At the start of the so-called 'Shield of the Americas' summit in Doral, Florida, the Trump administration decided to turn up the volume and make security—specifically, the war on cartels—a political mandate for Latin America and the Caribbean. If the Trump administration effectively turns this agenda into a condition of its hemispheric policy, Argentina can no longer present its 'fight against narco' as what it actually is: small seizures and occasional exceptions. That is why the message coming from Doral should be read in Buenos Aires as a political alarm and an uncomfortable opportunity: either the country recovers its investigative capacity and consistently targets shipments and finances, or it will be trapped between a growing internal problem and a new regional standard imposed from the United States. And the drug trade does not work that way: it is an economy, it is power, it is territory, and it is corruption. A state that does not investigate thoroughly, that does not follow the money trail, and that does not dismantle logistics structures is doomed to manage the drug trade as if it were a sum of police episodes. It is measured with concrete indicators: asset investigations, significant seizures, dismantling of organizations, convictions, asset forfeiture, cooperation with foreign agencies, and real control of borders and ports. For an Argentine government seeking strategic alignment with Washington while needing credibility on security issues, the challenge is immediate: demonstrate with facts that there is the will and capacity to seriously pursue the drug trade, not just with occasional operations. The underlying debate is not ideological; it is practical. In parallel, White House senior advisor for policy Stephen Miller publicly pushed the idea that cartels must be confronted 'with brutality and without hesitation,' a phrase that in Latin America usually sets off alarms due to the historical memory of interventions, conditionalities, and imposed agendas. The Summit of the Shield of the Americas, conceived as a regional security bloc driven by Trump, also comes at a moment of maximum international tension due to the war with Iran, and against a backdrop that combines migration, organized crime, and strategic competition with China. Let's just look at La Matanza. NDR: Specialists consulted estimate that daily sales far exceed the figures estimated by PROCUNAR. Let's go back to the Summit of the Shield of the Americas. The U.S. approach also tends to merge organized crime with national security. President Trump is a friend of Argentina and has demonstrated it, let's do the right thing so that it remains so. In a region where cartels move faster than states, indifference comes at a high cost. The warning acts as a de facto diplomatic summons: real cooperation or increasing pressure. In his speech to military officials and regional delegations, Hegseth framed the narco problem within a broader ideological vision, presenting it as an existential threat to what he defined as the 'Western and Christian values' of the hemisphere. The country is a corridor, a market, and a logistics platform: ports, the waterway, land routes, porous borders, and an informal economy that facilitates money laundering. Outside of those cases, it is common to see a sum of fragmented procedures with results that are unlikely to shake the criminal networks operating with international logistics, sophisticated laundering, and the ability to corrupt structures. This point is key because Argentina is not off the map. In the summit's environment, it was strongly established that Trump intends for cartels to be treated as terrorist organizations on par with jihadist groups, enabling a type of cooperation that goes beyond information exchange: military coordination, tactical assistance, joint actions, and explicit political pressure on governments that do not align with that doctrine. On paper, the country maintains a firm stance against the drug trade. It linked the migration crisis with the advance of organized crime and called for a joint offensive against what it termed 'narcoterrorists,' leaving a central idea floating: the challenge is not just police, but geopolitical, cultural, and civilizational. How many settlements, slums, neighborhoods, and dealers are there in the country? In recent years, the average of procedures has focused on marijuana and minor cocaine seizures, while large shipments appear to be few and far between or depend on fortuitous episodes. The most cited example is the 500 kilograms seized in the port of San Lorenzo, a case that did not originate from a deep state investigation but—according to reports at the time—from the ship captain's own alert about the cargo's presence. Taking note is not about repeating a speech; it is about building large cases, sustaining them in court, and cutting the money trail. The message coming from Doral is that hemispheric security is ceasing to be a sectoral issue and is becoming an axis of U.S. foreign policy towards the south. The message, articulated by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and reinforced by the White House's National Security Council, left little room for ambiguity: the countries of the hemisphere must 'do more' to dismantle drug trafficking networks, and the United States reserves the right to act even if it has to do so alone. The numbers speak for themselves. Everything else is window dressing. That category has implications: it reorders priorities, enables exceptional tools, and changes the diplomatic conversation. Also prominent for their media impact are episodes of planes that crash or make emergency landings 'under their own weight,' with findings that are more a consequence of the accident than of sustained intelligence work. The answer is clear. Last year in Argentina, 21,000 kg of cocaine were seized: To achieve the seizure of 21,000 kilograms (21 tons) of cocaine during the year 2025, the security forces in Argentina carried out 32,000 operations: Statistics of operations and seizures (Year 2025). Total anti-narcotics procedures: 32,000 operations. Distribution by semester: First semester: 15,000 procedures. Second semester: 17,000 procedures (estimated by projection of activity). Effectiveness: These 32,000 operations resulted in the record seizure of 21,000 kilos of cocaine (of different purity), which represents an average of 0.65 kg per procedure. Clearly, large seizures are not being carried out. Determining an exact figure for the daily commercialization of narcotics in a settlement is complex due to the illegal nature of the activity. In that logic, the Pentagon again put on the table a reading of an area of influence, with explicit references to Washington's hemispheric tradition and to the concept that the continent must shield itself from 'competing forces,' including—in the same discursive package—irregular migration, cartels, and the influence of extra-hemispheric powers. The most sensitive point lies in the operational definition.
