First the Americas, Then the World

A revitalized approach to hemispheric security has emerged in the early days of Donald Trump’s second term. “Americas First” is the principle, a strategic orientation to better position the United States for a renewal of the Pax Americana.

Trump and his foreign policy hands Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz understand that, for America to project power globally, its neighborhood must be in order. In prioritizing the Western Hemisphere, Trump seeks to eradicate drug cartels, combat China’s malign influence, and strengthen America’s regional economic and security partnerships. These policy aims respond to the concerns and hopes of ordinary citizens while reasserting American influence in the Western Hemisphere.

In a bid to bring about regional security and prosperity, Trump’s second term has ushered in a restoration of the Monroe Doctrine. For without regional stability, how can the United States continue to support its allies and partners while confronting its adversaries?

Trump’s efforts have catalyzed a whole-of-government response to the fentanyl crisis. The Department of Justice capitalized on the designations by dedicating resources to pursuing a “total-elimination policy.” The Central Intelligence Agency, for its part, ramped up its drone surveillance program in Mexico, from which it shares intelligence gathered on fentanyl manufacturing with Mexican authorities. US Northern Command also conducts surveillance operations on the American side of the border, and the 7th Special Forces Group has undertaken a training mission with the Mexican Marine Infantry.

States have joined the initiative, too. Arizona launched Operation Desert Guardian to partner with the federal government in countering TCOs.

To pressure Canada and Mexico into more aggressive anti-fentanyl efforts, Trump proposed a 25% tariff on their imports. As a result, Canada designated the cartels as FTOs and began Operation Blizzard to curb drug smuggling at the US-Canada border. Mexico dispatched 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border to fight narcotics trafficking, extradited 29 most wanted cartel members to America, and may impose tariffs on Chinese goods.

Still, Trump prefers tougher measures, pressing Canada and Mexio for harder campaigns. With a trade war looming, and whiplash negotiations underway, Trump paused tariffs until April 2 on auto imports and goods in accordance with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Despite the contention among neighbors, however, a stronger North American Union against both the cartels and China appears within reach. The Trump administration should notch a strategic win before the diplomatic gambit turns irreversibly counterproductive.

Such drastic policy changes and redeployment of key personnel and resources foreshadow a fatal confrontation. In the words of National Security Advisor Waltz, the United States will “unleash holy hell” on TCOs. What is more, narcotics have become a malevolent feature of US-China relations.

The United States has entered a proxy war with China over the fentanyl crisis. America cannot degrade and destroy the cartels without confronting China for its financial and material contributions to their enterprise. China not only provides the precursor chemicals and pill press equipment needed to produce fentanyl, but also the money laundering services used to wash the profits. For now, Trump will impose tariffs on Chinese imports—but 20% will not compel a change in the Chinese Communist Party’s behavior. “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded, “we’re ready to fight till the end.”

Trump’s outreach to America’s neighbors demonstrates his predilection for confrontational but effective diplomacy. In late January, the unpopular Colombian President Gustavo Petro learned a hard geopolitical lesson. After Petro’s impromptu refusal to let repatriation flights land in Colombia, Trump threatened steep tariffs, which would ruin the Colombian economy at marginal cost to the United States. Petro folded immediately.

Meanwhile, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino engaged in skirmish with Trump over the Panama Canal. In an opening move against China’s undue regional influence, Trump targeted the Chinese threat to the sovereignty of the Canal through dual-use infrastructure, namely the Ports of Balboa and Cristóbal operated by the Hong Kong firm CK Hutchison Holdings. Invoking the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, Trump vowed on multiple occasions to reassert American control over the Canal, leading to a series of public barbs between Mulino and Trump.

The conflict set the stage for Secretary Rubio’s inaugural trip abroad to put the administration’s “Americas First” approach into practice. In signaling the region’s significance, the secretary chose Central America and the Caribbean as his destination, a once-in-a-century kind of visit. There, Rubio bolstered regional strategic partnerships by securing a series of joint agreements with Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic on a host of issues, ranging from immigration and transnational crime to energy and economic development. 

Panama was first on Rubio’s itinerary, where he resolved the Canal issue. Notwithstanding the ongoing dispute over transit fees for US vessels, Mulino strived to honor the treaty and meet Trump’s demands for a sovereign Canal.

Not only has Panama withdrawn from the Belt and Road Initiative but the Panama Canal Authority recently completed a Cyber Cooperation Arrangement with US Southern Command to shore up the Canal’s cybersecurity operations. Crucially, too, BlackRock negotiated a deal to buy the Balboa and Cristóbal ports from Hutchison. The agreement followed in the wake of Panama’s audit of the Hutchison contract, a lease that the Panamanian attorney general declared unconstitutional. Panama no longer wanted China to have a stake in the ports and American investors obliged, providing a viable alternative for the ownership of a key strategic asset.

Here, one must disregard the political theatrics and examine the actions. Although neither Trump nor Mulino waivered in their rhetoric, US-Panamanian security cooperation strengthened and China’s influence diminished. In the end, the Trump administration achieved their aims.

While the Trump administration embraces regional partners, old enemies of the United States get their just deserts. After Joe Biden’s relaxed Cuba policy, Trump instituted a harder line: relisting Cuba on list of State Sponsors of Terrorism; reactivating the LIBERTAD Act; reviving the Cuba Restricted List; and revamping visa restrictions on Cuban officials. Under his administration, the appendages of hostile foreign powers will not experience a reprieve until they meaningfully reform and break with America’s adversaries. Soon, for instance, the United States shall seek Nicaragua’s expulsion from the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement.

In Venezuela, Trump initially gifted dictator Nicolás Maduro a détente opportunity, but Maduro botched it and maximum pressure returned. Trump sought a deal, whereby Venezuela accepted thousands of repatriations in exchange for him permitting Chevron to operate in Venezuela, a sanction exemption that Biden authorized to inspire democratic elections. On February 26, Trump announced he rescinded Chevron’s license because Maduro refused to comply with this arrangement, and he had not honored the election results. Days later, when a Venezuelan warship harassed ExxonMobil operations in Guayana, the State Department threatened “consequences for the Maduro regime.” Given Trump’s designs on regional security, and his willingness to tighten sanctions, Maduro’s dictatorship lives on borrowed time.

To counter China and promote regional prosperity, the Trump administration also adopted a fresh approach to economic growth. Reviving a first-term economic program, América Crece 2.0 replaced Biden’s Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, which failed to evolve beyond a forum to discuss economic integration. Under América Crece 2.0, the State Department and the United States Trade Representative will leverage an upgraded U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to spur private capital investment in critical sectors while enhancing America’s six regional free trade agreements. In doing so, the Trump administration understands that American private capital offers the right antidote to state-led Chinese development in the Americas. Harnessing it for public-private partnerships will be the optimal way to extirpate Chinese influence via investment in the region.

Yet not all policies herald a positive direction. The Biden administration saddled the Trump team with an intractable problem: Haiti. A collapsing Haiti represents a grave threat to the Caribbean and the United States. Rubio reaffirmed American support for the Multinational Security Support Mission led by Kenya, and US funding for it continues. The Trump administration recognizes the dire circumstances, but they possess limited options for solving Haiti’s civil strife before it devolves into a failed state. As Haiti spirals further into disorder, the deployment of American troops seems doubtful but could become unavoidable.

Trump’s bid to put the Americas first corresponds with congressional goals. A champion of reasserting the Monroe Doctrine, Senator Jim Risch (R-ID), the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, worked to facilitate the making of a coherent, long-term policy for the Western Hemisphere. Two years of legislative toiling yielded a statutory requirement for the Trump administration to send Congress “a 5-year strategy to promote security and the rule of law in the Western Hemisphere.”

Spearheaded by Risch, the Western Hemisphere Partnership Act became law in December through the National Defense Authorization Act. It mandates the secretary of state to submit the comprehensive strategy by mid-June to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The secretary must then provide yearly briefings on its implementation.

Rubio, who co-sponsored the legislation as a senator, will craft this new strategy. It must deliver a practical framework for hemispheric defense and development. From China and the cartels to nearshoring industries and infrastructure development, the United States must solve acute challenges and take advantage of promising opportunities in the Western Hemisphere.

The United States has arrived at an inflection point with great consequence for world order. The decisions made during Trump’s second term will reverberate in the next decades, especially in the Western Hemisphere.

Whether on trade, development, crime or defense, the Trump administration must persist in reinvigorating America’s relationship with its neighbors to work toward solutions based on shared interests. This process may be rife with closed-door disagreements and public disputes, but the ultimate outcome will land the Western Hemisphere on a stronger footing for the 21^st century.

As the Trump administration reorients strategic focus on the Americas, regional partners should benefit from closer economic and security cooperation with the United States, while those countries actively engaged with China and its authoritarian partners against American interests should be deterred and isolated.

American concerns are not always synonymous with those of every country in the Western Hemisphere, but an American-led hemispheric order safeguards the region’s economic and security interests.

A secure and prosperous hemisphere augments the domestic determinants of American power. It will prove to be the wellspring of the Pax Americana revival.

Joseph A. Ledford is a Hoover Fellow and the Assistant Director of the Hoover History Lab at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he also serves as the Vice Chair of the Hoover Applied History Working Group.