Peru joins Trump's anti-cartel Shield of the Americas: Rubio

Peru has become the latest South American country to join President Donald Trump's "Shield of the Americas", an alliance to fight drug cartels, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.

"We are synchronizing efforts to protect our hemisphere from transnational and regional threats by receiving Peru -- which is an important non-NATO ally now -- into the Shield of the Americas," Rubio, who is on a tour of new right-wing-led countries in South America, said in an op-ed published in regional newspapers.

Rubio was expected in Colombia later Tuesday, on the first stop on a Latin American tour designed to bolster pro-US leaders and cement influence over the region.

He will also visit Ecuador and Peru.

Rubio's first meeting will be with Colombia's new hardline President Abelardo de la Espriella, who was elected on a promise to curry closer ties with the United States and crack down hard on crime.

Under De la Espriella, Colombia has also joined the "Shield of the Americas," a coalition of countries led by Trump to combat drug trafficking in the region.

Ecuador, which has invited US troops to help it fight organized crime gangs, is also part of the coalition.

In a Spanish-language article in Colombian weekly Semana and Peru's El Comercio daily, Rubio made the case for choosing the United States over China as a preferred trading and defense partner.

"For far too long, actors from outside the hemisphere backed by foreign states -specifically from China - have entered our region with promises that conceal their predatory practices," he said.

He accused these unnamed actors of offering only "opaque contracts, unsustainable debt, worker exploitation, and environmental destruction" and said they threatened the sovereignty of Latin American countries.

The United States, by contrast, offers prosperity and security, he said.