By FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ*
Donald J. Trump, leading a proto-fascist MAGA mass movement, elected US president is a sign that turbulent times are coming to Latin America
The people of the United States and most of the world woke up this week to the worst news yet. Donald J. Trump, presiding over a proto-fascist MAGA mass movement (Make America Great Again), has not only been elected President of the United States, but will also enjoy a comfortable Republican majority in the Senate and will also have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
He got almost the same number of votes as in 2020, 74 million, and achieved an electoral victory because the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, got more than 10 million fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020.
If we add the strong political identification of the US Supreme Court with Donald Trump's general political views, he will find few obstacles in the main institutional structures of the United States to implement his cherished objective, the establishment of a strongly authoritarian government that would strive to transform all existing institutions into instruments of his political movement, his ideology and his government plans.
Throughout the election campaign and since losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump has designed a government program of widespread retaliation against his political opponents, including what he perceives as a hostile media, which he has labeled the “enemy within.”
He also plans to expel millions of immigrants — mostly Latinos — who he accuses of “poisoning the blood of the country.”
His strategic plan for the US was systematized in a 900-page document by Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, which, if fully implemented, will eliminate most of the existing mechanisms and practices that, despite their great imperfections, largely qualify the United States as a democracy.
Many breathed a premature sigh of relief when Donald Trump, in his victory speech, promised “no more wars” in his next administration. Yet during his 2016-20 presidency, he waged a mutually damaging “trade war” against China, a country toward which he harbors deep hostility.
Hostility to China is likely to become the center of his foreign policy concerns, which could intensify the intense “Cold War” and the huge military presence around the South China Sea, including the arming of Taiwan, already deployed by Joe Biden.
The US's open hostility towards China began with the “Pivot to East Asia” by President Barack Obama in 2011, which paved the way for the militarization of US policy towards the Asian giant. The growing US military presence 8.000 miles away from the US is causing problems in the region.
There should be little progress to be expected from the incoming Trump administration in the Middle East and Palestine-Gaza. In December 2017, less than a year into his term in office, reversing nearly seven decades of US policy on this sensitive issue, Donald Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. There was worldwide consternation, including from substantial sections of US institutions, because this “broke decades of unwavering US neutrality on Jerusalem.”
On Latin America, the 2016-20 Donald Trump administration specifically targeted what his national security adviser, John Bolton, called the “troika of tyranny” — that is, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — which he also referred to as “a triangle of terror.”
Outlining Donald Trump's policy, John Bolton accused the three governments of being "the cause of immense suffering, the impetus for enormous regional instability and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism."
In 2018, Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson endorsed the Monroe Doctrine because it had asserted U.S. “authority” in the Western Hemisphere, declaring that the doctrine was “as relevant today as it was when it was written.” Tillerson’s message to Latin America was strong, saying that the U.S. would not allow the region to become interested in building ties with emerging world powers like China.
It was during the 2016-20 Donald Trump administration that, after several years of careful and methodical preparations, the US orchestrated and financed the 2018 coup attempt against Nicaragua. It convulsed the small Central American nation for more than six months with vicious levels of violence, resulting in wanton destruction of property, massive economic losses and nearly 200 innocent people killed. The Joe Biden administration, under pressure from cold-blooded warriors in the US, continued its policy of aggression against Nicaragua by imposing a series of sanctions.
Donald Trump has imposed hundreds of sanctions on Venezuela with horrific human consequences, as in 2017-18 some 40.000 vulnerable people died needlessly. Venezuela’s economy has been frozen to near-suffocation. Its oil industry has been paralyzed with the dual purpose of denying the country its main source of income and preventing oil supplies to Cuba. Trump has repeatedly threatened Venezuela with military aggression; Venezuela (2017) has been subjected to six months of street violence by the opposition; an assassination attempt on President Nicolás Maduro (August 2018); Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself “interim president” of Venezuela (January 2019, and was recognized by the US); the opposition attempted to force food across the border into Venezuela by military means (February 2019); the State Department offered a $15 million reward for “information leading to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro” (March 2020); a failed coup attempt (May 2019); a mercenary attack (May 2020); and in 2023 Trump publicly admitted that he wanted to overthrow Nicolás Maduro to gain control over Venezuela’s vast oil deposits.
Although Cuba has endured the longest comprehensive blockade of a nation in peacetime (more than six decades, so far), under Donald Trump the pressure has been substantially increased. In 2019, Donald Trump accused the Cuban government of “controlling Venezuela” and demanded that the 20.000 Cuban experts in health, sports culture, education, communications, agriculture, food, industry, science, energy and transportation—who Donald Trump falsely described as soldiers—leave under threat of implementing a “total and complete blockade.”
Due to the tightening of the US blockade, between April 2019 and March 2020, for the first time the annual cost to the island exceeded US$5 billion (a 20% increase compared to the previous year).
Furthermore, Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy against Cuba has meant, among other things, that lawsuits under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act have been allowed; increased harassment of Cuban financial and commercial transactions; a ban on U.S. flights to all Cuban provinces (except Havana); harassment and intimidation of companies sending fuel supplies; an intense campaign to discredit Cuban medical cooperation programs; USAID issuing a $97.321 grant to a Florida-based agency aimed at portraying Cuban tourism as exploitative; Trump has also drastically reduced remittances to the island and severely limited the ability of U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, deliberately making companies and partner countries think twice about doing business with Cuba; and 54 groups have received $40 million in U.S. grants to promote unrest in Cuba.
In addition, Cuba has had to deal with serious unrest in July 2021 and more recently in March 2024, fueled by US-funded groups in as many cities as they could. The pattern of unrest is based on what was perpetrated against Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Donald Trump’s final act of sabotage, just days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, was to return Cuba to the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT), falsely accusing it of having ties to international terrorism. The consequences were devastating: between March 2022 and February 2023, 130 companies, including 75 from Europe, stopped all negotiations with Cuba, affecting transfers for the purchase of food, medicine, fuel, materials, parts and other goods.
Donald Trump, despite being so intemperate and substantially discredited worldwide due to his rhetorical excesses, threats and vulgarities, leads a mass extremist movement, holds the presidency, the Senate and has the explicit complicity of the Supreme Court, and is therefore in a particularly strong position to lose his temper with the “troika of tyranny”, especially over Cuba. In short, the election of Donald Trump as president has a historic significance in the worst possible sense of the term.
From his speeches, one can assume that he would like to make history and may entertain the idea of doing so by “finishing the job” with Cuba (but also with Venezuela and Nicaragua). If he were to undertake this route, he already has a series of aggressive policies in place that he implemented during 2016-20. In addition, he will enjoy right-wing Republican control over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Worse, hardline pro-blockade Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are the leading members of this committee and have a Cuba fixation. Donald Trump has enjoyed a stronger following in Florida, where anti-Cuban Republicans in Florida bolstered his support and election victory. He also has a global communications network owned by his ally, billionaire Elon Musk. Furthermore, no matter who is in the White House, the “regime change” machine is always plotting something nasty for Cuba.
So, buckle up! Turbulent times are coming for Latin America. Our solidarity work must be substantially intensified, explaining the growing threat that a second Trump term poses for all of Latin America, but especially for Cuba.
*Francisco Dominguez is professor of political science at the University of Middlesex (England).
Translation: Arthur Scavone.
Originally published in Morning Star Online.
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