SOUTHCOM pivots to defending the sovereignty of the U.S. and partner nations

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth met with U.S. service members training to survive and fight in harsh jungle conditions during a visit to a jungle training center in Cristobal Colon, Panama, on Aug. 12, 2026. The stop came as he addressed the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, a U.S.-led multinational security and political alliance aimed at combating transnational drug cartels, reducing illegal migration across the Western Hemisphere and limiting foreign geopolitical interference. The visit also coincided with Exercise Panamax 2026, a multinational military exercise hosted by Panama and sponsored by U.S. Southern Command.

In the dense jungle on the northern side of the Panama Canal, Hegseth told service members that “I think this is what … the warrior ethos looks like; it’s what reestablishing it looks like,” he said. “It happens in training centers like this, with Americans like this, who do really difficult things in really tough places.”

While at the Jungle Operations Training Center-South, Hegseth met with instructors assigned to the Jungle Operations Training Course-Panama and with Marines assigned to Littoral Combat Force-24 participating in Panamax. “That’s what we’re doing here with the A3C [and with] Panamax … expanding peace through strength in our hemisphere, right here in the jungles with our partners,” he said.

Noting a shift in focus over the past 18 months, Hegseth said, “This is a different SOUTHCOM; this is a different mission,” adding, “We are focused on military capabilities against real threats who need to be deterred and defeated, and we’re going to give them everything they need to do it, on behalf of the American people.”

He said that under President Donald J. Trump, the command is working with partners in the region to address shared threats. “We know exactly what that mission looks like,” he said. “We’re empowering commanders like [Marine Corps Gen. Francis L. Donovan] to do it in Southcom; we’re working with partners like Panama, like Ecuador, like Colombia … they’re going to send students here soon to swim across this very same river, [to] be a part of this very same training.”

Nineteen nations are part of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, with Colombia joining just a day earlier, and coalition partners are slated to take part in the same training underway in Panama. “It turns out, in the [Western] Hemisphere, they face the very same security challenges, the same threat of drugs, the same threat of criminal cartels that threaten their citizens, the same ones that threaten our citizens,” Hegseth said.

He highlighted efforts that combine U.S. law enforcement at the southern border with training across Central and South America in places such as Ecuador, Colombia and Panama. “That’s going after the enemies of our country — designated terrorist organizations — unabashedly,” Hegseth said.

Earlier in the day, Hegseth announced a new motto for the coalition: “We do bad things to bad people.” He added, “For too long, bad people did bad things to good people, inside the United States of America and across Central and South America,” and, “We’re going to empower great Americans and great partners to do really good stuff and be very capable about bringing violence against drug cartels and designated terrorist organizations, because we’re dead serious about securing the homeland.”

Framing the regional push within U.S. historical policy, Hegseth cited the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the 1904 Roosevelt addition, and described a new corollary. “It is a recognition that [designated terrorist organizations] … will not control our hemisphere … and we will not allow foreign malign influence to take over … key terrain like the Panama Canal,” he said.

Hegseth called Colombia’s inclusion in the coalition significant. “The A3C had formed, but in some ways, it missed part of its core,” he said. “Colombia is going to be [an] incredible partner. They offered to be a headquarters or a hub for the A3C as the brand-new 19th member. They’ve got … hundreds of thousands of capable members of their military and decades of training with the United States … that mil-to-mil relationship has been long-standing, and that’s why they’re coming to this jungle course soon.”