Why it Matters

A sweeping new Congressional Research Service report lays bare the central contradiction of the Trump administration's most ambitious foreign policy gamble: an aggressive, military-first push to reassert U.S. dominance across the Western Hemisphere that may be accelerating the very regional drift it was designed to stop.

CRS Report R48960, published May 26, 2026, and titled "U.S. Foreign Policy in the Western Hemisphere: Issues for Congress," runs to more than 50 pages of sober analysis, but its implications are anything but dry. The report documents how U.S. Western Hemisphere foreign policy has been upended through tariffs imposed on allies, lethal military strikes on drug vessels, the military capture of a sitting head of state, and the near-total dismantling of decades-old democracy promotion programs, and it raises an uncomfortable question that cuts to the heart of the constitutional order: Congress has watched almost all of it happen without passing a single law to authorize, codify, or constrain it.

The central tension in this report is not simply about policy choices. It is about whether the United States is winning or losing a generational competition for influence in its own neighborhood, and whether the tools the Trump administration is using to fight that competition are making things better or worse.

China has quietly and methodically expanded its economic footprint across Latin America and the Caribbean. It has surpassed the United States as the top trading partner of several South American nations. It is financing ports, telecommunications networks, and subsea cables. And according to Pew Research data cited in the report, favorable views of the United States fell below those of China in both Canada and Mexico (America's two largest trading partners) between spring 2024 and spring 2025. A February 2026 poll found that Canadians, by a 57%-to-23% margin, said they would rather depend on China than on the United States under President Trump.

That is the backdrop against which the Trump administration has declared a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, launched lethal military strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, and threatened tariffs, sanctions, and military force against neighbors and allies alike. The question the Congressional Research Service is quietly but insistently pressing Congress to answer: is it working?

The available evidence, the report suggests, is not encouraging.

The Big Picture

The 119th Congress did not stumble into this debate. Lawmakers have been watching with growing unease as the executive branch has undertaken one of the most sweeping reorientations of U.S. Latin America policy issues in modern history, largely by way of executive orders, presidential proclamations, and bilateral agreements that bypass Capitol Hill entirely.

The CRS report, a key resource for members navigating the complexity of hemispheric foreign policy in Congress, catalogs five major policy pillars driving the administration's approach: countering Chinese and Russian influence, militarizing the war on drugs, halting unauthorized immigration, restructuring trade relationships, and abandoning traditional democracy promotion in favor of ideological alignment with friendly governments.

Each pillar represents a dramatic break with the post-Cold War consensus.

On China and Russia, the administration has moved aggressively to block Chinese investment in critical infrastructure, pressuring Chile over a proposed subsea cable to Hong Kong, revoking visas of Chilean government officials, and incorporating anti-Chinese technology provisions into bilateral trade deals with Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The State Department's five-year strategic plan explicitly calls for preventing Chinese control of strategic assets "whether exercised directly by competing powers or instead through purportedly private entities."

Yet the results have been limited. Most Latin American governments, the report notes, have "downplayed U.S. concerns and welcomed PRC capital flows and technology." Colombia signed a Belt and Road cooperation plan with China in May 2025. Canada announced a new strategic partnership with Beijing in January 2026. Brazil is exploring a partial trade deal with China. The hemisphere is not choosing sides, and U.S. pressure may even be pushing some countries toward Beijing faster than American alternatives can pull them back.

On counternarcotics, the administration has made the most consequential shift of all: it has turned a law enforcement problem into a military campaign. Beginning in September 2025, under Operation Southern Spear, U.S. forces began conducting lethal strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific alleged to be carrying drugs on behalf of designated terrorist organizations. As of May 9, 2026, 55 such strikes had killed at least 194 people at a cost of $647 million. In January 2026, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the United States to face narco-terrorism charges.

These are not small actions. Rather, they represent the use of lethal military force in the Western Hemisphere on a scale not seen in decades. And yet, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data cited in the report, cocaine seizures remain "similar to or slightly higher than seizures in previous years." SOUTHCOM's own commander told Congress in March 2026 that cartels are adapting by rerouting drug flows further into the Pacific and shifting to air transport and shipping containers. The Inspector General could not publicly release SOUTHCOM's own effectiveness metrics.

On migration, the administration has achieved its most measurable short-term success. Southern border encounters dropped 91% between the February 2024–January 2025 period and the following 12 months. But the report raises a longer-term concern: as migration options close across the hemisphere, the pressure-release valve that has historically allowed political dissidents and economically desperate workers to seek opportunity elsewhere is being sealed. That, the CRS analysts warn, "could contribute to increased political and economic turbulence in the region's historically migrant-sending countries."

On trade, the administration's legal foundations have repeatedly collapsed under judicial scrutiny. The Supreme Court struck down IEEPA-based tariffs in February 2026. The Court of International Trade rejected Section 122 import surcharges in May 2026. Meanwhile, the U.S. goods trade deficit with the Western Hemisphere grew by 5% in 2025. The critical USMCA joint review, covering the trade relationship with Canada and Mexico, which together account for 81% of U.S. goods trade with the hemisphere, is scheduled for July 2026, with no Trade Promotion Authority in place and real uncertainty about the outcome.

Political Stakes

For the administration

The White House faces a mounting credibility problem. Its 2025 National Security Strategy promised to "restore American preeminence" in the Western Hemisphere "after years of neglect." But the metrics the administration itself would likely cite — reduced drug flows, diminished Chinese influence, stronger regional alliances — are not materializing. Maduro's capture was a dramatic headline, but his government remains largely intact under his former vice president, and U.S. engagement has focused on stabilizing Venezuela's oil sector rather than advancing democracy.

The legal vulnerability is equally significant. An administration that has governed the hemisphere primarily through executive action (tariffs, proclamations, military directives, bilateral executive agreements) has seen its key tools struck down by federal courts. Without congressional authorization, those policies remain fragile.

For Congressional Republicans

The 119th Congress presents a complicated picture for the GOP. Republican lawmakers have generally supported the administration's aggressive posture on migration, counternarcotics, and China competition. But the report documents a series of close votes and narrow failures on War Powers resolutions that suggest real discomfort within the conference. A resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from Venezuela failed by a single vote, 215-215. Another targeting U.S. military strikes on designated terrorist organizations in the hemisphere failed 210-216.

The USMCA review is perhaps the sharpest test. Republican agricultural and manufacturing constituencies depend heavily on North American trade. A failure of USMCA, or even prolonged uncertainty, carries serious economic and political costs.

For Democrats

Democrats face their own strategic challenge. The report documents that unauthorized border crossings have fallen to levels not seen since the 1970s, a result the Biden administration spent years trying and largely failing to achieve. Opposing the administration's migration policies wholesale is politically complicated. At the same time, the human rights dimensions, including third-country deportations, the end of TPS for Haitians and Venezuelans, the dismantling of asylum protections, provide clear grounds for oversight and opposition.

The report also hands Democrats a potent argument on democracy promotion: the administration has effectively zeroed out funding for democracy assistance across the region, while simultaneously claiming to stand against authoritarianism in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. That inconsistency is a political vulnerability.

For the Public

For American citizens, the stakes are concrete: the price of goods from Canada and Mexico, the safety of communities affected by drug trafficking, the fate of immigrant neighbors whose legal status has been upended, and the long-term question of whether the United States will remain the dominant power in its own hemisphere or cede that ground to Beijing.

The Bottom Line

Two things stand out from CRS Report R48960 as essential for the public to understand.

First, the Trump administration has executed a sweeping transformation of U.S. Western Hemisphere foreign policy almost entirely through executive action, and the 119th Congress has largely let it happen. War Powers resolutions have failed by razor-thin margins. Legislation to codify or constrain the administration's approach has stalled. The result is a set of policies that are legally vulnerable, potentially reversible, and operating without the democratic legitimacy that congressional authorization would provide.

Second, the early returns on the administration's strategy are mixed at best. Some immediate goals have been achieved. Border crossings are down sharply, Maduro is in U.S. custody, Panama annulled Chinese port concessions. But the broader strategic objectives, such as rolling back Chinese influence, reducing drug flows, strengthening regional partnerships, remain elusive. Not to mention that the aggressive tactics used to pursue those goals appear to be generating a backlash that is pushing key partners toward Beijing.

The Congressional Research Service does not editorialize, nor does it tell Congress what to do. But the architecture of CRS Report R48960, its careful documentation of what has been tried, what has worked, what has failed, and what remains legally and strategically unresolved, amounts to a quiet but urgent summons. Congress has the tools, but the question now is whether it has the will to use them.

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