Peru joins US-led ‘Shield of the Americas’ security alliance

Peru will join the “Shield of the Americas”, a regional security alliance led by the United States that shares intelligence and cooperates in military operations against drug cartels.

Keiko Fujimori, Peru’s recently elected right-wing leader, announced the move on Thursday after talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“We appreciate this opportunity [to join the initiative], because for us, having previously had to tackle terrorism, [we] know how difficult it is to confront criminality today,” Fujimori said.

Her government also awarded Rubio the Order of the Sun, one of the country’s highest civilian honours.

Rubio’s visit to the Peruvian capital, Lima, caps his three-day, three-country tour of South America to shore up ties between US President Donald Trump and conservative allies in the region.

The diplomat praised Fujimori’s decision to join the Shield of the Americas, also known as the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (ACCC), which has advocated for greater military involvement in the fight against crime.

“It is a shield against these threats to the sovereignty of these independent nations,” Rubio explained.

“It is a shield against these transnational criminal groups that, in many cases, have more money and better military equipment than the state. That is unacceptable, and the only way to defeat it is to confront it forcefully.”