The U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) activated the Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere (JTF-WHEM) on Tuesday of last week as the successor to Operation Southern Spear. Southern Spear was the operation launched by the U.S. government under President Donald Trump on September 1 of last year, with the official aim of combating drug trafficking and other organized crime in the Caribbean region. In this framework, among other things, numerous controversial strikes against suspected smuggling boats took place.
The operation also encompassed the maritime blockade against Venezuela and the abduction of the country’s President Nicolás Maduro, in order to bring him to the United States for drug offenses. JTF-WHEM is now to become the permanent operational arm of Trump’s Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C), started on March 7, also known as Shield of the Americas (SotA). In this framework, the United States works with 17 Latin American partner nations with the aim of further combating transnational crime, especially against drug cartels.
Joint Task Force to coordinate operations with partner nations
The first commander of JTF-WHEM is Major General Kevin Jarrard of the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). Jarrard had most recently led the military operations as part of America’s relief mission following the earthquake disaster in Venezuela in June. The Task Force is to serve as the operational headquarters, drawing on the experience from Southern Spear to lead SOUTHCOM operations in the region and coordinate with the partner nations. Nothing was initially known about the subordination of deployed forces. This is expected to occur on a case-by-case basis.
Overall, JTF-WHEM appears more as a political project akin to A3C/SotA, since the participating partner nations largely align ideologically with the Trump administration or are traditional client states of the United States. Founding members were Argentina, the Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago. Chile and Peru joined after recent elections of right-wing heads of state. Notably absent are countries such as Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.
