US Security Interests in Latin America: Drugs, illegal immigration and China

Ville Sinkkonen is Leading Researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Center on US Politics and Power. His research focuses on US foreign policy, great-power politics, normative power, and the politics of trust in international relations.

Sinkkonen is the author of A Comparative Appraisal of Normative Power: The European Union, the United States and the January 25th, 2011 Revolution in Egypt (Brill, 2015), and his work has been published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, and European Foreign Affairs Review, among others. He holds an LL.D. (International Law) from the University of Turku, where he defended his doctoral dissertation Failing hegemony? Four essays on the global engagement of the United States of America in the 21st Century in December 2020.

Sinkkonen is the chairperson of the Finnish International Studies Association (FISA) and co-editor of the Nordic Review of International Studies (NRIS).

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Ambassador Todd D. Robinson served as the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs from September 2021 until January 2025.  Previously, he served as senior advisor for Central America in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Chargé d’Affaires in Caracas, Venezuela and US Ambassador to the Republic of Guatemala.

Ambassador Robinson other assignments include Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Guatemala, Consul General Barcelona and Chief of the Political and Economic Section in the US Embassy in Tirana, Albania.  Other overseas postings include the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Vatican City, Italy, El Salvador, and Colombia. In Washington, DC, Ambassador Robinson served in the Department’s Operations Center and as a special assistant to former Secretary of State Albright. He is the recipient of the Presidential Rank Award and two Department Superior Honor Awards.

A native of New Jersey, Robinson was a professional journalist before joining the Foreign Service. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Class of 1985.

Ambassador (ret.) Deborah A. McCarthy is an expert on U.S. foreign and national security policy. Currently, she is the Senior Advisor on U.S. Engagement in the UN Ad Hoc Committee on Cybercrime in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement at the U.S. Department of State. She is also a non-resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.  Recently, she was a Senior Fellow at Harvard University.