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Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said Sat­ur­day that the Unit­ed States and Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries are band­ing to­geth­er to com­bat vi­o­lent car­tels as his ad­min­is­tra­tion looks to demon­strate it re­mains com­mit­ted to sharp­en­ing U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy fo­cus on the West­ern Hemi­sphere even while deal­ing with five-alarm crises around the globe.

Trump en­cour­aged re­gion­al lead­ers gath­ered at his Mi­a­mi-area golf club to take mil­i­tary ac­tion against drug traf­fick­ing car­tels and transna­tion­al gangs that he says pose an “un­ac­cept­able threat” to the hemi­sphere’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“The on­ly way to de­feat these en­e­mies is by un­leash­ing the pow­er of our mil­i­taries,” Trump said. “We have to use our mil­i­tary. You have to use your mil­i­tary.” Cit­ing the U.S.-led coali­tion that con­front­ed the Is­lam­ic State group in the Mid­dle East, the Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent said that ”we must now do the same thing to erad­i­cate the car­tels at home.”