‘An ideological guest list’: Trump invites Latin America’s rightwing leaders to Florida summit

Donald Trump will welcome leaders from at least 10 Latin American countries to a palm-dotted golf resort in Miami on Saturday, as he pushes to reshape the US’s standing in the region and outmuscle China. Since returning to power last year he has launched a dramatic — and at times deadly — crusade to “reclaim our back yard”.

Vows to “take back” the Panama canal were followed by airstrikes on alleged narco boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, overt meddling in Brazil’s judicial system, threats of military intervention in Mexico and Colombia, the abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and the use of Predator drones to help kill one of the world’s most wanted drug bosses, El Mencho, in Mexico.

He has also rescued Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, with a multibillion-dollar bailout, interfered in Honduras’s recent election in support of the eventual rightwing winner, and recently suggested a “friendly takeover” of Cuba while seeking to cut off the island’s oil supply despite UN warnings of a humanitarian “collapse”.

United States, Miami

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