With the Trump presidency finally in place in Washington, DC, some regimes in Latin America are bracing for a mortal confrontation with the former. It is a combat that is likely to be on multiple fronts. A known centre right ideologue, Trump has never minced his words regarding his deep scorn for those on the left. An expansionist and confrontational president, keen to stamp his specific brand of hegemonic politics, Trump might severely undermine regimes who have traditionally practiced left-wing ideologies and have been anti-American in their rhetoric and foreign policy undertakings.
Although focussed on Europe and the North American affairs now, Trump is very likely to turn his attention on Latin America soon. His views on getting rid of undocumented Latin American immigrants from the U.S. soil is well known. His expansionist geostrategic vision for the region, regarding reoccupation of the Panama Canal just might become a reality. With no credible power to pushback Trump’s imperialist agenda, there is large scale unease and nervousness in the region.
How credible are the fears of some Latin Americans that they will see a seismic transformation in their socio-political processes due to Trump’s interventionism?
That the United States, under its 47th president is likely to tighten the screws on certain regimes in Latin America was spelt out not by Trump, but by those who are afraid of his brand of politics.
Soon after assuming office for the third consecutive term, the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro revealed to the world he is spearheading a triumvirate of ideological allies in the region for an armed resistance, should Trump initiate a regime change. With his signature flair for political drama, Maduro pronounced:
We are preparing ourselves together with Cuba and Nicaragua and together with our older brothers in the world so that if one day we have to take up arms and defend the right to peace and sovereignty, we will fight in an armed struggle and win again. We are not lukewarm leaders; we are the Bolivarian revolution.
Maduro’s comments would be dismissed by his critics as rants borne out of frustration. Isolated by the entire Latin America bar Cuba and Nicaragua, it would not be far-fetched to suggest that considered a pariah, Maduro is latching on to “ghosts of conspiracy and betrayal.”
Keeping Maduro’s rant aside, there is continent-wide unease regarding Trump’s policy posturing toward the region.
The pushback
Throughout its modern history, as and when they have felt stifled by the intransigence of US administration, some nations in the region have sought external military alliances to counterbalance the U.S. military might. Cuba in the past, and Venezuela first under Hugo Chavez and later Nicolás Maduro are cases in point.
True, Trump can see ideological allies in Javier Milei’s Argentina or El Salvador under Nayib Bukele. There have been plenty of evidence suggesting these right-wing populists are ardent admirers of their ideological mentor up north. However, it is worth asking how much of that admiration will translate into accepting the new U.S. presidency’s imperialist policy postures towards the region.
Latin America has never had homogeneous ideological alliance. This is much more pronounced now than any other time in its history. It remains a bastion of both populist right-of-centre and left-of-centre governing regimes from Argentina to El Salvador. Should that not work to Trump’s advantage?
Despite their ideological divide, imperialist posturing by the United States has always spurred resistance from its southern neighbours, at least at the popular level. If that is any clue, would Latin America stand united against Trump incursion when they themselves are a house divided along deep ideological lines? Faced with the threat of another takeover of the Panama Canal, the country’s president José Raúl Mulino has warned against such imperial ambitions. It was not a lone testament of resistance, however. Following Trump’s veiled threat to take control of the Panama Canal, there was an expression of solidarity by a host of Latin American nations for Panama including Chile, Argentina and Mexico.
Trump, in his rhetoric, has treated Latin America as a pushover. He might use the U.S. military might to steamroll his pet strategic real-estate acquisition drive in the continent starting with the Panama Canal. He has already planned to change the name of Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. Since Trump and his advisors have been eyeing foreign territories with some historical U.S. connections, the next in line to come under Trump’s orbit of invasion / occupation would be Yucatan Peninsula. It should also not come as a surprise, if he offers to buy or worse still occupy the southern half of the Californian landmass (the Baja California Peninsula) which is a Mexican sovereign territory and federal province – all in the name of protecting U.S. national geostrategic interest. Lest we forget, half of the southern Southwestern United States is made of Mexican territories forcibly taken over by many previous U.S. presidents with Trump-like ambitions.
Given that we live at a time when great powers are slowly gobbling up territories of their hapless neighbours – Russia in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, Israel in Syria and occupied territories of Palestinians, China making concerted moves to occupy Taiwan, the dye is cast and the scene is set for a Trump takeover spree.
Should he embrace his past incendiary rhetoric as policy undertakings in Latin America, it would fundamentally alter the U.S.- Latin America relations. Despite repeated invasions, regime changes, and territory takeover, all previous U.S. presidents have sought to follow a “good neighbourly policy” with Latin America and its inhabitants. With its no holds barred bullying and stronghanded rhetoric, the current presidency stands undermining what has been built over generations and decades in just four years.
[Header image by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons]
Amalendu Misra is a professor of international politics, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and author of Towards a Philosophy of Narco Violence in Mexico, New York: Palgrave. He’s on X (formerly Twitter) @MisraAmalendu
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