Around 45 metric tons of drugs — mostly cocaine — are headed to the United States. That’s about 99,000 pounds, and, actually, the drugs were headed to the U.S. on Tuesday, so I imagine they’re already here.
And no, they’re not coming via one of those little narco-“fishing boats” that we like to blow up. They’re coming via a United States Air Force C-17 transport plane from Costa Rica, and it’s yet another symbol of how our two countries are ramping up our partnership in the war against the cartels and narco-terrorists that plague the region.
Costa Rica envía 45 toneladas de droga incautada a Estados Unidos para su destrucción pic.twitter.com/gX7ioiQ46P
— EL PAÍS América (@elpais_america) September 30, 2026
The drugs are coming to the United States to be destroyed. Costa Rica’s Attorney General Carlo Díaz said that his country didn’t have the budget to do such a thing. A Costa Rican judge will supervise the destruction. Díaz also said that the transfer “reflected the importance of cooperation between institutions and countries in combating drug trafficking and keeping drugs from reaching communities.”
The U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica said the cargo was worth about $1.25 billion. It said that all of it was seized in Costa Rica with the help of the U.S. and other countries that are a part of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio’s Shield of the Americas.
Last week, the president and secretary of state hosted a meeting of the world leaders who are a part of the Shield at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Rubio said that “one of the most exciting developments in our region over the last couple years has been the emergence of strong leaders who are committed to the challenge of taking on transnational terrorism, which is an enormous threat to all of us.”
He also spoke about just how sophisticated these terrorist groups have become:
These are groups that unlike in the past were simply drug cartels that were involved in illicit activity. These groups today are sophisticated. In many cases they rival the state in terms of the resources available to them, be they financial or military or even in intelligence gathering. And the key part is that they are transnational. They don’t recognize borders and they operate in multiple countries and in connection and coordination with one another. And so the enemies of peace are going to coordinate, then so too those of us who have an obligation to protect our people and the sovereignty of our countries need to coordinate as well.
The Shield, which includes Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago, also put out a joint statement from the UNGA on “Defending Hemispheric Sovereignty.”
“We, the Heads of State and Government participating in the Shield of the Americas, jointly declare our intention to strengthen the resilience of the Western Hemisphere through the following three pillars of the Shield of the Americas: Economic, Security, and Multilateral Coordination,” the statement begins.
The statement goes on to explain how the countries will work together to defend our economies, defend our democracies, and “defend and promote mutual respect for national sovereignty and each nation’s self-determination through multilateral fora to coordinate and advance shared objectives and proposals, such as catalyzing international enforcement actions against transnational organized criminal groups or pursuing needed reforms to multilateral organizations.”
It’s worth noting that Colombia and Peru are the two newest countries to join, and if we get lucky and Flávio Bolsonaro wins the Brazilian presidential election next month, he’s promised that he will have his country join, as well. That would be a huge win for all of us for obvious reasons, but also because it would isolate the few remaining socialists and communists in the region.
The statement also says that the first joint action involves asking the Organization of American States (OAS) to convene a meeting under the Rio Treaty to consider a coordinated regional response to 24 narco-terrorist organizations. If approved, ministers from the countries would consider a resolution aimed at promoting and facilitating collective action against the groups. I’ll leave you with the list of groups. Some may sound quite familiar. This is your New Monroe Doctrine in action, and it’s getting pretty serious.
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)
Tren de Aragua
Carteles Unidos
Cartel del Golfo (Gulf Cartel)
La Nueva Familia Michoacana
Cartel del Noreste
Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG)
Cartel de Sinaloa
Gran Grif
Viv Ansanm
Los Lobos
Los Choneros
Barrio 18
Cartel de Los Soles
Clan del Golfo
Primeiro Comando da Capital
Comando Vermelho
Chone Killers
Los Viagras
Juarez Cartel (La Línea)
FARC Dissident Groups, including FARC-Estado Mayor Central, FARC-Segunda Marquetalia, or aliases, affiliates, and successor groups
ELN
Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso)
Los Tiguerones
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are once again respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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