The US and Latin America in the Shadow of the Iran War

Welcome to the Audere Atlas, the Audere Group’s fortnightly update on global geopolitical trends, how we engage with them, and what they mean for your organisation.

This week, we examine how the Trump administration’s Latin America policy is evolving in the shadow of the Iran war. As the Middle East absorbs US attention, weapons stocks and political bandwidth, Washington is also seeking visible wins closer to home: stabilising Venezuela on favourable terms, increasing pressure on Cuba, escalating counter-cartel activity in Mexico and testing the limits of sovereignty in Brazil.

The Audere Atlas offers timely, actionable insights that both support key decision-making and highlight areas for further exploration and understanding.

The Bottom Line

With the Gulf crisis consuming US attention and complicating global energy markets, Washington continues to look to its own hemisphere for lower-cost strategic gains with the Trump administration continuing to use coercive pressure to achieve its desired outcomes. Venezuela has become the test case, but the next destabilising move is more likely to come in Cuba or Mexico. Elections in Peru and Colombia and ongoing partisan disputes with Brazil also offer arenas of possible tension.

The Brief

The Iran war remains the dominant global security and market event, but it has not displaced Latin America from Washington’s agenda. If anything, it has increased the appeal of action closer to home. While the Middle East offers the Trump administration high costs, uncertain outcomes and sustained pressure on US military resources, Latin America offers more immediate political returns: migration control, counter-narcotics messaging, resource access, pressure on hostile regimes and visible demonstrations of US authority.

Venezuela is the clearest expression of this approach. The capture and removal of Nicolás Maduro in January has not led to a large-scale US occupation, but it has allowed Washington to test a lower-cost control model. Delcy Rodríguez’s interim government has moved towards security and economic accommodation with the US while preserving enough elite continuity to keep the state functioning. Washington’s objective is not democratic transformation, but a managed opening that secures preferential access to oil and gas, reduces migration pressure and limits hostile external influence.

^{Image: US SOUTHCOM  Commander General Francis Donovan in Caracas, Venezuela, 19 February 2026}

This does not make Venezuela stable in a deeper sense. The Rodríguez government remains vulnerable to factional competition, economic stress and nationalist backlash. The dispute with Guyana over the sovereignty of the oil-rich Essequibo region could become a useful pressure valve for Caracas, allowing the interim government to demonstrate nationalist continuity even as it accommodates Washington elsewhere. The immediate risk here is not a Venezuelan invasion of Guyana, but renewed diplomatic, legal, symbolic or maritime pressure designed to preserve leverage over a much smaller neighbour.

Even limited Venezuelan pressure could affect insurance costs, offshore operating assumptions and investor confidence. For Washington, the task is to reassure Guyana without allowing the dispute to complicate its wider stabilisation of Venezuela. Guyana should be viewed as an important secondary exposure rather than the centre of the regional story. Its offshore oil growth gives it strategic significance, especially in a world already unsettled by Gulf energy disruption. But its vulnerability lies in geography and scale: its economic transformation is occurring next to a larger neighbour that may continue to contest Essequibo.

Cuba is the more likely next target for a visible US win. The energy supply crisis on the island is, if not US designed, at least US-amplified, exacerbated by restrictions on energy supplies and pressure on countries exporting fuel to Havana. The Trump administration appears to see Cuba’s worsening humanitarian and economic position as an opportunity to force concessions from the regime. The likely objective is a negotiated transition that produces visible leadership change, controlled economic liberalisation and expanded space for US investment, rather than a full military occupation or immediate collapse of one-party rule. Even symbolic change in Havana would have domestic political value, playing well with Cuban expatriate communities in the US, and would allow Washington to claim progress in the hemisphere while the Iran war remains unresolved.

^{Image: Meeting with Iran’s former Ayatollah, Ali Khamanei, during a visit by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel to Tehran in 2023}

Mexico is perhaps the most dangerous arena because the US has both the strongest interest and the least room for error. President Claudia Sheinbaum has tried to contain Trump’s demands through cooperation: deploying forces to the border, expanding counter-cartel operations, extraditing cartel figures and aligning elements of trade policy with Washington. Yet the pressure is escalating. The recent deaths of US officials in Mexico during a counter-narcotics operation exposed the fragility of security cooperation, while the indictment of Sinaloa governor Rubén Rocha Moya marks a significant expansion of US anti-cartel action from kingpins to sitting political figures.

This creates a direct sovereignty dilemma for Sheinbaum. If she cooperates too openly, she risks angering her political base and appearing subordinate to Washington. If she resists, she risks tariffs, unilateral US action or intensified legal pressure against Mexican officials. The most plausible next destabilising move, as in Cuba, is not a formal US invasion of Mexico, but a further escalation of unilateral or semi-deniable security activity: intelligence-led operations, targeted indictments, drone-enabled surveillance, strikes against cartel-linked infrastructure or expanded pressure on state officials accused of collusion.

Brazil presents a different kind of test because its dispute with Washington is less about direct US intervention than the subtle pressure the Trump administration is placing on Brazilian sovereignty. The US is currently threatening to designate Brazil’s two largest criminal groups as Foreign Terrorist Organisations. The Primeiro Comando da Capital and Comando Vermelho are large, violent and increasingly transnational criminal organisations, with links to drug trafficking, illegal mining, prison networks, ports, logistics corridors and money laundering. Washington is likely to argue that their reach and economic power make them a national-security threat, not merely a domestic law-enforcement problem. A terrorism designation would give US agencies a broader set of tools, including sanctions, material-support prosecutions, asset freezes and pressure on banks, insurers, fintechs and logistics companies deemed to have exposure to these groups.

^{Image: US President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva meeting during the ASEAN Summit at  the Kuala Lumpur, 2025}

Brasília will resist this framing. Under Brazilian law, terrorism is generally linked to ideological or discriminatory motives, not criminal profit. Brazil therefore treats PCC and Comando Vermelho as organised criminal groups rather than terrorist entities. The distinction matters. If Washington labels them terrorist organisations, it could create legal and political grounds for expanded US action touching Brazil’s domestic security environment, financial system and private sector. Brazil’s concern is that a counter-crime agenda could become an extraterritorial national-security framework, allowing the US to define risks inside Brazil and compel companies with US exposure to comply with American expectations.

Upcoming elections in Peru and Colombia will add to a general sense of uncertainty in US-LATAM relations. Peru’s April election has already exposed institutional fragility, with delayed results, disputed ballots and a likely polarising runoff reinforcing the country’s pattern of weak mandates and short-lived political stability. Colombia’s May presidential election is likely to become a referendum on President Gustavo Petro’s security policy, with voters choosing between a continuation of negotiations with armed groups and a harder counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics approach. Both elections matter for Washington’s regional strategy. A more conservative turn would create opportunities for closer US security cooperation, while contested results or left-leaning outcomes would reinforce regional resistance to US pressure.

So what?

For business, the return of coercive US policy in Latin America changes the operating environment across the region. Sanctions, designations, extradition requests and counter-cartel tools are no longer confined to rogue regimes or non-state actors. They are becoming instruments of pressure against governments, companies, banks, logistics providers and politically exposed individuals.

The Iran war adds another layer to this risk picture. It has sharpened the importance of energy security, raised the value of non-Gulf supply and increased the political incentive for Washington to show control in its near abroad. This makes Venezuela’s reopening and Guyana’s oil growth commercially relevant, but also politically exposed. Companies operating in either market will need to assess not only reserves, licences and infrastructure, but also US policy volatility, Venezuelan internal politics and the risk of pressure around the Essequibo dispute.

Mexico carries the greatest operational risk. Cartel violence, political indictments and the possibility of unilateral US security action could affect automotive, electronics, agribusiness, energy and logistics supply chains, already subject to considerable uncertainty owing to an unstable US tariff policy and the unclear outcome the USMCA renegotiation this year. Supply-chain mapping should now include not only tariff and rules-of-origin exposure, but proximity to cartel-contested territory and politically exposed local partners.

Brazil’s risk is more legal and financial. A US terrorism designation of PCC or CV would raise difficult compliance questions for banks, insurers, logistics companies, fintechs and consumer-facing firms. Even if Brasília rejects Washington’s framework, US-facing companies may still need to respond to American compliance expectations.

In Cuba, the picture is nuanced. Any controlled opening could create opportunities in tourism, infrastructure, telecoms, food, energy and financial services. But the sequencing will be fragile. Companies that move too early risk sanctions exposure; those that move too late may miss first-mover opportunities if Washington engineers a partial economic opening.

The regional investment picture is therefore not uniformly negative. Venezuela’s reopening, Guyana’s oil growth, Argentina’s resource base, Brazil’s commodity strength and Mexico’s nearshoring position all remain commercially significant. But the political premium is rising. Investors will need to distinguish between macro resilience and political stability, and between US-supported openings and genuinely durable reforms.

Audere helps clients navigating this environment by combining  geopolitical analysis, HUMINT-led due diligence, sanctions exposure mapping,  supply-chain investigations and operational security assessments. In Latin  America, that means identifying politically exposed counterparties, mapping criminal  and corruption risks around key assets, testing exposure to US sanctions or  designations, and assessing the security implications of operating in contested  or high-friction markets. As Washington seeks visible wins in its own  hemisphere while the Iran war continues, businesses that anticipate the next  move – rather than react to it – will be best placed to protect value and  identify opportunity.

Keen to Know More?

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_{Disclaimer: The content of this report is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. For further details or specific inquiries, please reach out to our team directly.}