The U.S. Army is sending several hundred soldiers to Latin America for training and joint exercises as the Trump administration broadens its military campaign against drug-trafficking networks, Fox News has confirmed.
The deployment draws on soldiers from the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, New York. The first troops from a roughly 600-soldier battalion are expected to deploy to Panama, according to The New York Times, which first reported the move.
A senior U.S. official told Fox News the troops are being forward-staged under U.S. Southern Command, which will decide where they ultimately end up.
Per The Times, the soldiers will first go to a newly built jungle training facility in Panama before later training alongside local forces in Colombia and Honduras. They could also back up U.S. special operations personnel already advising regional militaries on raids against suspected traffickers.
Separately, several hundred more soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division are expected to help staff a new U.S. military command for the Western Hemisphere based in Miami.
A Widening Campaign
The troop movement comes as the Pentagon presses forward with military operations against suspected drug traffickers across Latin America and the Caribbean. Since that campaign began more than a year ago, U.S. forces have carried out dozens of strikes, killing more than 235 people.
Gen. Francis Donovan, the SOUTHCOM commander, has said the military is weighing operations against trafficking networks on land, not just at sea.
“Do I see land strikes as options? Yes. We want all options at the table,” Donovan told The Wall Street Journal. “Those actions might be strikes, arrests, or the takedown of a safe house. It could even be something as routine as increasing the use of cargo scanners at border checkpoints.”
Donovan said the aim is to create “total systemic friction” for the cartels.
The administration has been pursuing agreements with allied governments that would let it carry out military operations against trafficking networks on their soil. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said during an August visit to Panama that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to joint operations against criminal groups within their borders — though Guatemala has denied reaching any such agreement.
