Washington, DC – “The Trump administration’s hyper-militarized approach to addressing ‘narco-terrorism’ in the Andean-Amazon region is likely to fail, while exacerbating violence against communities caught in the crossfire,” said Andrew Miller, Advocacy Director of Amazon Watch, during Secretary Marco Rubio’s three-day (September 8–10) visit to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
The hard-line governments in the three countries have joined the Shield of the Americas initiative, signaling their participation in the Trump administration’s all-stick-and-no-carrot response to the expanding criminal economies across the region. Taking the lead of the Trump Admin, regional governments have adopted the language of narco-terrorism as a catch-all for transnational criminal enterprises that are engaged in diverse illicit economies, including gold mining, logging, and human trafficking.
The U.S. discourse around security in the region is clearly prioritizing security for U.S. investments, particularly those involving the large-scale extraction of natural resources such as oil, gas, and critical minerals. In Marco Rubio’s guest opinion piece published in Peru’s El Comercio, he claimed that, “to the degree that security improves, U.S. commercial activities will expand.” As examples, Rubio referenced investments in Colombia’s energy infrastructure and hailed $5 million in investments from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation in Peru’s mining sector. Coinciding with the visit, Peru’s state-run oil company Petroperú announced $475 million in investments from Citibank and JPMorgan, promoted by U.S. Ambassador Bernie Navarro, a close ally of Marco Rubio.
In recent years, Amazon Watch and partner organizations have documented the intensifying threat posed by transnational criminal activity to the people and environment of the Amazon basin. However, our recent report Triple Trouble – Geopolitics, illicit economies, and the risks of the war against narco-terrorism in the Colombia-Ecuador-Peru tri-border area noted that “Hardline approaches have done little to curb the expansion of armed groups… They risk further alienating communities whose support is essential to restoring state authority and reducing insecurity. A middle ground is needed, one that combines targeted law enforcement to disrupt financial and trafficking flows with protective and supportive measures for local communities, embedded within a broader regional development and conservation agenda.”
Amazon Watch advocates for national and international policies developed with the direct participation of Amazonian Indigenous communities, respecting their individual and collective rights and prioritizing locally led solutions to these complex issues. “Amazonian governments should partner with the true guardians of the rainforest, who know their own territories better than anyone, and not alienate them through criminalization, violent repression, and human rights violations,” said Amazon Watch’s Andrew Miller.
The Trump administration’s 2025 destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) eliminated important financial and technical support for alternatives to illicit economies, including community businesses, sustainable agricultural products, and ecotourism in many of the same Amazonian and other regions being targeted by criminal organizations. USAID was also increasingly supporting local strategies for collective protection measures against the incursions of illegal economies. Because Amazonian and other rural communities are largely abandoned by civilian government agencies in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, those communities have few viable economic alternatives to illicit activities.
In recent months, militarized responses to illicit economies have been growing in the region, including bombardments in Ecuador, and strikes of fishermen and boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Oceans. The campaign of boat bombings carried out by the U.S. Southern Command since September of 2025, resulting in at least 227 deaths, has apparently not decreased drug importation into the United States. As WOLA notes, “The data available so far does not indicate that any reduction in cocaine supplies is happening.” Instead, it has contributed to an intensification of trafficking through the Amazon toward exportation corridors through Brazil, according to reporting by Amazon Underworld. This implies greater risks to communities of forced recruitment and violence against community leaders who speak out in defense of their own people.
As military cooperation increases, the U.S. must strictly apply the Leahy Laws, prohibiting U.S. military support for foreign units credibly alleged to have committed human rights violations. One such unit should be the 3rd Counternarcotics Battalion of the Colombian Army, a prior recipient of U.S. military support and perpetrator of the March 2022 massacre in the hamlet of Alto Remanso in Putumayo, resulting in the deaths of 11 people, including unarmed civilians and a local Kichwa community leader. Colombia’s Attorney General has charged two dozen soldiers for the crime, but the slow trial has yet to yield any convictions and the higher-level commanders who ordered the operation remain unindicted.
The increase in joint operations between national security forces and U.S. military units implies a greater risk of direct U.S. involvement in human rights violations – beyond those already being committed in the boat strike campaign. The U.S. Congress must carry out detailed oversight of those operations to hold to account any prospective involvement of U.S. military personnel in extrajudicial executions, torture, or other human rights violations.
Decades of failed “War on Drugs” policies show what is at stake if the United States and Amazonian governments double down on a predominantly military response: criminal economies may shift routes and territories while violence, displacement, and abuses against communities intensify. Indigenous organizations confronting these networks have put forward a different vision of security – one centered on territorial governance and land rights, community-led protection, sustainable livelihoods, stronger civilian institutions, and coordinated action against the financial and political networks that allow criminal economies to thrive.
“Repeating a failed militarized playbook under the banner of fighting ‘narco-terrorism’ risks bringing more violence, not more security, to the Amazon,” said Amazon Watch’s Andrew Miller. “While Rubio might be trying to ‘Make the Amazon Great Again,’ under the Donroe Doctrine, the warning signs are already clear: more militarization could strengthen the very cycle of violence and displacement it claims to solve. Indigenous peoples on the front lines are showing another path – one built around protecting communities, strengthening territorial governance, and confronting the networks that profit from these criminal economies.”
