By Phil Stewart
PANAMA CITY, Aug 12 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth floated on Wednesday the possibility of joint strikes on Colombian armed groups, as he welcomed the nation into a military-led counter-narcotics coalition after its conservative president took over last week.
Colombia had authorized "joint military operations to destroy terrorists and terror networks," Hegseth told a gathering of the U.S.-led Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition in Panama.
"Yes," he replied when asked if
he had discussed with his Colombian counterpart joint strikes against armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN), which the U.S. designates as a terrorist group, and remnants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
"Designated terrorist organizations, with partnered governments, will be legitimate targets of the United States government," to include Colombia, Hegseth said when asked if such operations were expected.
President Donald Trump's Latin American policy has expanded dramatically beyond its early focus on the Panama Canal.
More than 200 people have been killed since the launch of U.S. military strikes on suspected drug boats last September, while a U.S.-led commando raid in January deposed Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela.
Critics say the U.S. strikes amount to war crimes worthy of the International Criminal Court, but Hegseth blasted the organization and encouraged coalition allies attending the meeting in Panama to withdraw from it.
He compared drug traffickers to al Qaeda or Islamic State terrorists.
Speaking at a hotel in Panama City, Hegseth invoked a revamped Monroe Doctrine, the 19th-century policy asserting U.S. primacy across the Americas that critics associate with decades of U.S. intervention.
He has called it the "Donroe Doctrine" — a play on Trump's name.
"We will defend our hemisphere from external threats," including from narco-traffickers and foreign malign influence, Hegseth said.
COLOMBIAN CRACKDOWN
Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella's vows of a security crackdown have been embraced by the Trump administration, which announced plans on Friday to provide $1 billion in U.S. security assistance to his government.
During his swearing-in remarks on Friday, De La Espriella vowed to "definitively eradicate the scourge of illicit crops" and committed to also joining the Shield of the Americas program founded by Trump.
De La Espriella has blamed his predecessor, leftist Gustavo Petro, for an expansion of armed groups.
Speaking alongside Hegseth at the event, Colombia's new Defense Minister Jorge Eduardo Mora, a retired major general, said Colombia could take a critical role in combating narco-traffickers on both its Pacific and Caribbean coasts.
"I think the time has arrived for the narco-terrorist cartels to confront the power and the capabilities of the entire hemisphere, led by the United States," Mora said.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new security partnership was expected to surpass the level of cooperation under Plan Colombia, a U.S.-Colombia anti-narcotics initiative launched in the early 2000s.
De La Espriella's election was part of a rightward shift rippling across Latin America.
In Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Panama and Peru, weak economies and rising crime have reshaped voter priorities, allowing once-fringe hard-right candidates to gain traction by promising crackdowns amid a global rise of right-wing nationalism.
In Panama, Trump's administration won a major victory from the country's Supreme Court in January after voicing concerns about encroachment by China. Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, through local unit Panama Ports Company, lost the port concessions it had held for nearly three decades.
The Panama Canal handles 5% of global maritime trade, making control of its entrance ports a flashpoint for tension between Washington and Beijing.
Addressing the meeting, Panama President Jose Raul Mulino called drug trafficking the biggest threat facing the region and dismissed concerns that the U.S.-led coalition could infringe on members' sovereignty. He made no mention of China.
Instead, he said the transnational crime groups that traffic drugs and people are the real threats to sovereignty.
"There's never going to be a sustainable peace if this enemy (advances)," Mulino said.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart in Panama City and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell and Clarence Fernandez)
