a>, El Mencho, in Mexico.
Trump has also rescued<\/a> Argentina\u2019s president, the radical libertarian Javier Milei, with a multibillion-dollar bailout, and interfered in Honduras\u2019s recent election in support of the eventual rightwing winner. He recently suggested a \u201cfriendly takeover\u201d of Cuba<\/a>, as his administration seeks to strangle the country\u2019s struggling communist regime into submission by cutting off its oil supply, despite UN warnings of a humanitarian \u201ccollapse\u201d.
\u201cAs a critic of him, I\u2019m the first to admit there has not been a presidency since perhaps Kennedy that has had such a profound effect on Latin America, in so many spheres of activity. The effects are real,\u201d said a former US ambassador to Panama, John Feeley, who has likened Trump\u2019s behaviour to that of the ruthless fictional mob boss Tony Soprano<\/a>.
Trump officials describe his \u201cDon-roe Doctrine\u201d \u2013 a revamp of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine by which President James Monroe sought to keep European powers out of the Americas<\/a> \u2013 as an attempt to reduce Beijing\u2019s regional footprint and impose Washington\u2019s will through economic and military pressure.
On Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that Saturday\u2019s invitation-only Shield of the Americas summit was designed \u201cto promote freedom, security and prosperity in our region\u201d.
Trump\u2019s guest list includes the rightwing presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador and Paraguay but excludes the leftist leaders of three of Latin America\u2019s biggest economies: Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.
\u201cThis is the VIP level of the Latin America Trump Club \u2013 and this meeting really does seem to be conceived as a way to add a clear benefit to membership at that level,\u201d said Brian Winter, the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly magazine.
Winter said the conclave would be attended by \u201cideological fellow travellers Trump likes to take photos with\u201d. \u201cThere doesn\u2019t appear to be anything really earth-shattering or momentous on the agenda [although] it will surely include security, migration [and] the questions of Venezuela and Cuba.\u201d
Trump\u2019s Latin American aficionados have been celebrating their trip to Florida. \u201cParaguay will be present at this important meeting that will strengthen cooperation and joint work in favour of the security and stability of our nations,\u201d its president, Santiago Pe\u00f1a, wrote on Instagram alongside an image of his invitation.
Chile\u2019s ultra-conservative president-elect, Jos\u00e9 Antonio Kast, who has promised a Trump-style immigration crackdown<\/a> after he takes power next week, will also attend, as will Ecuador\u2019s president, Daniel Noboa, who this week trumpeted joint anti-drugs operations with the US<\/a>.
On Thursday, one of Trump\u2019s most powerful officials, Stephen Miller, hinted at more such collaboration, claiming the region\u2019s drug traffickers could only be defeated with military force<\/a>.
\u201cNot a single one of your nations should tolerate the existence of a single square mile of territory that is under the control of any entity other than the sovereign governments of your country,\u201d Miller told Latin American military heads, calling drug cartels \u201cthe Islamic State and the al-Qaida of the western hemisphere\u201d.
Winter said rubbing shoulders with Trump made sense for rightwing politicians keen to show voters they were tough on crime. \u201cSecurity is the number one issue in Latin America today and the Trump administration is in a unique position to help in a way that produces domestic political benefits for these leaders. Nobody has the intelligence, much less the firepower, that the US does \u2026 Virtually every government in the region is eager to have access to the intelligence that only Washington can provide,\u201d <\/em>he said, noting how Mexico\u2019s leftwing president, Claudia Sheinbaum, accepted the CIA\u2019s help in tracking down El Mencho.
But Trump\u2019s Latin America strategy has also caused alarm and outrage in capitals such as Bras\u00edlia and Bogot\u00e1, where officials view Maduro\u2019s capture and US attempts to suffocate Cuba as a flagrant violation of international law.
\u201cCuba isn\u2019t going hungry because it doesn\u2019t know how to produce [food] \u2026 Cuba is going hungry because they don\u2019t want Cuba to have access to the things that everyone has a right to,\u201d Brazil\u2019s leftwing president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, said this week.
For now, however, such criticism has \u2013 like Europe\u2019s response to Trump\u2019s Iran attacks \u2013 been cautious, with politicians reluctant to offend the US president. Even Colombia\u2019s outspoken leftwing president, Gustavo Petro, has toned down his anti-Trump rhetoric<\/a>, and held a friendly meeting with the US president in the White House last month.
\u201cWhat\u2019s interesting \u2013 and somewhat surprising \u2013 is that at least so far, many countries are going along with this, whether out of convenience or fear,\u201d Winter said. \u201cEven some of the governments that are deeply uncomfortable with the Don-roe Doctrine are keeping their protests to themselves [and] seeking constructive relationships with Trump while quietly scrambling to diversify their relationships so that they depend less on the US.\u201d
Benjamin Gedan, the director of the Stimson Center Latin America programme, said the summit\u2019s \u201cideological guest list\u201d exposed the failure of Trump\u2019s \u201ctheatrical\u201d doctrine, and the White House\u2019s inability to work with Latin America\u2019s key countries.
\u201cBrazil and Mexico comprise together more than half of the population in the region [and] more than a half of all economic activity \u2026 Throw in Colombia and you\u2019ve got the two biggest South American countries. <\/em>All [of them] completely on the outside of a US hemispheric policy \u2013 and this is the hemisphere the US supposedly dominates and [where it] demands pre-eminence,\u201d Gedan said.<\/p>\n

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Omission of presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, however, exposes failure of US president\u2019s \u2018theatrical\u2019 doctrine, say expertsDonald Trump will welcome the leaders of at least 10 Latin American countries to a palm-dotted golf resort in Miami on Saturday as the president continues his quest to transform the US\u2019s standing in the region and outmuscle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}