According to the Secretary of State, groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) of Colombia and the dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in addition to drug trafficking networks that send cocaine to the United States and the Caribbean.
The US secretary also said that he seeks to strengthen security in the hemisphere through alliances with governments that are willing to cooperate, such as Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Colombia, with which, he said, there are active coordination channels.
Likewise, he announced that the US hopes to expand these relations in 2026 with governments of countries such as Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina, and celebrated the continuity of cooperation with Ecuador after the re-election of its president.
Rubio affirmed that an important part of the regional collaboration, including that maintained with Mexico, does not receive enough public attention, despite the fact that it involves joint actions against drug trafficking, gangs and other criminal structures that operate on the continent.
“What is not being talked about is everything that we are doing together with the Mexicans…what is not being talked about is all this cooperation that exists to carry out against these criminal terrorist elements that operate openly within our region and that threaten the states of this region,” he said.
The secretary’s statements come after a few days ago, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, designated fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, which is why it is considered a security threat.
The order signed by Trump notes that illicit fentanyl is more like a chemical weapon than a narcotic.
