By Nandita Bose, Sarah Morland and David Brunnstrom
March 7 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will host Latin American leaders in Florida on Saturday as his administration seeks to counter China’s growing influence in the region, a diplomatic show just days after U.S. strikes on Iran opened a new front in the Middle East.
The summit comes as Trump prepares for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing at the end of March. The Trump administration hopes to pull Latin America closer to Washington after years of growing Chinese trade, lending and infrastructure investment in the region.
Saturday’s gathering, dubbed the “Shield of the Americas,” also gives Trump a chance to project strength closer to home even as the conflict in the Middle East leads to consequences he may not fully control, such as rising prices for oil and gas.
Kristi Noem will be special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas”, Trump posted Thursday. Noem was Homeland Security secretary until Trump removed her from that post this week after mounting criticism of her from Congress.
The summit brings together conservative leaders aligned with Trump on security, migration and economics, reflecting a broader rightward shift in parts of Latin America.
Among those expected to attend are Argentine President Javier Milei, Chile’s president-elect Jose Antonio Kast and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, whose gang crackdown, criticized by human rights groups, has become a model for parts of Latin America’s right.
Politicians from across the region have toured Bukele’s sprawling “mega-prison,” where the United States last year deported more than 200 Venezuelans without trial.
Also expected are Honduran President Nasry Asfura, who narrowly won a disputed election with Trump’s backing, and Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa, who has echoed parts of Trump’s economic agenda and recently announced joint operations with the U.S. in a military crackdown on drug trafficking.
Many of the leaders share Trump’s hardline view of crime and migration, favoring crackdowns over deeper social fixes and private business over the state. Their rise reflects a broader rightward turn in parts of Latin America at a time when the region is being pulled between Washington and Beijing.
CHINA IN LATIN AMERICA
Ryan Berg, who heads the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote this week that the summit is the first time in Trump’s second term that Washington has brought together Latin American leaders in this way.
He said the talks are likely to focus on security, drug trafficking, money laundering and China’s role in ports, telecommunications and other infrastructure.
Berg said China’s trade with the region hit a record $518 billion in 2024, with Beijing loaning more than $120 billion to governments across the Western Hemisphere.
China’s increased involvement in Latin America – from satellite tracking stations in Argentina and a port in Peru to economic support for Venezuela – has been an irritant for successive U.S. administrations.
China has expanded its reach through trade, loans and infrastructure, while the Trump administration has pushed governments in the region to curb Beijing’s role in ports, energy projects and other strategic assets.
That pressure was on display recently when Panamanian authorities moved against a Hong Kong-based firm tied to operations in the Panama Canal, a key global freight channel.
Washington has also taken more direct steps in the region.
The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 and moved to seize control of the country’s oil exports, and has tightened enforcement of the decades-long U.S. embargo on Cuba.
Several Trump administration officials have told Reuters that Trump’s move against Maduro was intended in part to counter China’s ambitions, and that Beijing’s days of leveraging debt to get cheap oil from Venezuela were “over.”
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Miami, Florida, David Brunnstrom in Washington and Sarah Morland in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Washington and Natalia Siniawski in Mexico City, Editing by Sergio Non and Himani Sarkar)
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