Date: 13/05/2026 Tankers cruising the Panama Canal. What happened: China has detained more than 90 Panama-flagged vessels at its ports since early March 2026, in what the US and a six-country Latin American coalition describe as targeted economic retaliation against Panama. The pattern has held for two months. Of the 123 vessels detained at Chinese ports in March alone, 91 were Panama-flagged, and similar ratios have continued into April and the first week of May. Speaking

Date: 28/04/2026 Venezuela’s former Defence Minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, alongside President Delcy Rodriguez. Executive Summary Venezuela is undergoing its most significant political and economic shift in over a decade. Since January 2026, the country has been governed by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power after US forces captured former President Nicolás Maduro in a military operation in Caracas on 3 January. Rodríguez, previously Maduro’s vice presiden

Date: 08/04/2026 Executive Summary The Trump administration's pressure campaign against Cuba is entering a crucial phase as the White House views Havana as its next priority to bring Latin America into line with its policies. An oil blockade engineered through Venezuela's forced realignment with Washington has effectively collapsed the island's energy infrastructure. The situation is critical: hospitals have shut down, schools are suspended, and normal business has grounded

Date: 12/03/2026 Executive Summary On 7 March 2026, twelve Latin American leaders gathered at Trump National Doral, a golf course in Miami, and signed a document. This document, named the Doral Charter, creates a new US-led regional security framework called the Shield of the Americas. And within this is the Counter-Cartel Coalition, a seventeen-nation military alliance chaired by President Trump and committed to using lethal force against transnational criminal organisations

Date: 06/03/2026 Executive Summary Ecuador is entering an active phase of US-supported military operations against domestic criminal groups designated as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOSs) by the United States government. On 3 March 2026, US Southern Command announced joint operations with Ecuadorian forces targeting “terrorist groups.” The US has designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos, the two principal armed criminal networks controlling the country's drug trafficking

26 November 2025 Executive Summary Venezuela has evolved into one of the most significant hybrid threat hubs in the Western Hemisphere, where state authority, criminal enterprises, armed groups, and foreign intelligence services converge. The Maduro regime’s alliances with Iran, Russia, and Cuba — combined with deep integration with FARC dissident factions, the ELN, and transnational criminal organizations — have transformed the country into a strategic platform for destabili

Report date: 14 October 2025 (17:00 hours UTC+2) Executive summary Recent military activity by the United States and Venezuela in the southern Caribbean increases exposure for civilian airliners and merchant ships to short-notice airspace and sea-lane restrictions, re-routing and delays. Night-time reconnaissance patterns in the southern Puerto Rico FIR, added airlift and refuelling flights, and exercises near busy approaches raise the chance of misidentification, especially