Rubio tours Trump-aligned Latin American leaders as US reasserts regional influence

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is heading to South America this week to meet with three newly elected leaders who have staked their political futures on alignment with the Trump administration. He will arrive in Colombia on Tuesday to see President Abelardo de la Espriella, then move on to Ecuador to meet with Daniel Noboa, and finally to Peru to sit down with Keiko Fujimori. The State Department has kept the specifics of the agenda close, offering only that discussions will cover American support for Colombia's earthquake recovery, expanded cooperation against what Washington now calls narco-terrorism, and the prospect of deeper trade ties.

The timing of Rubio's tour reflects a broader political realignment sweeping across the region. Over the past two years, a succession of right-leaning candidates have won elections in countries that were once governed by leftist coalitions. Beyond the three nations Rubio will visit, Trump has backed Honduras's Nasry Asfura, who took office in November, and Bolivia's Rodrigo Paz, who won in October. The administration has also cultivated close relationships with Argentina's Javier Milei, who came to power in 2023, and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, who has led since 2019. Brazil and Mexico remain governed by leftists—Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Claudia Sheinbaum, respectively—but even that may shift. Flavio Bolsonaro, son of the former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, is preparing to challenge Lula in October elections, and Trump has already signaled his support by inviting the younger Bolsonaro to the White House in May.

This rightward turn in Latin America coincides with Washington's explicit effort to reassert dominance over the Western Hemisphere. Trump has branded this strategy the "Donroe Doctrine," invoking the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine that sought to exclude European powers from the Americas. But the modern version carries a different emphasis: military force and a reframing of drug trafficking as an act of terrorism requiring lethal response. In August, Colombia's de la Espriella joined the Trump administration's "Shield of the Americas," a coalition of 19 nations that have pledged to deploy military force to "destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks." Unlike his predecessor, the leftist Gustavo Petro, de la Espriella has publicly endorsed American military strikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Those strikes have killed at least 227 people, according to available counts. Human rights organizations have condemned the operations as extrajudicial killings, and families of the dead have insisted that many of the targets were fishermen, not traffickers.

Ecuador has also deepened its military partnership with the United States. In March, the American military announced a collaboration with Ecuador under Noboa's leadership to target drug trafficking organizations operating within the country. When the US conducted strikes on vessels suspected of carrying narcotics, Ecuador's Interior Minister John Reimberg defended the operations in a recent television interview. Peru's Fujimori, the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori—a figure remembered for dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court to consolidate power during his 1990-2000 tenure—has similarly pledged closer military cooperation with Washington and promised a crackdown on criminal organizations.

The Trump administration has moved swiftly to capitalize on this political opening. In the wake of the January 3 abduction of Venezuela's former President Nicolás Maduro, the US struck a deal with Venezuela's interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, that grants American companies access to 65 billion barrels of crude oil reserves over the next century. Washington has also intensified its pressure campaign against Cuba, maintaining a fuel blockade despite Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez's rejection of any negotiations on Monday. A devastating earthquake in Colombia last month killed at least 330 people and displaced thousands, creating an opening for the US to position itself as a crucial partner in recovery efforts.

Rubio himself has characterized the region's conservative shift as an "extraordinary achievement." The realignment has also coincided with strengthened ties between Israel and several Latin American nations since Trump took office. With Brazil's elections looming in October and Bolsonaro's son actively campaigning, the possibility of an even more thoroughly right-aligned hemisphere is within reach. The question now is whether Rubio's tour will solidify these relationships or whether the militaristic approach to drug trafficking and the embrace of what some see as extrajudicial killing will generate friction with populations and civil society groups across the region.