US Foreign Policy Actions in Latin America and Caribbean

From military strikes in Caracas to a fuel blockade choking Havana, from sweeping tariffs to the dismantling of USAID, the United States has launched the most aggressive reorientation of its Latin America policy in decades. The results are reverberating from the Caribbean to Patagonia — and drawing sharp lines between allies and adversaries in a region that had grown accustomed to a more laissez-faire Washington.

The Trump Corollary: A Doctrine Takes Shape

In late 2025, the Trump administration's National Security Strategy articulated what analysts at Chatham House and the Peterson Institute have dubbed the "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine — an explicit reassertion of the Western Hemisphere as a U.S. sphere of influence, with the stated objective of denying rivals, particularly China, any strategic foothold in the region [1][2].

The doctrine is not merely rhetorical. Over the past 14 months, the administration has pursued it through four interlocking instruments: military force, economic coercion, legal prosecution, and the withdrawal of development assistance. Together, these tools represent a coherent — if controversial — strategy to reassert American primacy south of the border.

"This is the most interventionist posture the United States has adopted in Latin America since the Cold War," said a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), which published a year-in-review analysis documenting the administration's actions [3]. "The question is whether coercion produces stability or the opposite."

Operation Absolute Resolve: The Capture of Maduro

The most dramatic expression of the new doctrine came on January 3, 2026, when U.S. forces launched Operation Absolute Resolve — a large-scale military and law enforcement operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on federal narcoterrorism charges [4].

The operation began at approximately 2 a.m. local time with airstrikes against Venezuelan air defense infrastructure across northern Venezuela. More than 150 aircraft participated, including F-22 Raptors, F-35 Lightning IIs, F/A-18 Super Hornets, and B-1 Lancers, launched from 20 bases on land and at sea [5]. An apprehension force then assaulted Maduro's compound in Caracas, detaining both the president and his wife, Cilia Flores.

According to Venezuelan and Cuban officials, more than 80 people were killed in the operation, including 32 Cuban military and intelligence personnel [4]. Maduro and Flores were transported to New York City to face trial on narcoterrorism charges.

The Brookings Institution called it a watershed moment in U.S. foreign policy with "global implications," noting that the unilateral use of military force to arrest a sitting head of state on criminal charges set a precedent without parallel in modern international law [6]. Most NATO member states supported or accepted the operation, while the majority of Latin American, African, and Asian governments condemned it as a violation of sovereignty [7].

The immediate fallout was felt across the Caribbean. The FAA issued an emergency Notice to Airmen closing Venezuelan airspace, resulting in the cancellation of hundreds of commercial flights to Puerto Rico, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Aruba, Curaçao, and more than a dozen other destinations [8]. American tourists were stranded across the region for days.

Inside Venezuela, the country's judicial system directed Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to assume executive authority. The Trump administration subsequently eased some sanctions, issuing two licenses in February allowing international companies to operate oil and gas projects in Venezuela [9].

Cuba Under Siege: Blockade, Blackouts, and the Push for Regime Change

If Venezuela was the military phase, Cuba represents the economic warfare phase of the administration's Latin America strategy.

On January 29, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14380, declaring a national emergency related to Cuba and authorizing tariffs on imports from any country that supplies oil to the island [10]. The order was designed to sever Cuba's remaining energy lifelines — a task made drastically easier by the simultaneous intervention in Venezuela, which had been Cuba's primary oil supplier along with Mexico.

The resulting crisis has been devastating. Cuba, which depends almost entirely on imported oil, was left without adequate fuel supply. The UN Human Rights Office reported that the blockade has threatened Cuba's food supply, disrupted water systems, and crippled hospitals [11]. UN experts formally condemned the executive order, calling it a violation of international humanitarian law [12].

The human toll has been stark. As of late February, garbage collection trucks sat immobilized with empty fuel tanks, refuse piling up across Havana. All but emergency surgeries were canceled. Power outages lasting more than 20 hours became routine [13]. On March 5, Cuba suffered yet another massive grid collapse, leaving millions without electricity [14].

"This is not a policy of strategic pressure," said a humanitarian analyst at The New Humanitarian. "This is a policy whose measured outcome is human suffering" [15].

Source: World Bank / World Development Indicators

Data as of Feb 24, 2026CSV

President Trump has been explicit about the endgame. After the Venezuela operation, he stated that Cuba's government is "next," and that regime change there is "a question of time" — language echoing administration rhetoric that Cuba would be addressed after completing operations regarding Iran [16]. The Justice Department has now established a working group in the Southern District of Florida, led by U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, to explore federal charges against Cuban government officials and Communist Party members [17]. The effort appears to follow the Venezuela model: build criminal cases — likely related to narcotics trafficking — that could justify further action.

No indictments have been announced, and it remains unclear which officials are being targeted or what specific charges prosecutors are pursuing [17].

The Tariff Wall: Economic Coercion Across the Region

Beyond Cuba and Venezuela, the administration has wielded tariffs as a blunt instrument across Latin America. Since February 2025, the United States has imposed tariffs that have raised the average effective rate on Latin American and Caribbean imports to approximately 10 percent, though the impact varies dramatically by country [18].

Brazil has been hit hardest, facing an average tariff of 33 percent, followed by Uruguay at 20 percent and Nicaragua at 18 percent. Mexico, whose exports largely enter duty-free under the USMCA, faces an effective rate of about 8 percent. Chile, Colombia, and Peru — the only South American nations with U.S. free trade agreements — have seen their primary exports (copper and oil) remain largely exempt [18].

The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) warned that the tariff regime is already suppressing investment. Foreign Direct Investment project announcements in Latin America fell 53 percent in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, dropping to $31.4 billion [19]. ECLAC has recommended that regional governments diversify trade relationships toward China, the European Union, and one another [18].

Source: ECLAC / UN Economic Commission for Latin America

Data as of Mar 7, 2026CSV

The administration also decertified Colombia — for the first time since the late 1990s — for allegedly failing to control the drug trade, and sanctioned Colombian President Gustavo Petro and others for their purported role in the "global illicit drug trade" [3].

The Dismantling of Development Assistance

Perhaps the least visible but most consequential long-term shift has been the near-total elimination of U.S. development assistance to the region.

By March 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83 percent of USAID contracts would be cut. The agency was reduced to just 15 employees working under the State Department before being officially shuttered on July 1, 2025 [20]. Government data shows total U.S. foreign aid disbursements more than halved to $32 billion in 2025 [21].

Over 84 percent of USAID assistance specifically targeting Latin America and the Caribbean was eliminated, affecting programs that ranged from food assistance to support for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, anti-trafficking operations in Panama, literacy programs in Honduras, and anti-narcotics efforts in Mexico [3][22].

In 2023, approximately $3.7 billion — about 5 percent of total U.S. international assistance — went to the Western Hemisphere. Roughly a quarter of that was spent on security programs to combat drug trafficking — programs now in limbo [22]. A project that helped more than 40,000 Venezuelan migrants in Colombia start businesses over three years was suspended [22].

Congress has pushed back. On February 3, 2026, it passed a foreign assistance bill allocating $50 billion — $19 billion more than the administration requested — though still $9.3 billion less than FY2025 enacted levels [23][24]. The bill represents what WOLA called Congress "charting its own course" on foreign policy priorities [24].

Experts warn that the aid vacuum risks increasing instability and migration — precisely the outcomes the administration says it wants to prevent. "You cannot simultaneously cut the programs that create economic opportunity in Central America and expect fewer people to show up at the border," said a former USAID official [22].

Deportation by Military Aircraft

The coercive turn extends to immigration enforcement. In an unprecedented move, the administration deployed U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft for deportation flights beginning in late January 2025, ferrying detained migrants to Central American countries and to the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba [25][26].

The use of military aircraft for civilian immigration enforcement represents a significant departure from precedent and has drawn scrutiny from legal scholars and civil liberties organizations. The administration has framed the operations as necessary to fulfill campaign promises of mass deportation and to address what it characterizes as a national security threat at the southern border.

China's Quiet Advance

As Washington has pursued confrontation, Beijing has pursued commerce — and the contrast has not been lost on the region's leaders.

China's third policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean, published in 2025, explicitly positioned Beijing as an alternative to what it characterized as American "hegemonism" [27]. More than 20 countries in the region have now signed on to China's Belt and Road Initiative, with Colombia the most recent addition [28].

In May 2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Latin American and Caribbean leaders at a summit in Beijing, announcing a $9 billion investment credit line for the region [28]. China's investments are increasingly focused on "new infrastructure" — telecommunications (including Huawei), renewable energy, electric vehicles, and fintech — as well as securing access to lithium, copper, and rare earth minerals critical for its industrial supply chains [28].

The Peterson Institute for International Economics has framed the dynamic as Latin America being caught "in a vise" between the Trump Corollary and China's expanding economic engagement [2]. For many regional governments, the calculation is straightforward: Washington offers threats; Beijing offers investment.

Yet China's actual BRI spending in the region has declined for three consecutive years, with Latin America receiving just over 1 percent of global BRI construction spending and 0.4 percent of outbound investment in the first half of 2025 [28]. The rhetoric of an alternative may outpace the reality.

What Comes Next

The trajectory for 2026 is one of deepening confrontation. The Justice Department's Cuba working group signals that the administration may attempt to replicate the Venezuela model — criminal indictments as a predicate for further action. Trump has explicitly stated that Cuba could follow Iran and Venezuela as his next target [16].

A dense calendar of elections across the region — including in Brazil's municipal contests and potential shifts in Colombia — will test whether the administration's coercive approach drives alignment or backlash. ECLAC projects that regional trade prospects will worsen in 2026 as tariff uncertainty compounds [19].

The fundamental tension is whether the "Trump Corollary" will succeed in reasserting U.S. primacy or accelerate the very trends it seeks to counter: pushing regional governments toward China, destabilizing fragile economies, and generating the migration pressures that dominate American domestic politics.

For the 660 million people who live in Latin America and the Caribbean, the answer is not abstract. It is measured in blackouts in Havana, canceled flights across the Caribbean, suspended aid programs in Honduras, and the uncertain fate of a detained president awaiting trial in New York.