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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is heading this week to Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. He has been making Latin America a priority, even as the Trump administration revives 19th century ideas about U.S. dominance in the region. Rubio is also defending an oil deal with Venezuela's interim leaders who took power after the U.S. seized the Venezuelan president. Here's NPR's Michele Keleman.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: What began as a warning to European powers in the 19th century to stay out of the new world is now a framework for U.S. regional dominance. That's how the U.S. ambassador to Panama puts it in a State Department video about the history of the Monroe Doctrine.
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KEVIN MARINO CABRERA: Fast-forward to the modern era, where the doctrine has found its latest champion in President Trump.
KELEMEN: Ambassador Kevin Marino Cabrera cited President Trump's decision to send military forces to oust Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
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CABRERA: This calculated maneuver delivered a resonant signal across the hemisphere, punctuated by President Trump's own declaration.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.
KELEMEN: But Trump's recent oil deal with Maduro's former vice president, now interim leader, and his call for U.S. dominance do raise concerns.
JANA NELSON: This neo-colonist, neo-imperialist approach has not been well received.
KELEMEN: That's Jana Nelson, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere in the Biden administration.
NELSON: The majority of the people in the Americas are not happy about the Monroe Doctrine concept being revived.
KELEMEN: And it's not just about the video, says Michael Paarlberg, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. He says there's a lot of concern in the region about the Trump administration's actions.
MICHAEL PAARLBERG: For example, the extrajudicial killings of 200 people on speedboats in the Caribbean and the Pacific and the close alliance between the Trump administration and the Chavista government in Venezuela and the election interference by the U.S. in the upcoming Brazilian elections. I think these things are a little bit more alarming to many people than the State Department video.
KELEMEN: President Trump, though, is sounding confident about the trends in Latin America.
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TRUMP: That part of our hemisphere is really turning out to be very much different than it was. They've gone from being left to going right.
KELEMEN: And he's taking credit for that.
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TRUMP: Because, as you know, I endorsed a gentleman, El Tigre. I liked his name, El Tigre. I guess that means he's a tough guy.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: But he's now the president of Colombia.
KELEMEN: Abelardo de la Espriella won a narrow victory earlier this year and earned his nickname for his tough-on-crime message. But before that, he was a lawyer to some pretty controversial figures, says Paarlberg.
PAARLBERG: As a criminal defense attorney, he represented many top drug traffickers and money launderers, including those who have been prosecuted in the U.S., like Alex Saab, or including convicted and jailed in the U.S., like Salvatore Mancuso.
KELEMEN: Secretary Rubio will be meeting the new Colombian leader, and he'll visit other like-minded leaders in Ecuador and Peru this week. In a statement announcing the trip, officials said Rubio will talk about enhanced cooperation in the, quote, "shared fight against narco-terrorism, which threatens our hemisphere." The former Defense Department official, Jana Nelson, says Rubio will find the region more aligned on fighting the drug trade.
NELSON: On the security side, they all see eye to eye. They're all, what we call in Latin America, Mano Dura proponents. They take a very strong stance against organized crime and sometimes in violation of human rights.
KELEMEN: And they're taking a more military-first approach to tackling drug trafficking, more in line with the Trump administration.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
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