Trump to host Latin American leaders, including Milei, in Miami on March 7

President Javier Milei will be one of several Latin American leaders at a regional summit hosted by US President Donald Trump in Miami next month, a White House official has confirmed. 

Trump will host the leaders of Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, El Salvador, Ecuador and Honduras, with several others also invited, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The meeting comes after US forces captured and overthrew Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, while Honduras swore in a conservative president who won his election with Trump's backing earlier this month.

Most of the invitees, including Milei and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, are firm Trump allies.

The White House official did not immediately provide details on the meeting, which is set to be held on March 7.

A report in local media said that the summit would focus on countering China, a major Latin American trading partner.

The United States under Trump has sought to reassert its dominance in the Americas, and has jousted on trade with China, the world's second-largest economy, with a tariff and trade war.

China has been investing heavily in Latin America for decades. Trump wants to reverse that trend with a policy that threads the line between carrot and stick: benefits for allies; interventions, blockades and attacks for non-allies, accompanied by threats against those who stand up to him.

Trump described the raid to seize Maduro as an update of the “Monroe Doctrine,” the 1823 declaration by fifth US president James Monroe that Latin America was closed to other powers. The Republican leader has since branded it the “Donroe Doctrine.”

Weeks earlier, White House policymakers had given more intellectual gloss for the same idea in a national security strategy that announced a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine.

The policy, the strategy said, will authorise US intervention in Latin America for goals such as seizing strategic assets, fighting crime or ending migration, one of Trump's top domestic goals.

It was not immediately clear who among the invitees would be attending, or if other leaders were also invited.

The presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are major left-wing Latin American players and have had bristly relations with Trump. They are not expected to make the guestlist, despite the US president having met with the leaders of all three nations.

Milei is the leader who has met Trump the most and Argentina received unprecedented financial support from the US Treasury in the lead up to last October’s midterm elections. Buenos Aires and Washington recently agreed a trade deal and agreed to work on rare earth deposits.

President Milei is expected to attend the Miami summit before travelling to New York to attend “Argentina Week” – a business event designed to attract investment.

The La Libertad Avanza leader will also make another trip to the United States in February to attend the inaugural meeting of Trump’s “Board of Peace” in Washington.

– TIMES/AFP