<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s<\/span> aggressive diplomatic and military engagement in the U.S.\u2019s backyard \u2014 dubbed the Donroe Doctrine \u2014 has led to more violence in the Americas, increased impunity by local security forces, and heightened danger from cartels in the Western Hemisphere, according to a new analysis<\/a> by a top violence watchdog, shared with The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cU.S. pressure on organized crime is accelerating the spread of militarized security approaches in the region,\u201d according to Sandra Pellegrini\u00a0and\u00a0Tiziano Breda, senior Latin America analysts with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, known as\u00a0ACLED. \u201cGrowing volatility in the organized crime ecosystem will likely fuel an increase in violence throughout the rest of Trump\u2019s term, potentially undermining any short-term improvements achieved through hardline approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n President Donald Trump has turned the Western Hemisphere into a war zone as part of what he and others have called the Donroe Doctrine<\/a>. This bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine has been used to justify\u00a0strikes on civilian boats<\/a>\u00a0in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean; an\u00a0attack<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Venezuela<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0abduction<\/a>\u00a0of its president; CIA operations in Mexico<\/a>; joint counter-cartel operations in Ecuador dubbed \u201cOperation Total Extermination<\/a>\u201d; and increased military and intelligence operations\u00a0elsewhere in Latin America<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn countries where cartels\u2019 revenue sources are most diversified, the spread of militarized security strategies has led to counterproductive results, such as group fragmentation and intensified competition,\u201d according to the ACLED analysis. In Ecuador, the capture or killing of gang leaders has led to a proliferation of splinter groups. The reported number of gangs there increased from 24 in 2023 to 37 by the end of last year. And after Jos\u00e9 Adolfo Mac\u00edas, the leader of the gang Los Choneros, was extradited to the United States, another group \u2014 Los Lobos \u2014 was able to push into its rival\u2019s strongholds, fueling more violence, the analysts noted.<\/p>\n Cartels are also increasingly waging a light-footprint<\/a> air war strategy<\/a>, similar to the tactics employed by the U.S. military during the War on Terror and now in its boat strike campaign. Armed groups in Mexico and Colombia are employing weaponized drones to target security forces, write Pellegrini\u00a0and Breda, \u201cin an effort to maximize the impact of their attacks while minimizing the costs of a direct confrontation.\u201d In Mexico, drone attacks by cartels have jumped 567 percent from 2023 to 2025. In Colombia, such attacks have spiked an astounding 10,600 percent, from one strike in 2023 to at least 107 in 2025.<\/p>\n For its part, the U.S. military\u2019s\u00a0illegal campaign of strikes on boats<\/a>\u00a0in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean has resulted in 59 attacks on so-called drug boats since September 2025,\u00a0killing 195 civilians<\/a>. The latest strike, on May 8 in the Pacific Ocean, killed three people.<\/p>\n Regional security forces aligned with the U.S. have also employed attacks from afar. \u201cForms of remote violence, namely aerial bombardments and, in the case of Haiti, the use of drones by a special task force, have exposed civilians to shelling and caused the number of people killed from clashes between security forces and gangs to skyrocket,\u201d according to the ACLED analysts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pellegrini\u00a0and Breda note that Trump is fostering both a \u201chardline response to crime across the region\u201d and \u201ca climate of impunity\u201d that has led to runaway state violence. Operations by security forces reportedly killed almost 6,900 people last year, the highest total since 2018.<\/p>\n Under the Donroe Doctrine, the Trump administration has repeatedly\u00a0bullied Panama<\/a>\u00a0and threatened Canada<\/a>, Colombia<\/a>, Greenland<\/a>, and perhaps also\u00a0Iceland<\/a>. It has also increasingly threatened Cuba.<\/p>\n Last week, federal prosecutors in Florida unsealed an indictment charging former Cuban leader Ra\u00fal Castro and five others in connection with the Cuban military\u2019s fatal downing of two planes 30 years ago. The administration has also been making claims that the tiny island nation is a military threat. Democrats in Congress have pushed back and repeatedly warned that the administration is crafting a pretext to justify an invasion.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, the Cuban regime is an appalling regime, but it is no more a national security threat than Nicaragua is. It\u2019s just insane to say that it is, and especially if it\u2019s done in the service of military action,\u201d said Rep.\u00a0Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Trumps #Donroe #Doctrine #Supercharges #Violence #Americas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trump administration\u2019s agg… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}