The Trump Administration announced this week that it plans to shift tens of millions in military aid from countries in Europe and the Middle East to nations in Latin America with right-leaning governments. A State Department official confirms to TIME that the department notified Congress that $52 million in foreign military funding for Iraq, North Macedonia, Slovakia, and Tunisia will be diverted to Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru, and that the funds will be used to “combat narcoterrorism in our own backyard and help continue to secure the Panama Canal.” The department did not specify how much military funding the U.S. will continue to provide those Middle Eastern and European nations following the shift. The reallocation of military funding reflects a broader shift in the U.S.’s priorities when it comes to foreign policy.
Since Trump’s return to office last year, his Administration has worked to buttress the U.S.'s presence in the Western Hemisphere in the name of curbing drug trafficking from Central and South America and squashing the influence of other nations, such as China, in the region. The Trump Administration has also sought to recalibrate its foreign policy regarding the Middle East and Europe. A national security strategy laid out by the White House at the end of last year stated that the Administration intended to take a more hands-off approach to armed conflict in those regions and allow them to become more militarily self-reliant.
The diversion of foreign military aid marks the latest in several moves Trump has made to cut U.S. troops and funding in Europe during his second term—though in the Middle East, his war in Iran has engaged the U.S. in months of conflict. Military Drawdown in Europe Has Only Just Begun Experts warn that the shift in military funding—and the broader plans of realigning U.S. foreign policy it fits into—threatens to weaken the country’s alliances around the world over the long term. And one of the best ways to do this is to be consistent.” During Trump’s second term his Administration has increased military funding to Latin American countries, as well as boosting the U.S.’s own military presence in the region.
The U.S. has also conducted a number of military operations in the region since Trump returned to the White House, including a series of lethal attacks on what federal officials claimed were vessels transporting narcotics to the U.S. from the Caribbean that have drawn blowback from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Washington. The Trump Administration has also partnered with Ecuador for a joint military operation targeting “narco-terrorists” in the South American country, while announcing plans for further campaigns of the same kind in other nations in the region. And in January, the U.S. launched a military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of the country’s then-leader Nicolas Maduro, who had previously been indicted in the U.S. on charges of drug trafficking and corruption.
After the operation, Trump pledged that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” These moves reflect what the President has referred to as the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine or, later, as the “Donroe Doctrine,” a revival of a 19th century foreign policy framework first articulated by former President James Monroe that was used to justify assertions of U.S. military and economic control in Latin America. Read More: The 200-Year-Old Foreign Policy Vision Underlying Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine’ “Reinvigorated by my Trump Corollary, the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well—and American leadership is coming roaring back stronger than ever before,” Trump said in a December proclamation. A national security strategy released by the White House in November detailed that “Trump Corollary” in effect as an assertion that the U.S. must be “preeminent in the Western Hemisphere … a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.” “We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations,” the strategy document reads.
The strategy described the Administration’s plans to back like-minded leaders in the Western Hemisphere as well, stating that it would “reward and enco
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