Exactly twenty years ago, in November 2005, the seaside city of Mar del Plata, Argentina, played host to the fourth Summit of the Americas. Back then, a trio of left-wing leaders—Argentina’s Néstor Kirchner, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez—stood firm against then-U.S. President George W. Bush’s ambitious push for a hemisphere-wide free-trade agreement, known as the FTAA. The U.S. quietly retreated from the region after that defeat, leaving a vacuum that other global powers, notably China, were only too eager to fill.
Fast forward to October 2025, and the pendulum has swung dramatically back. According to reporting from NPR and regional sources, the United States, now under Donald Trump’s renewed leadership, has reasserted itself in Latin America with a vigor not seen in decades. The Trump administration’s approach is unmistakably assertive, blending military muscle, economic leverage, and a revived Monroe Doctrine ethos that signals Washington’s determination to be the sole power broker in its own hemisphere.
“The core, of course, is domestic policy, which is controlling migrants, coming down hard on the drug epidemic, especially the use of fentanyl, restoring manufacturing industry to the United States,” Ivan Briscoe, senior director of policy at the International Crisis Group, explained to NPR. He went on to highlight Trump’s strategy of forging direct, transactional relationships with like-minded regional leaders—Argentina’s Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa—aimed at building a coalition of pro-Trump governments across Latin America.
Nowhere is this new U.S. assertiveness more evident than in Argentina. Just days before the country’s crucial midterm elections in October 2025, the U.S. Treasury made the unprecedented move of directly selling dollars in the Argentine foreign exchange market. The aim: to stave off a crippling devaluation and prop up President Milei’s embattled economic program. This intervention was not without strings attached. As Briscoe noted, “the Argentina bailout is tied to the results of the Argentine elections,” underscoring Washington’s desire to see its ideological allies prevail at the ballot box.
The Trump administration’s support for Milei goes beyond financial lifelines. At a peculiar lunch meeting-cum-press conference at the White House, President Trump told Milei that while some trade with China was tolerable, there were clear red lines: “Don’t you dare let the Chinese put their nose in nuclear, military, maritime, or space issues.” Trump reportedly warned he would be “very upset” if he heard otherwise. This was no idle warning—these sectors are precisely where Chinese influence in Argentina has grown in recent years. Beijing opened a space observation facility in Neuquén in 2018, inked a deal in 2022 to jointly build Argentina’s fourth nuclear energy plant, and has eyed major investments in ports near the strategic Strait of Magellan.
China’s economic overtures have not gone unnoticed in Washington. The incoming U.S. Ambassador to Buenos Aires, Peter Lamelas, is expected to arrive in early November 2025 with a clear mandate: to counteract Chinese attempts to “bribe provincial governors to walk away with juicy energy and mining permits,” as regional reporting describes it. Lamelas has personally vowed to halt these efforts, signaling a new era of great-power competition playing out in Argentina’s provinces as much as its capital.
But the U.S. campaign isn’t just economic. The military dimension is increasingly visible, especially in the Caribbean and near Venezuela. The Trump administration has deployed significant air and naval forces, including destroyers and submarines armed with cruise missiles, as well as Marine special operations units. Their stated mission: to crack down on transnational criminal organizations and drug smuggling. However, the buildup also serves as a not-so-subtle warning to the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In a move reminiscent of Cold War covert operations, Trump has authorized the CIA to conduct operations inside Venezuela. This escalation comes as the Maduro government, weakened by last year’s disputed elections and subsequent regional discredit, faces mounting pressure from both domestic opposition and the international community. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded just last week to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader now in hiding, who has become a powerful symbol of resistance. Machado told NPR, “Once Maduro goes, the Cuban regime will follow. The Nicaraguan regime will follow. And for the first time in history, we will have the Americas free of communism and narco-dictatorships.”
Yet, as Ivan Briscoe cautioned, such optimism may be premature. “History would say that we have seen that message propagated from leading Latin American politicians, leading lights in Washington for decades… It’s difficult to see how that process gets going, because these are highly authoritarian, repressive states with powerful secret police and intelligence services, which clamp down very soon on any signs of dissent.” The practical obstacles to regime change in Venezuela remain formidable, with the government tightly bound to the military and security apparatus.
Meanwhile, Trump’s foreign policy in the region is not without controversy or risk. The administration’s pressure campaign has included demands for U.S. control over the Panama Canal, opposition to tariffs on Brazil, and military strikes against alleged drug smugglers on boats in the Caribbean. These actions, while popular among some domestic constituencies in the U.S., have raised hackles across Latin America, where memories of past U.S. interventions remain fresh. As Briscoe warned, “Latin Americans are very sensitive to infringements of their sovereignty, all the more so from the United States, and it’s a very dangerous game to play.”
For President Milei of Argentina, the stakes are high. His economic program, described by regional analysts as “unsustainable” and reliant on borrowed U.S. dollars, leaves him heavily dependent on Washington’s favor. Critics argue that this dependency risks reducing Milei to little more than a “Trump cheerleader,” limiting his ability to act independently or assert Argentina’s interests on the regional stage. At the same time, the broader regional landscape is shifting, with upcoming elections in Bolivia, Chile, and Colombia potentially ushering in a wave of right-leaning governments more amenable to Trump’s vision of hemispheric order.
As the U.S. re-engages forcefully in Latin America, the region finds itself at a crossroads. Washington’s revived Monroe Doctrine may have one main target—China—but its ripple effects are being felt from Buenos Aires to Caracas and beyond. Whether this new era of American assertiveness will bring stability or spark new tensions remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: the days of U.S. disengagement from its southern neighbors are over, and the game has changed—dramatically.