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Trump Participates in a Shield of the Americas Event, Sep. 22, 2026

September 22, 2026 · The White House · 0:13:58

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump addressed the second meeting of the Shield of the Americas in New York on September 22, 2026, calling it “the largest and most powerful alliance for economic and national security ever to convene in the Western Hemisphere.” He thanked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Secretary Kristi Noem — now the administration’s Shield of the Americas envoy — among the officials present, and reported that Witkoff and Kushner had met the Iran mediators the same day.

His core argument was that the hemisphere had been “badly destabilized by cartel violence, uncontrolled migration, and foreign interference,” and that the Shield exists so the region confronts those threats together, with the cartels “the biggest.” He thanked member nations for joining the Department of War’s counter-cartel coalition and made a specific ask: that all Shield nations “formally designate narco-terrorists as common threats to stability and apply crushing sanctions against all 24 US designated foreign terrorist organizations” and all drug-trafficking organizations. He said joint efforts had “already saved hundreds of thousands of lives from lethal fentanyl overdoses and stripped over $4 billion” from the cartels, and put seaborne drug flow into the United States “down 97%.” He also asked members to secure the hemisphere’s natural wealth — energy pipelines, rare earth elements, and agricultural trade corridors — against hostile outside powers.

Why it matters

The Shield of the Americas is this administration’s hemispheric alliance structure, and this address is its fullest statement: a cartel-first security doctrine, a sanctions ask with a number attached, and a resource-security agenda. It is the portfolio of Secretary Rubio at State and of the Shield’s own envoy, and the claims made here are the ones its record will be measured against.

Scoreboard watch

This address is a scoreboard candidate: the designation-and-sanctions ask to member nations, and the dated claims ($4 billion stripped from cartels; seaborne drug flow down 97%), are checkable against member governments’ actions and published interdiction data.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in a Shield of the Americas Event” (official upload, embedded above; the upload’s description places the event in New York, NY). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President in the address.