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Land raids after boat strikes
The Trump administration says it is seeking to extend a lethal U.S. military campaign from bombing boats it accused of ferrying drugs off Latin America’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts to land, pursuing deals that would put U.S. forces on the ground in allied nations across the region.
“seeking to extend that lethal campaign to land”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced during a visit to Panama that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to allow the U.S. to carry out joint military operations against criminal groups on their soil, following Ecuador, which launched similar missions with the U.S. in March.
Guatemala has denied reaching such an agreement, and Hegseth said during a military drill in the jungle in Panama, "Same effect on land. And so we’re working with Ecuador. We’re working with Colombia."
The expansion follows a year in which the U.S. military began bombing boats, killing hundreds of people, and the AP report says the administration has designated 20 Latin American criminal groups as "foreign terrorist organizations."
Promises, denials, and pushback
Critics warn that the widening U.S. military campaign risks civilian casualties and a backlash against the U.S. that could outlast the Republican administration, as the AP report frames the shift as a new phase in Washington’s pressure on governments across Latin America.
Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank said, "What’s going on is an attempt to legitimize the increased use of the U.S. military in the region," adding that it "projects power" and enables Washington to impose its agenda.
In Guatemala, President Bernardo Arévalo has denied agreeing to joint anti-drug operations, saying they would be illegal without congressional approval, while the AP report says Honduras, Colombia and Ecuador did not respond to requests for comment on Hegseth’s remarks.
The AP report also says Hegseth raised the possibility of U.S. forces joining strikes against armed groups in Colombia, including the National Liberation Army, or ELN, after Trump-backed Abelardo de la Espriella took office this month.
What’s at stake next
The AP report says the U.S. military has operated in Latin America for generations, supplying allies with weapons, intelligence and training to fight drug trafficking, but it adds that sustained U.S. combat operations alongside local forces would be "new and different."
“new and different”
William LeoGrande, a Latin America specialist at American University, said the shift would test "deep-rooted sensitivities" over national sovereignty and the presence of U.S. troops, as Washington provides few details about what joint operations with Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras would look like.
The AP report links the campaign’s justification to Hegseth’s statement that, "Anywhere you traffic drugs or you threaten the American people or our partners, you are a target just like ISIS or al-Qaida," equating drug traffickers with Islamic extremist groups.
It also notes that Ecuador is described as the clearest case of direct U.S. military involvement, launching joint raids with Washington despite voters overwhelmingly rejecting foreign military bases in a November 2025 referendum, and a New York Times investigation found one strike on an alleged drug lab in March destroyed a cattle farm.
