The Trump administration desperately needs Western Hemisphere partners to help battle powerful drug cartels and stem the tide of Chinese influence across the Americas. It may have a new ally in recently inaugurated Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori, the latest conservative to arrive on the political stage in Latin America.

Ms. Fujimori’s rise to power has been driven largely by her focus on security and crime, which have become central concerns for voters across the region. Combating drug cartels and transnational gangs is also a leading policy priority for the Trump administration and a key piece of the “Donroe Doctrine” of asserting U.S. leadership across the hemisphere, including using military force in some instances.

Threat Status recently went inside the “Donroe Doctrine” in an exclusive video interview with longtime Latin America expert Michael Shifter.

President Trump, meanwhile, has launched a “Shield of the Americas” initiative — an alliance of Western Hemisphere governments that aims to confront dangerous drug cartels. Peru and Colombia have expressed eagerness to join the initiative. 

U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, says American forces have “meticulously and quietly cleared” key oil and commercial cargo shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, asserting that “Navy divers, Navy SEALs and U.S. air power from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps” have been engaged in the mission for months.

“The circumstances were challenging and dangerous, to say the least, but we got the job done. Bottom line: Today, international shipping lanes are open, and momentum is building,” Adm. Cooper said in a video message posted late Thursday, as the U.S.-Iran war entered its seventh month with talks between the two sides stalled and Mr. Trump threatening that the conflict will continue “as long as necessary.”

Iran on Friday urged its international trading partners — from China and Russia to several Arab nations around the Middle East — to ignore the major U.S. economic sanctions that the Trump administration announced against Tehran this week.

Rapid technological change is opening major new advantages but also creating long-term planning hurdles for the most sophisticated U.S. military units. Army Lt. Gen. John L. Rafferty, the head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, outlines those hurdles in an exclusive interview on the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast.

“It’s a really challenging period,” Gen. Rafferty says in the interview taped at the recent Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. “You can’t keep your eyes on the horizon because the pace of innovation is so fast. So you really have to look for the horizon on tomorrow and the next day.”

His comments come as the U.S. Army is developing — in close coordination with private defense-industry partners — a new artificial intelligence-infused digital communications system, while the Trump administration pushes for a futuristic transformation of missile defense technology through its space-based Golden Dome for America project.

Unless Washington “severs or disrupts the economic lifeline that Beijing and Moscow are providing to Tehran, there is little reason to think this round of sanctions will yield better results,” according to Michele Kernitsky, a former CIA, State Department and White House official.

“Beijing and Moscow have quietly become the two largest underwriters of Iran’s economic survival, and neither shows signs of stopping,” Ms. Kernitsky, now an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“This is the central problem with U.S. policy toward Iran: Sanctions are a tool for isolating a country from the global economy, but they work only if the target is actually isolated,” she writes. “Iran is not. It is part of a parallel economic system that China has built and Russia has reinforced.”

With North Korea possessing as many as 120 nuclear warheads and a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles, Joseph R. DeTrani argues that the U.S. “must pursue several goals: getting North Korea to halt its overt production of fissile material … at the Yongbyon nuclear complex and agree to a moratorium on the construction of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

“North Korea halting its nuclear and missile programs and possibly agreeing to cease its military support to Russia for its war with Ukraine are goals worthy of pursuing,” Mr. DeTrani, a former associate director of national intelligence, writes in an op-ed for The Times. 

“They will require U.S. flexibility on sanctions relief and a path toward the normalization of bilateral relations,” he writes. “It will take considerable time, but an interim moratorium on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs may be achievable in the short term if there is another meeting between Messrs. Trump and Kim [Jong-un].”

• Aug. 28 — Beyond the Postwar Era: The Japan Innovation Party’s Vision, Hudson Institute

• Sept. 1 — The Implications of the Hormuz Energy Crisis in China, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Sept. 2-3 — AI for Defense Summit, Defense Strategies Institute

• Sept. 3 —The AI Open-Weight Debate: Balancing Innovation and Security, Center for a New American Security

• Sept. 8-10 — Billington Cybersecurity Summit 2026, Billington Cybersecurity

• Sept. 9 — Bend but Do Not Break: Shaping the Future of the All-Volunteer Force, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Sept. 9 — Global Affairs Expert Webinar: China’s Influence in the Americas, Council on Foreign Relations

• Sept. 11 — The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks at 25: Assessing the Legacy, Addressing the Future, Brookings Institution

• Sept. 12-13 — AFA National Convention, Air & Space Forces Association

• Sept. 22 — Nuclear Energy Policy Summit 2026, Atlantic Council