The US State Department notified Congress on Tuesday (Sept. 15) of a plan to redirect $52 million (about 267 million reais) in military assistance. The funds will be pulled from Tunisia and Iraq, in the Middle East, and from Slovakia and North Macedonia, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and sent instead to Panama, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.
A State Department official who confirmed the notification, quoted by Brazil's Folha de S.Paulo, said the money will pay for equipment, training and technical assistance to fight what Washington calls narco-terrorism. The department said the funds will "combat narco-terrorism in our own backyard and help continue to guarantee the security of the Panama Canal", a waterway President Donald Trump openly sought to control early in his second term. "These funds will prevent adversaries from establishing strategic positions in our hemisphere," it added, in a veiled reference to China, which over the past two decades has become the main trading partner of several countries in the region, El País reported.
The announcement came one week after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, promising help against illegal immigration and drug trafficking. For Brazil, the message is in the list of recipients. It brings together conservative governments aligned with Trump, such as Colombia under President Abelardo de la Espriella and Peru under President Keiko Fujimori, both elected recently, and leaves out the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Folha reads the move as a summary of US priorities under Trump: money for nations led by allies, taken from countries in Europe and the Middle East.
Shield of the Americas and the Monroe Doctrine
According to El País, the four beneficiary countries have agreed to join the operational framework of the Shield of the Americas, an alliance of conservative-led governments that the Trump administration wants to use against organized crime and drug trafficking, potentially including joint military operations on their territory, like the one carried out with Ecuadorian forces last spring. Folha links the reallocation to the "America for the Americans" policy laid out in the US National Security Strategy published last year:
"After years of neglect, the United States will reaffirm and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere."
The sum is modest next to the program it comes from. Foreign Military Financing (FMF), which provides US taxpayer money for partner countries to buy weapons from American defense manufacturers, received $6.16 billion in 2026, according to Folha. The State Department noted that over the past decade Congress sent about 80% of FMF funds to the Middle East. It remains unclear how the $52 million will be split among the four countries, and the transfer does not wipe out financing for Tunisia, Iraq, Slovakia and North Macedonia.
The decision fits a broader reduction of the US military presence in Europe, as El País describes it: the freezing of a Tomahawk missile deployment to Germany, the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from that country and the refusal to provide aerial refueling tankers and submarines, amid Trump's complaints that allies declined to back the war he ordered against Iran and, in his view, spend too little on defense. The announcement coincided with a White House ceremony at which the new ambassadors of Ecuador and Colombia presented their credentials.