Top US military officials are visiting Caribbean leaders as Trump weighs next steps

Top US mil­i­tary of­fi­cials are meet­ing lead­ers of Caribbean na­tions this week as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has es­ca­lat­ed its fire­pow­er in the re­gion as part of what it calls a cam­paign against drug traf­fick­ing.

De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth will trav­el to San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and meet Wednes­day with the coun­try’s top lead­ers, in­clud­ing Pres­i­dent Luis Abi­nad­er, Min­is­ter of De­fense Lt. Gen. Car­los An­to­nio Fer­nán­dez Onofre and oth­er of­fi­cials, the Pen­ta­gon said Tues­day.

The an­nounce­ment came the same day that Gen­er­al Dan Caine, chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s pri­ma­ry mil­i­tary ad­vis­er, met with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

They “ex­changed views on chal­lenges af­fect­ing the Caribbean re­gion, in­clud­ing the desta­bil­is­ing ef­fects of il­lic­it nar­cotics, arms, and hu­man traf­fick­ing, and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion ac­tiv­i­ties,” ac­cord­ing to a sum­ma­ry re­leased by Caine’s of­fice.

The US mil­i­tary has built up its largest pres­ence in the re­gion in gen­er­a­tions and has been at­tack­ing al­leged drug-smug­gling boats since ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. To date, the mil­i­tary, un­der Hegseth’s com­mand, has car­ried out 21 known strikes on ves­sels ac­cused of car­ry­ing drugs, killing at least 83 peo­ple.

The ac­tions are seen by many as a pres­sure tac­tic to get Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro to step down. The vis­its by Hegseth and Caine this week come as Trump eval­u­ates whether to take mil­i­tary ac­tion against Venezuela, which he has not ruled out de­spite rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of talks with Maduro, who has been charged with nar­coter­ror­ism in the U.S.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion added ex­tra pres­sure by of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ing the Car­tel de los Soles, or Car­tel of the Suns, as a for­eign ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion on Mon­day, al­though the en­ti­ty that the US gov­ern­ment al­leges is led by Maduro is not a car­tel per se.

While a ma­jor­i­ty of Caribbean lead­ers have been mut­ed in their re­sponse to the strikes on al­leged drug boats, urg­ing peace and di­a­logue, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has stood out for her pub­lic praise of the dead­ly at­tacks.

In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, she said she had no sym­pa­thy for drug traf­fick­ers, adding that “the US mil­i­tary should kill them all vi­o­lent­ly.” Her re­marks and sup­port of the strikes have been con­demned by some op­po­si­tion lead­ers and re­gion­al of­fi­cials.

Ac­cord­ing to the Pen­ta­gon, Hegseth’s trip to the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic will aim “to strength­en de­fense re­la­tion­ships and reaf­firm Amer­i­ca’s com­mit­ment to de­fend the home­land.”

Mean­while, Caine al­so used his time in the re­gion to vis­it Amer­i­can troops in Puer­to Ri­co and on at least one U.S. Navy ship, thank­ing ser­vice mem­bers for their ser­vice and sac­ri­fice over the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day, the Pen­ta­gon said.

Caine and Hegseth al­so vis­it­ed the re­gion in Sep­tem­ber, go­ing to Puer­to Ri­co af­ter ships car­ry­ing hun­dreds of US Marines ar­rived for what of­fi­cials said was a train­ing ex­er­cise.