Of the 14 members CARICOM of nations, only the leaders of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana have been invited to attend President Trump’s Americas Shield Summit (of 10 plus USA) to be held in Florida on March 7. The invitation to them was given by Secretary Marco Rubio in private separate meeting with each on the sideline of the 50th CARICOM summit in Bassetterre, St. Kitts. The leaders of these nations have been invited as guests of President Trump because of diplomatic and foreign policy alignment. The event will be held at one of the President’s hotels.
Americas Shield is an initiative of President Trump. It is a strategic program designed to address pressing threats (tied to drugs and national security) across Latin America and the Caribbean. The summit concentrates on regional security, stopping the flow of drugs, and fostering trade and prosperity.
The participation of President Irfaan Ali and PM Kamla Persad Bissessar signals a depending engagement with Washington and sends a powerful statement to the rest of the region – if you work with USA against crime and regional security, you will be rewarded. Those two nations were also rewarded on immigration matters. It is recalled that Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago were the only nations that were not sanctioned by Washington last year; migrant visas of nationals of these two countries have not been suspended unlike for the rest of the region. They have also been rewarded with soft loans for national development. For Guyana and T&T, participation in this summit marks a definitive step in cementing their ties with Washington and playing a meaningful role U.S.-led security bloc. PM Kamla and President Irfaan have sent a clear message of unwavering allegiance to and cooperation with USA.
PM Kamla told reporters the invitation to T&T and her presence at the Miami summit will be “for the benefit of the people of T&T, security, trade, prosperity and of course safety”.
President Irfaan said he looks forward for the meeting that will focus largely on security. He told reporters: “This is a meeting dealing with security matters, it’s dealing with some of the challenges in the region, and to see how we can coordinate better in relation to those challenges, and this is an engagement that has been ongoing.”
The presence of Irfaan and Kamla signals their countries’ commitment to the security of the region and of their own nations, ensuring a stable and predictable partnership with the United States.
Among other invitees are Presidents Javier Milei of Argentina, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, Santiago Peña of Paraguay, José Raúl Mulino of Panama, Rodrigo Paz of Bolivia, Nasry Asfura of Honduras, Rodrigo Chaves of Costa Rica and his successor President-elect Laura Fernández, among others. As a commentator put it, it is a coalition of ideologically aligned nations, allies of the US.
One strategy behind the Americas Shield Summit is to get leaders to support American plan to dismantle and eliminate transnational drug trafficking groups operating throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The US is concerned about the growing footprint of China in the region. So, another goal of the summit is to actively counteract and limit the expanding economic and political influence of China across the region. Trump is aggressively reinforcing the historic Monroe Doctrine to keep out outside powers like China and Russia, asserting a more proactive U.S. role in regional stability, using force to promote American dominance pre-eminence in the region, dubbing it the Dunroe Doctrine.
