Experts see the Shield of the Americas coalition as an attempt at US interference in Latin America to contain China's influence

The Shield of the Americas coalition, led by the United States and which brings together 14 other Latin American countries, uses the fight against drug cartels as a pretext to interfere in Latin American countries and block China's economic influence in the region.

This is the assessment of experts in international relations in Latin America consulted by Agência Brasil, such as the professor of political science at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), Danilo Enrico Martuscelli.

“The Shield of the Americas is a resumption of this process of attempted colonial or imperial annexation of Latin American countries in relation to the USA within a geopolitical logic of commercial and technological dispute with China”, he said.

This week, on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly, in New York, the 15 countries in the coalition released a document informing their intention to take the Shield of the Americas proposal into the Organization of American States (OAS).

In the published document, the nations also agreed to classify 24 drug trafficking groups as “terrorists”, including the Brazilian Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV).

Expert Danilo Enrico Martuscelli classifies Donald Trump's second term policy as “open imperial aggression” and, when questioning the White House's anti-cartel policy, recalls that Trump himself pardoned former President of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 45 years in prison for facilitating the importation of tons of cocaine into the USA.

"A person who is committed to fighting drug trafficking is going to pardon and release a drug trafficker? They want to fight drug trafficking, but in other people's backyards. Internally, what do they do to control the control of this organized crime?", asked Danilo Martuscelli.

Created in March this year, the Shield of the Americas is currently made up of the USA, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago.

Interference in Latin America

The professor of international relations at the Brazilian Institute of Education, Development and Research (IDP), Robson Valdez, considered that the main focus of the Shield of the Americas is the possibility of using drug trafficking to legitimize interference in Latin America.

“And, indirectly, this signals to China that maintaining its relations with countries in the region would have to be reviewed from the perspective of North American foreign policy,” he commented.

For Valdez, the coalition aims “mainly to [legitimize] the physical presence of American troops in the region under the pretext of combating organized crime.”

Brazil

Without having been invited to participate in the initiative, the Brazilian government views the Shield of the Americas with caution, while maintaining international cooperation measures in the fight against organized crime with countries in the region.

For Brasília, the initiative can be used by Washington to obtain automatic alignments in the economic field, with possible restrictions on China's presence in Latin America.

When announcing the coalition, the Donald Trump administration reported that the initiative aims, in addition to combating drug trafficking, to “keep external threats at bay, including malignant foreign influences coming from outside the Western Hemisphere.”

Shield in the OAS

In the joint document published this week, the group informs that it intends to present a proposal to the OAS for joint action between countries in the fight against drug trafficking.

“Once the formal meeting of the [OAS] Consultation Body has been convened, we intend to participate at the ministerial level to consider the adoption of a resolution that promotes and facilitates collective action against narco-terrorist organizations, in accordance with the Rio Treaty [TIAR, Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance]”, say the countries.

Signed in 1947, in the context of the Cold War, the TIAR provides that “aggression against an American State constitutes aggression against all other American States”.

Professor Danilo Martuscelli considers that, by taking the issue to the OAS, the group led by the USA is trying to put pressure on countries that have not yet joined the proposal, such as Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and Canada.

“Recourse to the OAS has the purpose of giving some institutional legitimacy to this policy of open imperial pressure,” he said.

The Brazilian government awaits the presentation of the Shield of the Americas proposal to the OAS to study whether it will support or reject a possible resolution from the international organization on the topic.

Drugs and economy

The Coalition document released in New York mixes the fight against drugs with measures of “economic cooperation” between countries, including the protection of “supply chains of critical minerals through diversified and reliable sources”.

Critical minerals, central inputs in the technology, defense and energy transition industries, are one of the main focuses of the trade and technological dispute between Washington and Beijing.

“[We defend our economies] by promoting trusted supplier regulations for digital infrastructure, applied in a non-discriminatory manner,” the joint document adds.

International relations professor Robson Valdez added that the Shield of the Americas can be used to impose the sale of US military equipment, “which takes away from countries the autonomy to choose their partners for arms purchases”.