The countries of the Americas Shield signed on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, a joint declaration designating 24 organisations as “transnational narcoterrorist organisations” and “shared threats”, according to CNN Brasil, G1 and Veja. The text announces asset freezes and immigration and visa restrictions on members, associates and supporters of the groups, as well as criminal liability for those who knowingly provide material support, including logistics.
The list includes Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV), Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Tren de Aragua, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel, according to CNN Brasil. The declaration was signed by Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the United States, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago.
The signatories declared their intention to ask the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) for a consultation meeting to create a consultative body under Articles 6 and 13 of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty), according to CNN Brasil. The push came from US President Donald Trump, and Brazil’s government disputes the designation of the factions as terrorists, according to G1. The Americas Shield was founded in March 2026 on Trump’s initiative and, until this Tuesday, gathered governments aligned with Washington in Latin America, according to Veja.
US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, at the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly that drug cartels are “the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere” and argued they should be “killed, exiled or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release”, according to Reuters. He spoke ahead of a meeting with leaders and foreign ministers from the Shield of the Americas, an anti-cartel coalition launched by his administration in March and made up of Latin American governments aligned with Washington; Brazil and Mexico are not part of it.
Trump cited the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the oil deal with the interim government as proof that Washington “will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere” and that it will use its “unmatched military might” if necessary, and said Mexico “must reclaim control of its soil from the enemies of humanity”. G1 reported that he asked members of the coalition to formally designate drug factions as “common threats to stability” and to impose sanctions. Since late 2025, the United States has carried out dozens of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that, according to human rights groups, have killed more than 220 people and amount to extrajudicial killings.
A report by the United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Ben Saul, says the United States campaign of strikes on vessels suspected of drug trafficking cost US$4.7 billion by mid-2026 and did not reduce the flow of cocaine into the country: border seizures have remained steady and most of the drug arrives in shipping containers, which are rarely inspected, according to Al Jazeera. The document, published on Monday, September 21, says the 68 strikes recorded between September 2025 and August 2026 killed at least 223 people and that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe they constitute crimes against humanity of murder, according to BBC News. The report also argues that drug trafficking does not meet the legal threshold of an “armed attack” that would justify self-defence, and that less lethal alternatives such as maritime interception were available, according to ABC News. Washington maintains the operation is part of an armed conflict with designated “terrorist” organisations and is meant to keep drugs out of the country.