“The huge increases in military spending and war rhetoric, both in the US and Europe, show how crucial it is that we increase our anti-war campaigning.”
CND’s Kate Hudson was amongst the speakers to address this year’s Latin America Conference, with a reminder that our campaigning against war must be based in internationalism. You can read an edited version of her speech below.
With the world in dangerous flux and crises at so many levels, we are seeing a radical change in US foreign and military policy. The focus on the Western Hemisphere.
And this is demonstrated not only by the shocking attack on Venezuela a month ago and the kidnapping of President Maduro. It’s been clear right from the start of Trump’s second term.
It was clear in his inaugural speech when he claimed China was “operating the Panama Canal”. Just weeks later, the bullying and ultimatums began. After a visit from Marco Rubio, Panama withdrew from China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
This policy has now been laid out very publicly in last month’s US National Defence Strategy. It’s an America First document through and through, and for the first time, Homeland and Hemisphere are the top priorities.
It puts forward a “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine”, outlined in three key parts: to “restore American military dominance in the Western Hemisphere”; to “protect our Homeland and our access to key terrain throughout the region”; and to “deny adversaries’ ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities in our hemisphere.”
This means rolling back external commercial interests and investment in Latin America, but also removing or neutralising anti-US governments and political forces in the region, notably Venezuela and Cuba. The attack on Venezuela, under the label of narco-terrorism, was designed to open Venezuelan oil to US control, but also to silence an anti-imperialist voice, and to end support for states hostile to the US agenda. No doubt Cuba is next on the list, and defence of Cuba must be our top priority.
When it comes to other states in the region, no doubt huge pressure will be exerted by the US, as was the case with Panama, to reduce economic relations with China, the US’s biggest competitor. That will be a huge task, because while the US focused on its War on Terror and its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, China expanded its economic presence in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has emerged as Latin America’s largest trading partner, surpassing the United States. China’s trade with the region has reached hundreds of billions of dollars in, for example, soy, iron ore, and lithium.
So, Trump is fighting on a number of fronts to regain control of the western hemisphere, and one of those is undoubtedly military.
As of December 2025, the United States had surged 11,000 troops to the region in its confrontation with Venezuela, around an eightfold increase on normal levels. The immediate reason for that turned out to be obvious, but the wording of the National Defence Strategy suggests that the increased presence in the Caribbean is not a temporary surge but a permanent feature. Of course, the western hemisphere also includes other countries in central and north America, and, as we know, Trump wants Greenland, including the potential use of the U.S. military to get it. Mexico and Canada have also been mentioned in Trump’s general roundup of possible aggression.
Clearly, Trump wants to throw a lot more money at the military and have a real surge in the military industrial base to make military interventions possible. Early last month, he said that the 2027 U.S. military budget should be $1.5 trillion. That’s over 50% higher than this year’s $901 billion.
Of course, the question arises there, as it does here, where will the money come from? Trump says it will be generated by his massive tariff programme. But only Trump thinks the figures will add up. Tariffs in 2025 raised less than half of Trump’s own inflated claims. The last time U.S. Defence spending increased on that scale was during the Korean War.
But the fact that it’s probably impossible doesn’t make the situation any less dangerous, and it’s clear who will benefit. After Trump’s announcement, shares in the biggest defence firms rose, and Lockheed Martin was up 6.2%.
Whatever the final amount, there will be vast increases in arms production, with nuclear and conventional modernisation and innovation, cyber and hybrid warfare, and vast quantities of ammunition coming off the production line, for use in Trump’s wars and interventions.
Latin America is a real target here, and our solidarity has never been more necessary. The huge increases in military spending and war rhetoric, both in the US and Europe, show how crucial it is that we increase our anti-war campaigning, not only here in Britain – but that we strengthen the links between countries and continents. Two decades ago, movements and parties in Latin America led the mass global mobilisations of the World Social Forum – many of us here will have participated in Porto Alegre, in Caracas and elsewhere. That vision, of another world being possible, that we can build together, across borders, is what we need to regenerate today.
To this end, CND and Stop the War, and many other movements globally, are coming together to organise an international peace conference in London on June 20th. So please help us mobilise for it. There is no more vital cause today than the cause of peace and justice.
- Kate Hudson is the Vice-President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
- You can follow Kate on Twitter/X; and follow the CND on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
