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DORAL, Fla. — <\/span>DORAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> is set to gather with Latin American leaders on Saturday at his Miami-area golf club as his administration looks to demonstrate it’s still committed to sharpening U.S. foreign policy focus on the Western Hemisphere<\/a> even as it deals with five-alarm crises around the globe.<\/p>\n The gathering, dubbed the \u201cShield of the Americas\u201d<\/a> summit, comes just two months after Trump ordered an audacious U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> and whisk him and his wife to the U.S. to face drug conspiracy charges. <\/p>\n Looming even larger is Trump’s decision to join with Israel to launch a war on Iran<\/a> one week ago, a conflict that’s already left hundreds dead, convulsed global markets<\/a> and unsettled the broader Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump’s time with the Latin American leaders will be limited: He is also set to fly to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, to be on hand for the dignified transfer of the six U.S. troops killed<\/a> in a drone strike<\/a> on a command center in Kuwait, one day after the U.S. and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n But with the summit, Trump will look to turn attention to the Western Hemisphere, at least for a moment. He’s vowed to reassert U.S. dominance in the region and push back on what he sees as years of Chinese economic encroachment in America’s backyard<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder previous leaders, we grew obsessed with every other theater and every other border in the world except our own,\u201d Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> told regional leaders and defense ministers who gathered in Florida this week for talks on countering drug cartels<\/a>. \u201cThese elites reduced our power and presence in this hemisphere, opting for a benign neglect that was anything but benign.\u201d <\/p>\n The leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago have confirmed they’ll take part in the gathering at the president’s Trump National Doral Miami, a golf resort where he’s also set to host the Group of 20 summit later this year. <\/p>\n The idea for a summit of like-minded conservatives from across the hemisphere emerged from the ashes of what was to be the 10th edition of the Summit of the Americas, which was scrapped during the U.S. military buildup off the coast of Venezuela last year.<\/p>\n Host Dominican Republic, pressured by the White House, had barred Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from attending the regional gathering. But after leftist leaders in Colombia and Mexico threatened to pull out in protest \u2014 and with no commitment from Trump to attend \u2014 the Dominican Republic’s President Luis Abinader decided at the last minute to postpone the event, citing \u201cdeep differences\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n The Shield of the Americas moniker is meant to speak to Trump\u2019s vision for a \u201cAmerica First\u201d foreign policy toward the region that leverages U.S. military and intelligence assets unseen in the region since the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n But notably missing will be the region\u2019s two dominant powers \u2014 Brazil and Mexico \u2014 as well as Colombia, long the linchpin of U.S. anti-narcotics strategy in the region.<\/p>\n Richard Feinberg, who helped plan the first Summit of Americas in 1994 while working at the National Security Council in the Clinton White House, said the contrast couldn\u2019t be starker.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first Summit of the Americas, with 34 nations and a carefully negotiated comprehensive agenda for regional competitiveness, projected inclusion, consensus and optimism,\u201d said Feinberg, now professor emeritus at the University of California-San Diego. \u201cThe hastily convened Shield of the Americas mini-summit conjures a crouched defensiveness, with only a dozen or so attendees huddled around a single dominant figure.\u201d<\/p>\n