On April 15, Perry Center professor Dr. Evan Ellis gave a presentation in Miami, FL, to an audience of 60 Latin America–oriented business professionals, academics, and students on the security and defense dimension of Chinese engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean. Dr. Ellis’s presentation was part of the seminar, “South-South Relations: Growth and Visibility in a Globalized World,” held as a joint collaboration between the University of Miami Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) and the Center for Latin American Initiatives at Miami Dade College. The seminar was the culmination of a series of events co-hosted by the CLAS and Miami Dade college as part of the Miami Consortium project, providing business education and professional engagement opportunities to nontraditional students in the Miami urban environment.

On April 16–17, he gave a series of presentations to a class of US military personnel and defense civilians at US Special Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH), Homestead Air Force Base, FL. The presentations included a two-hour block of instruction on the activities of extraregional actors in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as blocks on new trends in transnational organized crime in the Hemisphere and security and defense issues in the Southern Cone.

The course, which brought together subject-matter experts on Latin America and Caribbean security issues from around the country, was sponsored by the US Air Force Special Operations School in conjunction with Joint Special Operations University as a mobile education event and a professional military education activity for the enrolled personnel in support of US Southern Command.