By Phil Stewart, Ryan Patrick Jones and Doina Chiacu
MIAMI, March 5 (Reuters) - White House official Stephen Miller told a gathering of Latin American military leaders on Thursday that drug cartels can only be defeated with military force.
The comments make explicit a shift in U.S. policy under President Donald Trump, whose administration has blown up suspected drug boats, seized the president of Venezuela in January and aided Mexico last month in its operation to capture that country's most wanted cartel boss.
"We have learned after decades of effort that there is not a criminal justice solution to the cartel problem," Miller, the White House homeland security adviser, told Latin American defense leaders gathered at the U.S. Southern Command headquarters.
"The reason why this is a conference with military leadership and not a conference of lawyers is because these organizations can only be defeated with military power."
Legal experts and Democrats have questioned the legality of the U.S. strategy, disputing the Trump administration's policy that equates drug traffickers with members of terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and Islamic State.
The policy has unnerved some traditional U.S. partners in Latin America, including Colombia, which did not send a delegation to the gathering.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he wanted "The Americas Counter Cartel Conference" to be operationally-focused, leading to closer cooperation to combat cartels.
Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the goal was to gather like-minded, pro-Washington governments to provide more structure to new kinds of cooperation in the region.
That includes this week's announcement that U.S. military forces are assisting Ecuador combat drug trafficking.
"The very recent example of Ecuador will serve as the model for other countries attending the conference," Berg said.
Berg said the conference would also set the stage for an Americas summit hosted by Trump in Miami this weekend where the U.S. is expected to advance a counter-China agenda.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart in Florida; Writing by Phil Stewart and Ryan Patrick Jones; Editing by Susan Heavey, Chizu Nomiyama and Deepa Babington)
