Overview
- The document pledges to reassert and enforce U.S. primacy in the Western Hemisphere and bars foreign powers from gaining “practical power of control.”
- It outlines priorities to counter mass migration, drug trafficking, and hostile foreign incursion or ownership, with a focus on China and Russia’s regional inroads.
- Reporting describes stepped-up enforcement, including U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats since September that have killed nearly 90 people and a military buildup near Venezuela.
- Economic and diplomatic measures figure prominently, with a US$20 billion support package for Argentina and pressure credited with Panama’s exit from China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
- Scholars and regional observers are split over whether this marks a necessary security reset or a return to interventionist ‘gunboat diplomacy,’ with Latin American responses described as fragmented.