Donald Trump and Latin America

Image: Jan van der Wolf
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By TIAGO NOGARA*

The Donald Trump phenomenon and the proposed reorganization of relations with Latin America are not the result of megalomania, but a materialization of the interests of American billionaires

Since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, global public opinion has been paying close attention to the possible implications of a radicalization of US unilateralism. Such concerns stem not only from the history of measures that marked his previous term, but also from the accentuation of interventionist and unilateral policies that have gradually regained greater strength in American diplomacy in recent years.

In light of Donald Trump's promises during his campaign, under the now well-known slogan Make America Great Again (MAGA), these concerns are not unjustified. And they gain even greater resonance with the first initiatives of his new term. Just a few days into Trump II, the United States has already announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the World Health Organization (WHO) and even the global fiscal agreement of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In a threatening tone, Trump suggested making Canada the 51st American state, expressed interest in annexing Greenland, and made illegal and immoral proposals, such as relocating Palestinians from Gaza to other areas, aiming to “cleanse” the region.

And it is especially in relation to Latin America that Trump's threats and determinations have taken on an even more aggressive tone. In his previous administration, he had already adopted a policy of siege and annihilation against President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, by recognizing the puppet and self-proclaimed government of Juan Guaidó, and inciting the most diverse political and economic sanctions against the legitimate Venezuelan government.

Along the same lines, it reversed the thaw initiated by Barack Obama in relations with Cuba; included Nicaragua in the path of unilateral and illegal American sanctions; sponsored the coup d'état against Evo Morales in Bolivia; and encouraged the offensive of the Colombian far right against the peace agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). It also adopted a policy of open confrontation with the Chinese economic presence in Latin America, promoted the rise of neo-fascism in various countries, and strengthened discriminatory immigration policies, culminating in the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico.

And not even two weeks into his new term, Donald Trump's policy toward Latin America appears to be taking a radical path toward the hegemonic and interventionist tendencies that have long been present in American diplomacy. The president has even stated that the Panama Canal, which has been directly managed by Panamanians since 1999, should be returned to Washington's control to contain China's growing influence in its surroundings.

He also stated loud and clear that the United States “does not need Latin America”; announced that he will rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”; threatened to impose heavy taxes on Brazilian products; and signed an act classifying several cartels and criminal organizations in Latin America as terrorists, setting a precedent for direct intervention by the United States in countries in the region.

Promising to complete the largest deportation process in history, Donald Trump's government has issued several executive orders aimed at this end. They include measures to end the right to birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants who were born on American soil; resume construction of the border wall; suspend the processing of new asylum seekers; declare a state of emergency at the border; and mobilize military troops to assist in operations against irregular immigration. At the same time, the mass deportation process has already begun, with military planes transporting hundreds of Latin American immigrants back to their countries of origin.

The way in which the United States has carried out its deportation processes has already caused serious diplomatic unrest. In Brazil, immigrants arrived on national soil wearing handcuffs, a practice interpreted by Brazilian authorities as unacceptable and outrageous, and which immediately generated official protests from the Lula government.

In the case of Colombia, the situation took on even more serious consequences. Initially, the Colombian government refused to allow the American planes to land, demanding that its compatriots be treated with dignity. In response, Donald Trump announced that he would impose a 25% tax on Colombian products in the American market, which could increase to 50% within a week, and that he would ban travel and revoke visas for Colombian government officials and their supporters. In retaliation, President Gustavo Petro ordered a similar 25% tax on American products. However, he soon backtracked, agreeing to receive the military planes carrying the deportees without restrictions, preventing the crisis from escalating further.

The characteristics of the imbroglio with Colombia display some signs of the likely strategy to be adopted in Latin America by Trump's new term. The United States and Colombia have had a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in force since 2012, and the measures announced by the American president would irreparably violate that instrument. Furthermore, Colombia is nothing less than the only South American country that still has the United States as the largest destination for its exports, holds the status of an extra-NATO ally, and has at least seven active American military bases on its territory.

In this sense, a scenario is emerging in which the use of taxes and sanctions to force regional governments to align with American diplomatic interests could extend far beyond the still limited scope of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. After all, Trump's threats have already been directed at the governments of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, and do not appear to be exclusively delimited by ideological boundaries, as the disputes with Canada and Denmark indicate.

And this reconfiguration of American foreign policy is no coincidence. Contrary to what Donald Trump implies when he says that the United States “does not need Latin America,” Latin America is, as Argentine political scientist Atílio Borón insists, the most important region in the world for the United States. It is no coincidence that the Monroe Doctrine was formulated in 1823. Long before Woodrow Wilson formulated the pillars of a new global multilateralism in the Fourteen Points, the United States had already sought to consolidate regional multilateralism under its leadership since 1889, with the organization of the Pan-American Conferences.

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) have consolidated a decision-making environment in the Americas on the margins of global multilateralism and under particular surveillance by the United States. Even before the export of McCarthyism and the political counterparts of the Marshall Plan led to the suppression of communist parties in Europe, the Latin American oligarchies were invariably encouraged by the United States in their persecution of the main leaders of local workers' and peasants' movements.

Those who see such actions as a mere demonstration of supposed “contempt” by the Americans for countries they consider part of their “backyard” are mistaken. In reality, Donald Trump’s diplomatic moves demonstrate a vigorous attempt to reorganize the balance of political and economic forces in the region. This objective is directly linked to three fundamental and interconnected issues: global competition with China, the containment of left-wing governments in Latin America, and the control of strategic natural resources.

Latin America has enormously significant reserves of minerals essential for the global energy transition process and the development of sustainable technologies, such as lithium, copper and nickel. With regard to lithium specifically, it concentrates around 60% of the world's resources, with the Lithium Triangle (located between Chile, Argentina and Bolivia) accounting for a large part of the world's resources and more than half of the existing reserves. Latin America accounts for around 40% of the world's copper production, mainly due to the substantial reserves and mining capacity in Chile, Peru, Mexico and others.

It also houses significant reserves of silver and tin, and is the richest region in the world in terms of water resources, with almost a third of the world's available fresh water, and has a vast biodiversity. In addition, the region is home to about a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas reserves, including the largest proven oil reserve, located in Venezuela. No less important, the region is the world's largest net exporter of food, and controls almost a third of the planet's arable land, much of it in Brazil.

The insatiable American greed for control of these resources has never been a secret, and throughout history there is countless evidence of how it used the most extensive tricks to get rid of the Latin American political and social forces that contested such desires. And to verify this, it would not be necessary to go back to the beginnings of the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the arbitrary and violent seizure of almost half of Mexico's territory, the incursions of filibusters into Central American countries and the Caribbean, or the coups d'état and "dirty wars" orchestrated by the CIA throughout the Cold War. It would be enough to simply observe the cycle of rise and destabilization of Latin American leftist governments at the beginning of the XNUMXst century.

After all, the marks of Yankee imperialism are indelible in the atrocious offensive to overthrow the progressive Latin American governments of the so-called “pink wave”, responsible for burying the proposal for the Free Trade Area of ​​the Americas (FTAA) at the Mar del Plata Summit in 2005, questioning the prescriptions of the Washington Consensus and daring to build a regional multilateralism outside the traditional schemes of the OAS and the TIAR.

When necessary, the empire resorted to its traditional violence, as in the cases of the recurrent and continuous unilateral, illegal and criminal political and economic sanctions against the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela, and more recently Nicaragua. Along the same lines, it explicitly sponsored the successive coup attempts in Venezuela and Bolivia, which involved the kidnapping of Hugo Chávez in 2002, the separatist attempt by the Bolivian Media Luna in 2008, the countless guarimbas Venezuelans and the bloody coup against Evo Morales in 2019.

But the reactionary offensive driven from Washington was not just about explicit violence, as it also tried to improve its “soft strike” techniques, especially through lawfare. By encouraging Operation Lava Jato, the United States managed to dismantle the Brazilian construction companies with which it competed in Latin American markets, brutally affect Petrobras' operations (paving the way for multinationals to advance on Brazil's rich pre-salt reserves), and, as a bonus, also generate the destabilization and fall of Dilma Rousseff's government, and the subsequent imprisonment of Lula.

Still in the previous decade, the techniques of lawfare had already hit the Workers' Party (PT) hard, with the Mensalão scandal temporarily removing some of its leading figures from the battlefield, such as José Dirceu, José Genoíno, among others. Similar measures led to the downfall of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras and Fernando Lugo in Paraguay; the resignation of Vice President Raúl Sendic in Uruguay; the convictions of Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, and Rafael Correa and Jorge Glas in Ecuador; and the overthrow and imprisonment of Pedro Castillo in Peru.

Therefore, it is not without reason that the governments of the Fourth Mexican Transformation have emphasized so much the need for a broad reform that truly democratizes the oligarchic national Judiciary, which emulates in so many ways that of other countries in the region.

It turns out that these instruments have been capable of destabilizing and even overthrowing many of these governments, but they have not managed to eliminate the social contradictions that encourage the Latin American people to persist in the struggle for improvements in their living conditions. Despite great difficulty and even in the face of hundreds of sanctions that greatly weaken their means of promoting profound social transformations, the governments of Cuba and Venezuela remain standing, as does that of Nicaragua.

Despite all the efforts that culminated in the coup against Evo Morales in 2019, soon the Movement to Socialism (MAS) would once again occupy the presidency, with Luis Arce. And even in Brazil, where the extreme right seemed to assume an air of hegemony, Lula was elected again, although leading a coalition that was much more conservative than that of his previous terms. Not even Colombia, a key piece in the North American chess game in the region, was immune to such movements, with the election of former guerrilla Gustavo Petro signaling an unpredictable turnaround in the national situation. The extremely high popularity and approval ratings of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his successor Claudia Sheinbaum, in Mexico, are also a testament to this process.

It could be argued that the most radical of these governments are quite weakened, and that the more moderate ones do not represent a great threat to American interests. But therein lies a serious mistake made by many who analyze the Latin American situation: in the current historical period, moderate solutions no longer seem sufficient for the United States' efforts to maintain its hegemony in the region and the world. And this is not only due to the ebb and flow of confrontations with the Latin American left, but also due to the structural factor represented by China's growing cooperation with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) just over 20 years ago, its economic presence in Latin America has continued to grow, allowing it to become the largest trading partner of numerous countries in the region, including almost all of South America. Chinese direct investment has also increased, resulting in a series of infrastructure projects that tend to impact regional trade flows, such as the recently opened port of Chancay in Peru.

More than 20 countries in the region have already joined the Belt and Road Initiative, and fewer and fewer are choosing to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan province, preferring to recognize the sole and legitimate government of China, based in Beijing.

Furthermore, China's foreign policy guideline of non-interference in the domestic affairs of third countries has been highly appreciated by leaders of different ideological persuasions. This combination of growing economic synergy and non-interference in domestic affairs has created a difficult puzzle for American diplomacy. If during the Cold War, containment of the communists and the Soviet Union was carried out through “counterinsurgency” techniques, in alliance with the Latin American oligarchies, today containment of China is no longer based on these same means.

After all, it is not only left-wing or national-popular governments that want to expand their countries’ ties with the Chinese. Despite its conservative bias, the Peruvian government of Dina Boluarte does not even consider the possibility of deteriorating its cooperation ties with China. Even puppet governments of the American far right, such as those of Jair Bolsonaro and Javier Milei, have shown immense difficulty in implementing their anti-China policies, since the economic interests of many of the national elites that supported them do not align with such guidelines.

Thus, when Donald Trump accuses Brazil of wanting to “harm” the United States, he does so not because he believes that the Lula government is showing anti-imperialist tendencies (because, in fact, it is not), but because of its refusal to join the dirty game of containing China and suffocating rebellious governments in its regional surroundings. In parallel with the harassment of the governments of Gustavo Petro and Claudia Sheinbaum over the migration issue, Trump also sets an interventionist precedent by classifying the cartels operating in Latin America as terrorists.

It is no coincidence that all this is happening at a time when former Colombian presidents Álvaro Uribe and Iván Duque are calling for international military intervention against Venezuela. At the same time, conservative media outlets are accusing Petro of being lenient with the ELN’s activities and are insisting on a narrative that denies the insurgent nature of the guerrilla group, characterizing it as a criminal faction and a mere political instrument of Nicolás Maduro’s government.

It is this panorama, therefore, that leads the United States to radicalize its unilateralism and the techniques of violently imposing its will in the region. Compromise and moderate solutions are no longer sufficient to satisfy the interests of the empire. More than ever, it needs puppet governments in its hands that are willing to sacrifice not only the interests of their people, but also of a large part of their ruling elites.

After all, the decline of American hegemony on the global stage is becoming increasingly evident, as demonstrated by its frequent defeats in the technological race against China, exemplified by the recent US$1 trillion loss suffered by American Big Techs after the launch of DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence model.

It is no wonder that Elon Musk, who holds semi-ministerial status in the Trump administration, is an outspoken supporter of far-right activities in Latin America. He publicly defended the coup d'état in Bolivia in 2019, maintains close ties with Nayib Bukele and Javier Milei, and recently clashed directly with the Lula government in Brazil. Musk is notoriously interested in competing with China in several technological sectors, which is why he is narrowing his interventions around the Lithium Triangle and insisting on political destabilization operations in Brazil, which tends to consolidate itself as the epicenter of Chinese electric car production.

The Donald Trump phenomenon and the proposed reorganization of relations with Latin America are therefore not the result of megalomania, but a materialization of the interests of American billionaires who are clamoring to defend their exorbitant profits.

As has historically been the case for American foreign policy, unrestricted control of Latin America is the prerequisite for the strengthening of the United States’ global projection. The Americans would be unlikely to venture into a major conflict in the Middle East or East Asia without first securing at least control of Venezuela’s powerful oil reserves. Nor are they likely to be able to export their anti-China policies to their allies outside the continent without first achieving the same in Latin America.

In this context, the Latin American peoples must be aware of the centrality that their lands and their destinies have, in the current historical period, for the process of reconfiguration of forces underway in the world. And in the face of threats, they must heed Claudia Sheinbaum's advice that it is necessary to “keep a cool head” and also remember that “without our compatriots, the economy of the United States could not function.” Without our resources, even less so.

And as we have known for a long time, our structural problems will not be solved through coercive, unilateral and irresponsible measures, which have been applied so many times and failed, but rather through cooperation and development, with social justice as the fundamental axis. When calling for Latin American unity in response to the attacks coming from Washington, Colombian President Gustavo Petro made clear the line to be followed: “if the North does not want us, the South must unite.”

*Tiago Nogara holds a PhD in political science from the University of São Paulo (USP).


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