By News Americas Now Staff Writer
News Americas Now, NY, NY, Oct. 22, 2026: Guyanese President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Wednesday signed a joint declaration at the Pentagon that locks Guyana further into Washington’s military campaign across the Caribbean – a campaign that has now killed at least 238 people in strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels since it began in September 2025.
The declaration commits Guyana to deeper U.S. military training in multidomain operations, including air and maritime interdiction, and confirms that the Pentagon has reviewed – and is taking “very seriously” – Guyana’s own request for American support in what Hegseth called “combined kinetic and lethal counter-narcotics operations.” That is the same category of strike that has sunk more than two dozen vessels in Caribbean and Pacific waters over the past 13 months, killing people the administration has labeled narco-terrorists without publicly producing evidence in most individual cases – a campaign lawmakers from both U.S. parties have questioned on legal grounds.
Monroe Doctrine
Hegseth billed the agreement as an extension of “President Trump’s Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine,” a phrase that sounds like policy but functions more like cover: it has already been stretched to justify a threat to retake the Panama Canal by force and talk of land strikes inside Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico, with no fixed rule for when Washington escalates and when it doesn’t.
For Guyana, which is part of the US’ Shield of the Americas, that ambiguity isn’t academic. It sits next to Venezuela, which continues to claim Guyana’s oil-rich Essequibo region despite a pending World Court case and has already branded the growing U.S. military footprint near that border an “unhappy provocation.” Georgetown has leaned on American backing as leverage in that standoff for more than two years – but not everyone in Guyana is convinced the trade-off is clean.
The Guyanese president said there’s been a lot of talk about security and stability for a long time.
“The things that are critical for stability in the region, sustainable [for] long-term prosperity and stability, are the very things you’re pursuing – a region that’s free from narco-trafficking, free from international actors that are bad for the region, free from terrorism and free from any thinking from any group or cell anywhere in the world that this is a region where they can find a home,” Ali said, adding that he looks forward to working more closely with the United States.
“This is the era of action; this is the era of leadership; this is the era of domination and commitment, and we’re very happy to be part of this partnership,” he said. “We look forward to working with you in a stronger way.”
APNU’s Aubrey Norton last year said he remains unconvinced by Washington’s underlying justification for the wider campaign. “I have seen no evidence to help me arrive at a conclusion” that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is linked to narco-trafficking, as the U.S. claims, Norton said, adding that Guyana should be “very careful with who and what we support.” His APNU coalition has separately pressed for more transparency and parliamentary oversight on the string of military agreements Georgetown has signed with Washington this year.
None of that showed up in Tuesday’s exchange at the Pentagon. Hegseth called Ali’s regional leadership “indispensable”;””; Ali called it “the era of action” and promised to keep working “in a stronger way” with Washington. What neither man addressed: how much of Guyana’s defense posture is now being shaped by a campaign whose death toll keeps climbing, and whose legal footing its own neighbors, allies, and opposition are still waiting to see.
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