President Donald Trump speaks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
DORAL, Fla. — President Donald Trump will meet with Latin American leaders Saturday at his Miami-area golf club as his administration seeks to show continued focus on the Western Hemisphere amid major international crises.
The gathering, called the “Shield of the Americas” summit, comes two months after Trump ordered a bold U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and bring him and his wife to the U.S. to face drug conspiracy charges. It also follows Trump’s decision to join Israel in a military campaign against Iran last week — a conflict that has already caused hundreds of deaths, roiled markets and unsettled the Middle East.
Trump’s time with regional leaders will be brief; he is due to fly to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, to attend the dignified transfer of six U.S. troops killed in a drone strike on a command center in Kuwait, a day after the U.S. and Israel began their campaign against Iran.
Still, the summit gives Trump an opportunity to re-center attention on the hemisphere. He has pledged to reassert U.S. dominance in the region and counter what he views as expanding Chinese economic influence. “Under previous leaders, we grew obsessed with every other theater and every other border in the world except our own,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this week to regional leaders and defense ministers gathered in Florida. He accused past elites of reducing the U.S. presence in the hemisphere and adopting a harmful “benign neglect.”
Who will be attending
Leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago have confirmed attendance at Trump National Doral Miami, the golf resort where Trump is also slated to host the Group of 20 summit later this year.
The idea for the summit of like-minded conservatives grew out of the aborted 10th Summit of the Americas, which was canceled amid a U.S. military buildup off Venezuela’s coast last year. Host Dominican Republic, pressured by the White House, had excluded Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. But threats from leftist leaders in Colombia and Mexico to withdraw — and no firm commitment from Trump to attend — led Dominican President Luis Abinader to postpone the event, citing “deep differences” across the region.
The Shield of the Americas name signals Trump’s “America First” regional approach, proposing a more muscular use of U.S. military and intelligence assets than seen since the Cold War. Yet the meeting will notably exclude the hemisphere’s two largest powers — Brazil and Mexico — and Colombia, long central to U.S. counternarcotics efforts. Richard Feinberg, who helped plan the first Summit of the Americas in 1994, contrasted the original expansive, inclusive summit with this smaller, hastily convened gathering that revolves around a dominant U.S. figure.
The challenge from China
Since returning to the White House, Trump has prioritized countering Chinese influence in Latin America, framing it as a modern corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. His administration targets Chinese infrastructure projects, military ties and investments in regional resource sectors.
An early example was Trump’s pressure on Panama to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and to review port contracts held by a Hong Kong-based firm amid U.S. threats related to the Panama Canal. The Maduro capture and Trump’s vow to “run” Venezuela risk disrupting oil flows to China — previously the largest buyer of Venezuelan crude — and could bring a close Beijing ally into Washington’s orbit. Trump is set to visit Beijing later this month to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Yet many regional leaders remain reluctant to sever economic ties with China. For countries facing development challenges — from poverty reduction to infrastructure needs — Chinese trade and investment fill gaps that U.S. policy has not, especially as Trump has cut foreign assistance while rewarding allies that back his immigration crackdown, a stance unpopular across the hemisphere. “The U.S. is offering the region tariffs, deportations and militarization whereas China is offering trade and investment,” said Kevin Gallagher of Boston University. He urged regional leaders to hedge and leverage U.S.-China rivalry to their benefit.
Ahead of the summit, Trump named Kristi Noem, recently removed as Homeland Security secretary, as his special envoy for the Shield of the Americas. Noem said Trump will announce “a big agreement” focused on cracking down on cartels and drug trafficking across the hemisphere.
