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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This morning, I’m honored to welcome distinguished heads of state from across the Western Hemisphere for the first Shield of the Americas Summit. And it’s something very, very special. Marco’s been working on it very hard.

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But on this historic day, we come together to announce a brand new military coalition to eradicate the criminal cartels plaguing our region. And you have a lot of it. One of the things, when we were talking backstage, you were telling me that the crime, the cartels — and we’re knocking the hell out of them where we can. We’re going to go heavier. You saw what we were doing with the boats coming in. There’s not a lot of people coming in by boats anymore.

We knocked down drugs coming in by sea. Drugs coming in through water is down 96%. We’re trying to find out who the other 4% are, because I think they’re the bravest people in the world. Either that or they don’t watch television, right? They’re either very brave or they’re not watching.

But we’re calling this military partnership the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition. And that’s what you need. Do you have cartels? They seem to grow in this region unbelievably rapidly. It has to do with drugs largely.

Earlier this week here in Miami, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who’s right here — Pete, you’re fantastic, doing a great job. We’re proud of you. And representatives of 17 different nations formally entered this new alliance.

The heart of our agreement is a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks once and for all. We’ll get rid of them. We need your help. You have to just tell us where they are. We have amazing weaponry, as you probably noticed over the last short period of time.

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All of the nations in this room share the same priorities: security, prosperity, free commerce, and the rule of law. And you want the rule of law. Sometimes your communities don’t let you have it because you’ve got some rough communities, man.

That’s why together we’re also forming the Shield of the Americas, a new organization to advance these shared priorities in our hemisphere.

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For decades, leaders in this region have allowed large swaths of territory of the Western Hemisphere to come under the direct control of transnational gangs. They’ve taken over. They’ve run areas of your country. We’re not going to let that happen. We’ll help you.

These bloodthirsty cartels impose their will through murder, torture, extortion, drug trafficking, bribery, and terror. Some of you are in danger. I mean, you’re actually in danger. Hard to believe, but we’re working with you to do whatever we have to do. We’ll use missiles. If you want us to use a missile, they’re extremely accurate. Right into the living room. That’s the end of that cartel person. But we’ll do whatever you need, if you want. A lot of countries don’t want to do that. They say, “Oh, sir, I’d rather not have that. I’d rather believe they could be spoken to.” I don’t think so.

Many of them don’t want it, and that’s okay too. You’re going to do you. But if you need help, you’re going to let us know, okay?

Many of the cartels have developed sophisticated military operations, highly sophisticated. In some cases, they say they’re more powerful than the military in the country. Can’t have that. These brutal criminal organizations pose an unacceptable threat to national security, and they provide a dangerous gateway for foreign adversaries in our region. And then we don’t want them near our country either. We don’t want them to come in. They’re cancer. They’re cancer, and we don’t want it spreading.

We have a very strong border. You know, we have a border now where for nine months zero people have been able to come through. It’s hard to believe, actually, because we went from 25 million people coming in over the Biden — Sleepy Joe Biden, one of the worst presidents in the history of the world. He was the worst president in the history of our country. We’ve had some pretty bad ones recently. We’ve had some pretty bad ones, but he’s the worst. But he would go down as one of the worst in the world. I’m going to up his category now. Horrible. What he did — and what he didn’t do was probably worse than what he did.

Every leader here today is united in the conviction that we cannot and will not tolerate the lawlessness in our hemisphere any longer. The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries. We have to use our military. You have to use your military. You can’t fight these people with — and you have great police, you have some great police, but they threaten your police. They scare your police. You’ve got to use your military.

In many cases, our forces have already been working closely with yours, and the United States looks forward to deepening and expanding that cooperation in the months ahead. And it’s so good that we got to know so many of you. I’d love to get to your countries at some point.

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As part of our commitment to countering the cartel presence in our region, we must recognize the epicenter of cartel violence is Mexico. The Mexican cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere. And the United States government will do whatever is necessary to defend our national security and to protect the safety of the American people.

We have to eradicate them. We have to knock the hell out of them because they’re getting worse. They’re taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that. Too close to us, too close to you. But everything comes in through Mexico, mostly.

At the same time, all of us must recommit to ensuring that law and order within our own nations — and that includes showing zero tolerance for the gang activity. Tremendous gang activity in Venezuela. That’s in much better shape than it ever has been.

We’ve developed a great relationship in Venezuela. The savages who murder and rape with impunity must be permanently removed from society. We must not allow our criminal justice systems to be corrupted so that they protect these criminals and animals at the expense of your people.

And for some reason, all over the world, this is a region that has problems that other regions don’t have. They have different problems, but they don’t have this problem.

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But we’re also working closely with you on ending human smuggling and implementing the safe third-country agreements, which are very important.

In January, America’s armed forces also ended the reign of one of the biggest cartel kingpins of all with Operation Absolute Resolve to bring outlaw dictator Nicolás Maduro to justice in a precision raid that nobody’s ever seen anything like. This was in a very powerful military base fort, and they went in and they took him out. It was nasty. It was about 18 minutes of pure violence, and we took him out. We lost nobody. Not one person was lost. Not one aircraft, no military equipment — zero. People have never seen anything like it. And you’re talking about going into a military base with a lot of soldiers, good soldiers.

Since that operation, we’ve been working closely with the new president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, who’s doing a great job, working with us. I mean, she’s doing a great job because she’s working with us. If she wasn’t working with us, I would not say she’s doing a great job. In fact, if she wasn’t working with us, I’d say she’s doing a very poor job. Unacceptable.

No, but she’s doing a great job, Marco, right? And gets along great with Marco. And we’re taking out tremendous amounts of oil. They’re making more money now than they’ve ever made. We have the big oil companies, and they are making more money now than they’ve ever made in the history of their country. Can you imagine? And it’s being spent properly, and they’re watching it closely.

And I’m pleased to say that this week we have formally recognized the Venezuelan government. We’ve actually legally recognized them. We’ve also just reached a historic gold deal — it’s called the gold deal — with Venezuela to allow our two countries to work together to facilitate the sale of Venezuelan gold and other minerals. They have great amounts of gold. They have good land. I tell you, very good land. But they weren’t able to take advantage of the value of their land.

As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba. Cuba’s at the end of the line. They’re very much at the end of the line. They have no money, they have no oil, they have a bad philosophy, they have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time.

And they used to get the money from Venezuela. They’d get the oil from Venezuela. But they don’t have any money from Venezuela, they don’t have any oil, they don’t have anything. People can’t even — they land in Cuba, they can’t get gasoline to fly out. They have to leave their planes behind.

And they want to negotiate, and they are negotiating with Marco and myself and some others, and I would think a deal would be made very easily with Cuba. But for 50 years I’ve been hearing, as a little boy, about Cuba. “Cuba is a disaster.” But I’ve been hearing so much about Cuba. Cuba is in its last moments of life as it was. It’ll have a great new life, but it’s in its last moments of life the way it is.

But our focus right now is on Iran, and we’ll do that. I would say — what, will you take about two days off, Marco? No, he won’t. Maybe an hour. He’ll take one hour off, and then he’ll finish up a deal on Cuba. That’ll be an easy one. But it’ll be the entire region that we’re doing.

Many of you have come today and said, “I hope you can take care of Cuba,” because you’ve had problems with Cuba, right? Four of you said, actually, “Could you do us a favor? Take care of Cuba.” I’ll take care of it, okay?

And as these situations in Venezuela and Cuba should make clear, under our new doctrine — and it is a doctrine — we will not allow hostile foreign influence to gain a foothold in this hemisphere. That includes the Panama Canal, which we talked about. We’re not going to allow it. And together we’ll protect our sovereignty, our security, and our cherished freedom and independence.

And just in finishing up, the nations gathered here today are filled with unlimited potential. You have tremendous potential. It’s a great part of the world. But to fulfill that tremendous potential, we must smash the grip of the cartels and criminal gangs and horrible organizations run by, in some cases, absolute animals, and truly liberate our people.

Some people are afraid to do it because they’ve gotten such a foothold. But I think you can get out of that, and we’ll work with you if you need it. With the courage and resolve of the leaders in this room — great leaders — we’ll make our nations safer, stronger, richer, and more successful than ever before.

So I want to thank you all very much for coming. I look forward to the incredible progress that’s soon to come. You’re going to see some incredible things.

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