For successive U.S. administrations, the big region below the American southern U.S. border was considered a bit of a backwater.
Sure, there were a few internal conflicts left outstanding, a couple of old-school leftist insurgencies still in operation, and the perpetual problem of drug trafficking. But after the Soviet Union collapsed, Latin America was never thought of as an epicenter of great power competition. The United States, frankly, didn’t have to worry about a geopolitical contender nosing into its own neighborhood.
The Trump administration, however, isn’t like any other administration before it. Trump campaigned on stopping narcotics from entering the U.S., defanging the drug cartels that have proven to be almost as powerful as the Mexican state, and dealing with irregular migration. So Latin America is now a center of gravity for U.S. foreign policy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio chose the region for his first trip as America’s top diplomat.
As we speak, the USS Gravely, a guided-missile destroyer, is steaming toward the Gulf of Mexico on a mission that Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, says is intended to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the U.S.
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Author
Daniel
DePetris
Fellow
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