Guatemala has agreed to carry out joint strikes with the US military on its territory to target drug trafficking groups, The New York Times reported on Thursday, as the Trump administration continues escalating its military interventions across Latin America.
The report said that Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo held a call with US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth last week and agreed to allow both airstrikes and other military action, and joint military operations could begin next month.
Guatemala has become the second country in the region to allow the US military to take part in its war on drugs, after Ecuador, where US military personnel are advising and assisting Ecuadorian troops. The Times previously reported that one of the first operations involved bombing what the US and Ecuador claimed was a drug camp, but turned out to be a dairy farm.
The Trump administration has merged the war on drugs with the war on terror, first by bombing alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and labeling the people it is executing as “narco-terrorists.” Since starting the bombing campaign in September 2025, the US has expanded it to the Eastern Pacific Ocean and has killed nearly 200 people, all civilians, without ever providing evidence to back up its claims about what the small boats are carrying.
The boat strikes began in the lead-up to the US attack on Venezuela to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and now the US military is poised to launch a similar attack on Cuba, though the Trump administration has made clear it seeks to topple the entire Cuban government.
The Trump administration has also pressed the government of Mexico to allow the US military to operate against cartels inside Mexico, but so far, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has resisted. CNN recently published a report that alleged the CIA has been involved in conducting assassinations against cartel officials, which both the US and Mexican governments have denied.
