Peru joins US-led Shield of the Americas alliance

Peru has joined the US-led Shield of the Americas alliance aimed at jointly addressing transnational and regional threats.

According to Report, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the move in an article for El Comercio newspaper ahead of his tour of South American countries.

Rubio said Washington was looking forward to working with the new government of Keiko Fujimori to build on 200 years of relations between the two countries.

He noted that Peru, which is now a major non-NATO ally of the US, was joining the Shield of the Americas as part of efforts to coordinate the protection of the Western Hemisphere against transnational and regional threats.

Amid growing cooperation between regional countries and China, Rubio called on governments to give preference to partnership with the US. He said every country in the region had the sovereign right to choose its partners, but stressed that such decisions should be made transparently and that their terms should be open to the public.

The Shield of the Americas is an alliance created by the US with a number of Latin American countries to combat drug cartels and other transnational threats, as well as coordinate joint security operations.