Cover: U.S. Marines from an Expeditionary Unit conduct live-fire training on the deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima in the Caribbean Sea on October 14, 2025. Photo: Seaman Andrew Eggert.
Translated by School for Chiapas
Javier Bedía Prado || U.S. policy against drug trafficking and narco-terrorism in Latin America implies, in the coming years, a greater likelihood of direct military intervention and violence against populations in the region.
In the regional security agreement signed between the U.S. and approximately 20 Latin American countries on March 5, the U.S. reserves the right to intervene unilaterally, under the pretext of “promoting peace through force” in the hemisphere.
Following the pact, U.S. soldiers in Ecuador are participating in operations against drug trafficking and illegal mining. According to international organizations, this country serves as a transit route for 70% of the world’s cocaine production, concentrated in Colombia and Peru.
U.S. Attacks on Vessels in the Caribbean
In this way, Washington is expanding its Operation Southern Spear, launched in 2025 with airstrikes on vessels off the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. As of Tuesday, May 5, more than 170 people accused of drug trafficking, most of them fishermen, have been killed in the Pacific and Caribbean seas. Under these guidelines, the fight against drug trafficking in South America carries the risk of criminalizing residents of the Andes and the Amazon, where coca crops are found.
In Peru, despite twenty years of militarization—with U.S. cooperation—in the Apurímac, Ene, and Mantaro River Valley (VRAEM), 70% of cocaine is produced in this emergency zone. Between 2010 and 2021, local drug production rose from 360 to 785 tons annually.
“Nothing has changed in the overall structure of drug trafficking in Peru. In a region that is monitored and patrolled by the armed forces, the police, and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), one wonders how the nation that calls itself the most powerful in the world is unable to identify the manufacturers. The region is part of a network that covers production and shipment; the drugs leave in small planes that are not attacked. They also leave through the port of Callao, which is largely a black box, under the control of the Peruvian and U.S. navies, which will have an even greater presence due to the new naval base being built,” observes sociologist Héctor Béjar in conversation with Avispa Mídia.
The academic, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Pedro Castillo’s government, highlights the power of drug trafficking in national politics and international economic dynamics.
“The production and distribution network also allows them to finance politics; there are studies indicating that Peruvian banks launder money—it is impossible for them to control the money from trafficking—and there is money laundering in casinos and real estate investments. It is a vast, long-standing network. The stability of a currency like the sol against the dollar is due precisely to the high volume of drug trafficking, since a large portion of the cocaine goes to the United States, in addition to gold—both legal and illegal,” he explains.
Global and regional competition for minerals
In the Andean country, Washington’s military presence is at odds with China’s economic dominance. In April, the United States pressured Peru to begin the process of purchasing a fleet of warplanes, valued at $3.5 billion, from the U.S. company Lockheed Martin. The transaction has caused friction between the presidency and the Ministry of Defense.
Interim President José María Balcázar chose to leave the decision on finalizing the acquisition to the government to be elected in June, while the military defends the legitimacy of the bidding process and denies any diplomatic pressure from the United States. The negotiations led the Chinese ambassador to Colombia to question messages he considered “coercive” toward Peru from the U.S. representative in Lima.
“Peru is in a crossfire: its main market is China, but in military relations, it has the United States as a political partner. Minerals, copper, and local electricity come from China. In the productive system, copper and banks form a network of power, and China has the world’s most important bank. Peru is a focal point of global capitalist domination, where contradictions play out beyond all information, beyond control, with an international mega-oligarchy in place,” says Héctor Béjar.
The U.S. military deployment in the region aims to secure more raw materials, which are being contested with China. Following the invasion of Venezuela in January to seize its oil reserves, the U.S. seeks greater control over extractive industries, the foundation of Latin American economies.
The sociologist emphasizes the importance of copper as a major economic factor in the rivalry among world powers, as well as in international relations in South America. In Chile, the world’s leading producer of the mineral, the industrial complex is proposing the creation of a national mining company in Peru—the second-largest producer—to acquire, process, and market Peruvian gold and copper.
“In Peru’s case, copper mining means the destruction of the country; it takes place in the mountains, whereas in Chile it is in the desert. Here there is more pollution, less water, greater destruction of lakes in the Andean highlands, and the devastation of people—including children in Andean regions with lead in their blood. Peru is being systematically destroyed, sacrificed for the sake of the global industry,” states Béjar.
The War on Terror as an Instrument of Stigmatization
The United States’ use of the term “terrorism” in this new phase of the fight against organized crime in Latin America aligns with its manipulation of the term in Peruvian political discourse and with the expansion of counterterrorism legislation in countries across the region, which now includes transnational crimes unrelated to insurgency.
On the eve of the presidential elections held in April in Peru, military operations in the VRAEM, where Andean and Amazonian rivers converge, intensified. On March 29, two people identified by the armed forces as members of Shining Path were killed in the Ayacucho region.
Then, on April 25, five residents of the Colcabamba district, located in the Huancavelica region, were killed by the army during a staged anti-drug operation. The military accused the victims of opening fire, but no evidence was found. A survivor was threatened into signing a statement claiming he had transported drugs.
“It’s premeditated violence; it always happens during election cycles. It serves as a pretext for the Peruvian right wing to claim that terrorism still exists, that Shining Path still exists; it serves the right wing’s political campaign, which accuses all other sectors of being terrorists. It’s been this way since 1990. What we call the right wing in Peru is a collection of criminal groups, mafias that feed off all kinds of trafficking and parasitize the public budget,” adds Béjar.
Although Shining Path disbanded, abandoned armed struggle, and renounced its ideological positions in 1993 following the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzmán, counterterrorism operations were carried out prior to the 2011, 2016, and 2021 elections, according to the narrative maintained to this day by military institutions to delegitimize the left and social movements.
In this regard, the U.S. Department of Defense emphasized the ideological nature of the agreement, which is why it excluded Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia—countries whose governments Washington considers socialist. Meanwhile, on May 6, the White House presented its counterterrorism strategy, in which it identifies the cartels as one of the main threats to national security and reiterates the possibility of attacking them on its own, shifting the threat to governments it believes support or facilitate them.
