Main Latin America Regional Page

The State Department's International Narcotics Control (INC) program maintains specific programs for ten countries in Latin American and the Caribbean. It maintains a separate account, "Latin American Regional Programs," through which it provides smaller amounts of counternarcotics assistance for the rest of the region.

Funding through this program is flexible, supporting "programs in countries where the drug threat warrants increased assistance due to increasing exploitation by traffickers and money launderers to finance and transship their illegal products."¹ This assistance may include any of the forms of support the INC program provides, including police and military training, arms and equipment transfers, development and institution-building assistance, and demand-reduction programs.

Unlike recipients of assistance through the INC program's specific country programs, U.S. embassies in countries that receive aid through Latin American Regional Programs do not contain Narcotics Affairs Sections. Regional narcotics affairs offices manage areas of responsibility: a Barbados office for the Caribbean, a Panama office for Central America, and an office in Miami responsible overseeing all programs.

Sources:

^[1] Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Congressional Presentation. March 1998, p. 66.