2026-03-07T09:50:00-0500 / CBS新闻
总统特朗普鼓励拉美领导人团结起来打击暴力贩毒集团，其政府正试图展示仍致力于加强美国对西半球的外交政策关注，尽管它正面临全球范围内的“五级警报”危机。
白宫称之为“美洲之盾”峰会的这次集会，就在特朗普下令进行大胆的美国军事行动以抓捕当时的委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗，并将他和他的妻子带到美国面临毒品合谋指控后两个月举行。
在开幕致辞中，特朗普先生表示，与会领导人一致认为“我们再也不能也不会容忍我们半球的无法无天”。
出席会议的还有国务卿马尔科·卢比奥和国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯。前国土安全部部长克里斯蒂·诺姆（最近被任命为“美洲之盾”西半球特使）、财政部长斯科特·贝森特、商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克和美国贸易代表杰米森·格里尔也出席了会议。
特朗普先生在讲话中重点谈到了经营墨西哥的贩毒集团，称“贩毒集团暴力的震中”来自该国。他补充说，贩毒集团助长并策划了“该半球的大量流血和混乱”，随后签署了一项总统令，称将建立一个美洲反贩毒集团联盟。
“击败这些敌人的唯一途径是释放我们军队的力量，”特朗普先生说，“我们必须动用我们的军队。你们也必须动用你们的军队。”
一周前，特朗普决定与以色列联手对伊朗发动战争，这一冲突造成数百人死亡，全球市场动荡，中东局势不稳，这一决定的影响更为深远。
总统与拉美领导人的会面时间有限：他将飞往特拉华州多佛空军基地，出席在科威特一个指挥中心的无人机袭击中丧生的六名美国士兵的庄严交接仪式，就在美国和以色列对伊朗发动军事行动后的一天。
但通过这次峰会，特朗普正试图将注意力转向西半球，至少暂时如此。他承诺重新确立美国在该地区的主导地位，并抵制他认为多年来中国在美洲后院的经济渗透。
“在前任领导人领导下，我们沉迷于世界上其他每个战区和每个边境，除了我们自己的（西半球），”赫格塞斯在本周聚集在佛罗里达州讨论打击贩毒集团的地区领导人及国防部长会议上说，“这些精英削弱了我们在这一地区的力量和存在感，选择了一种绝非良性的‘良性忽视’。”
阿根廷、玻利维亚、洪都拉斯和多米尼加共和国的领导人参加了在共和党总统的特朗普国家多拉迈阿密高尔夫度假村举行的集会，他今年晚些时候也将在那里主办二十国集团峰会。
这次来自整个半球志同道合的保守派领导人峰会的想法，源于原计划举行的第十届美洲峰会的失败，该峰会在去年美国在委内瑞拉海岸集结军事力量时被取消。
当时的东道主多米尼加共和国在白宫的压力下，禁止古巴、尼加拉瓜和委内瑞拉参加该地区集会。但在哥伦比亚和墨西哥的左翼领导人威胁要退出以示抗议，并且特朗普没有承诺出席之后，多米尼加共和国总统路易斯·阿比纳德尔在最后一刻决定推迟活动，理由是“该地区存在深刻分歧”。
“美洲之盾”这个名字意在体现特朗普对该地区奉行“美国优先”外交政策的愿景，该政策将利用自冷战结束以来该地区从未见过的美国军事和情报资产。
本次活动明显缺席的是该地区的两个主要大国——巴西和墨西哥，以及长期以来作为美国在该地区反麻醉品战略核心的哥伦比亚。
曾在克林顿政府国家安全委员会工作并帮助策划1994年首届美洲峰会的理查德· Feinberg 说，这种对比再鲜明不过了。
“第一届美洲峰会有34个国家，制定了一份精心谈判的全面议程以促进区域竞争力，展现了包容性、共识和乐观精神，”如今在加州大学圣地亚哥分校担任名誉教授的 Feinberg 说，“仓促召集的‘美洲之盾’小型峰会则呈现出一种蜷缩的防御姿态，只有大约十几个与会者围绕着一个主导人物。”
自重返白宫以来，特朗普先生将在该半球对抗中国影响力列为首要任务。他的国家安全战略提出了对19世纪门罗主义的“特朗普 Corollary”（特朗普补充原则），通过针对中国的基础设施项目、军事合作和对该地区资源产业的投资，试图禁止欧洲对美洲的入侵。
这种更强硬做法的首次展示是特朗普强迫巴拿马退出中国“一带一路”倡议，并在华盛顿威胁重新接管巴拿马运河的情况下，审查一家总部位于香港的公司持有的长期港口合同。
最近，美国抓获马杜罗以及特朗普承诺“管控”委内瑞拉的计划，可能会中断对中国的石油运输（中国是此次突袭前最大的委内瑞拉原油购买国），并将该地区北京最亲密的盟友之一纳入华盛顿的势力范围。特朗普计划本月晚些时候访问北京与中国国家主席习近平会面。
但战略与国际研究中心的中国参与该地区专家 Evan Ellis 表示，即使是与特朗普关系密切的领导人也不愿与中国切断联系。
对于许多国家来说，中国以贸易为重点的外交填补了该地区在从减贫到基础设施瓶颈等重大发展挑战方面的关键金融缺口。相比之下，特朗普一直在削减对该地区的外国援助，同时奖励那些支持他打击移民政策的国家——这一政策在整个半球普遍不受欢迎。
“美国向该地区提供关税、驱逐和军事化，而中国提供贸易和投资，”波士顿大学全球发展政策中心主任凯文·加拉格尔说，他曾广泛撰写关于中国在美洲的经济外交的文章，“该地区的领导人最好保持中立并进行对冲，这样他们就能利用美中竞争加剧给自己带来好处。”
Trump meets with Latin American leaders turning his attention to the Western Hemisphere
2026-03-07T09:50:00-0500 / CBS News
President Trump encouraged Latin American leaders to band together to combat violent cartels as his administration looks to demonstrate it is still committed to sharpening U.S. foreign policy focus on the Western Hemisphere, even as it deals with five-alarm crises around the globe.
The gathering, which the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit, came just two months after Trump ordered an audacious U.S. military operation to capture Venezuela’s then-president, Nicolás Maduro, and whisk him and his wife to the United States to face drug conspiracy charges.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Trump said the assembled leaders are united in “the conviction that we cannot and will not tolerate the lawlessness in our hemisphere any longer.”
He was joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who was recently named Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas – Western Hemisphere, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were also in attendance.
Mr. Trump focused a portion of his remarks on the cartels running Mexico, saying that the “epicenter of cartel violence” stems from the country. He added that cartels fuel and orchestrate “a deep bloodshed and chaos” in the hemisphere, before signing a proclamation that the president said will establish an Americas counter-cartel coalition.
“The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries,” Mr. Trump said. “We have to use our military. You have to use your military.”
Looming even larger is Mr. Trump’s decision to join with Israel to launch a war on Iran one week ago, a conflict that has left hundreds dead, convulsed global markets and unsettled the broader Middle East.
The president’s time with the Latin American leaders will be limited: He is set to fly to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, to be on hand for the dignified transfer of the six U.S. troops killed in a drone strike on a command center in Kuwait, one day after the U.S. and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran.
But with the summit, Mr. Trump was looking to turn attention to the Western Hemisphere, at least for a moment. He has pledged to reassert U.S. dominance in the region and push back on what he sees as years of Chinese economic encroachment in America’s backyard.
“Under previous leaders, we grew obsessed with every other theater and every other border in the world except our own,” Hegseth told regional leaders and defense ministers who gathered in Florida this week for talks on countering drug cartels. “These elites reduced our power and presence in this hemisphere, opting for a benign neglect that was anything but benign.”
Leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and the Dominican Republic joined the gathering at the Republican president’s Trump National Doral Miami, a golf resort where he is also set to host the Group of 20 summit later this year.
The idea for a summit of like-minded conservatives from across the hemisphere emerged from the ashes of what was to be the 10th edition of the Summit of the Americas, which was scrapped during the U.S. military buildup off the coast of Venezuela last year.
Then-host Dominican Republic, pressured by the White House, had barred Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from attending the regional gathering. But after leftist leaders in Colombia and Mexico threatened to pull out in protest – and with no commitment from Mr. Trump to attend – the Dominican Republic’s president, Luis Abinader, decided at the last minute to postpone the event, citing “deep differences” in the region.
The Shield of the Americas moniker was meant to speak to Mr. Trump’s vision for a “America First” foreign policy toward the region that leverages U.S. military and intelligence assets unseen across the area since the end of the Cold War.
Notably missing at the event were the region’s two dominant powers – Brazil and Mexico – as well as Colombia, long the linchpin of U.S. anti-narcotics strategy in the region.
Richard Feinberg, who helped plan the first Summit of Americas in 1994 while working at the National Security Council in the Clinton White House, said the contrast could not be starker.
“The first Summit of the Americas, with 34 nations and a carefully negotiated comprehensive agenda for regional competitiveness, projected inclusion, consensus and optimism,” said Feinberg, now professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. “The hastily convened Shield of the Americas mini-summit conjures a crouched defensiveness, with only a dozen or so attendees huddled around a single dominant figure.”
Since returning to the White House, Mr. Trump has made countering Chinese influence in the hemisphere a top priority. His national security strategy promotes the “Trump Corollary” to the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which had sought to ban European incursions in the Americas, by targeting Chinese infrastructure projects, military cooperation and investment in the region’s resource industries.
The first demonstration of the more muscular approach was Mr. Trump’s strong-arming of Panama to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and review long-term port contracts held by a Hong Kong-based company amid U.S. threats to retake the Panama Canal.
More recently, the U.S. capture of Maduro and Mr. Trump’s pledge to “run” Venezuela threatens to disrupt oil shipments to China – the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude before the raid – and bring into Washington’s orbit one of Beijing’s closest allies in the region. Trump is scheduled to travel to Beijing later this month to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
But even leaders closely aligned with Mr. Trump have been reluctant to sever ties with China, said Evan Ellis, an expert on Chinese engagement in the region at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
For many countries, China’s trade-focused diplomacy fills a critical financial void in a region with major development challenges ranging from poverty reduction to infrastructure bottlenecks. In contrast, Mr. Trump has been slashing foreign assistance to the region while rewarding countries lined up behind his crackdown on immigration – a policy widely unpopular across the hemisphere.
“The U.S. is offering the region tariffs, deportations and militarization, whereas China is offering trade and investment,” said Kevin Gallagher, director of Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, who has written extensively about China’s economic diplomacy in the Americas. “Leaders in the region would do well to remain neutral and hedge, such that they can leverage increased U.S.-China rivalry to their own benefit.”