Trump’s in the White House - U.S. Influence in Latin America on the Wane

 

By Steve Ellner

Jacobin

Indignation and resistance to Donald Trump’s bullying, deportations, and economic reprisals are spreading across Latin America. Though the mainstream media has amply covered pushback from Canada and Western Europe and the street protests and town halls in the United States, along with the AOC-Bernie Fighting Oligarchy tour, however, it has not given much attention to the growing defiance to the south.

Opposition to Trump throughout Latin America is taking on many forms. In some places like Mexico, presidents have forged a united front over the issue of tariffs, which includes prominent businesspeople and some leaders of the opposition. Diplomatic initiatives by other presidents, such as Lula of Brazil, are aiming to build a unified Latin American stand against Trump’s measures by shoring up regional organizations, principally the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

The opposition has also included street mobilizations. Most recently, Panamanians reacted to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s visit on April 12 by taking to the streets. The National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso), one of the main sponsors, denounced Washington’s veiled schemes to establish four military bases in the country. The protests intimidated right-wing President José Raúl Mulino; though called a “traitor” by Frenadeso, Mulino warned Hegseth of the danger of implementing the plan. “Do you want to create a mess?” he warned and added “what we’ve put in place here would set the country on fire.” Frenadeso also denounced Mulino’s capitulation to pressure from Washington that resulted in Panama’s exit from China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Three issues have galvanized the pushback against Trump in Latin America: tariffs, deportations, and Washington’s policy of exclusion. The latter includes ostracizing Cuba and Venezuela from the Latin American community of nations as well as rhetoric and actions designed to drive China from the continent.

Trump’s policies have also intensified the polarization in Latin America that pits left and center-left governments against the far right, which is closely aligned with Washington and Trump in particular. For that reason, the indignation produced by Trump’s inflammatory remarks on the Panama Canal and Gulf of Mexico and his policy of mass deportation and tariffs to likely to strengthen the Latin America left at the expense of the Right.

They also stimulate anti-Americanism, which according to Bloomberg columnist Juan Pablo Spinetto is “gaining new life in Latin America.” Spinetto writes that “the harshness of his take-it-or-leave-it approach will . . . give new force to the anti-Americanism . . . undermining . . . interest in cooperating and establishing common goals.”

In one example of the repudiation of one of the many heinous measures taken by the Trump administration, the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, thanked Cuban international health workers for their assistance during the COVID-19 epidemic. On February 25, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had announced sanctions against government officials and their family who were “complicit” in promoting the Cuban health missions — the measure also threatens “complicit” nations with trade restrictions. Mottley announced that she would not back down in her defense of the Cuban missions and “if the cost of it is the loss of my visa to the US, then so be it. But what matters to us is principles.”

To make matters worse for Rubio, in a joint session in Jamaica after the secretary of state hailed the measure against the Cuban health missions, prime minister Andrew Holness in effect rebuked him. Holness said, “In terms of Cuban doctors in Jamaica, let us be clear, the Cuban doctors in Jamaica have been incredibly helpful to us.” Similar statements were made by the prime ministers of Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

 

Defeat at the OAS

On March 10, Albert Ramdin of Suriname was elected secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) after his only competitor, Paraguay’s foreign minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, dropped out of the race. In its reporting on the event, the mainstream media largely took their cue from the claim by White House envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, that "the OAS Secretary General will be an ally of the United States." He added that Ramdin’s Suriname government is “on the right path economically. . . . That’s bringing in foreign investments that’s non-Chinese.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Ramdin opposes US sanctions and favors dialogue with the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro. In contrast, his rival, Ramírez, had pledged to promote regime change in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Furthermore, China, with its OAS observer status, had supported Ramdin’s candidacy, while the right-wing, pro-Trump governments of Argentina and El Salvador backed Ramírez. Ramdin defends the “one China” policy; in a 2006 trip to Beijing, he stated that his goal was to "expand and deepen" the relationship between China and the OAS, a strategy that he evidently continues to support.

Ramdin owes his nomination not only to the unanimous support of Caribbean nations, but also the joint endorsement by the progressive governments of Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Chile. It was reported that Lula’s initiative was a response to Ramírez’s trip to Washington where he met with Trump advisors, after which he visited Mar-a-Lago. There he posed for photo ops with Trump and Elon Musk, which were seen as a virtual endorsement of his OAS candidacy.

Rubio’s congratulations notwithstanding, Ramdin’s replacement of Washington lackey Luis Almagro as OAS secretary general can’t be to the liking of the Trump administration. The right-wing Latin American press was more up front. Argentina’s Derecha Diario reported that Ramdin, with a “troubling trajectory aligned with socialism . . . represents a threat to the independence of the OAS and seeks to benefit the leftist dictatorial regimes in Latin America.”  The article went on to claim that Ramdin has admitted that “Suriname’s diplomatic missions . . . work ‘hand in hand’ with those of China.” The same line on Ramdin is being pushed by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and cochair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).

If the past is any indication, the Trump administration may attempt to blackmail the OAS by threatening to reduce its contributions to the organization, currently representing 60 percent of its budget. In fact, some Trump advisors have privately raised that possibility, and Washington has already frozen “voluntary contributions” to the OAS. The prospect of the United States completely pulling out of what it considers to be an unfriendly OAS would, however, dovetail with the vision of Mexico’s former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who favors replacing the OAS with a Latin American organization modeled after the European Union.

Challenging the Hegemon

After Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on Mexican and Canadian imports, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum called a rally for March 6 at Mexico City’s central plaza to announce retaliatory measures. Although Trump postponed the tariffs, Sheinbaum held the rally anyway and converted it into a festival to celebrate Washington’s turnaround.

In front of an estimated crowd of 350,000 Mexicans, some of whom held signs reading “Mexico Is to Be Respected,” Sheinbaum said: “We are not extremists, but we are clear that . . . we cannot cede our national sovereignty . . . as a result of decisions by foreign governments or hegemons.”

The showdown with Trump has helped forge a “common front,” a term used by Francisco Cervantes Díaz, president of Mexico’s main business organization, who pledged that at least three hundred businesspeople would attend the March 6 rally. Some members of the Mexican opposition to Sheinbaum and her ruling Morena party also took part.

But the nation’s two main traditional parties, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the National Action Party (PAN), refused to unite behind the president. At the outset, they blamed the governing party’s drug policy for triggering Trump’s measures. Then the PRI-PAN’s standard-bearer, Xóchitl Gálvez, called Sheinbaum’s threat to enact counter-tariffs “ill-advised.”  The phenomenon of a broad “common front” behind the president being pitted against a hardened right opposition is just one more indication of how polarized politics has become throughout the region.   

Sheinbaum's decisiveness resonated in Mexico, with her approval rating climbing to 85 percent. Her reaction to Trump stood in sharp contrast with the submissiveness of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who immediately headed to Mar-a-Lago after Washington first announced the tariff hikes. Panamanian President Mulino also buckled under.

Immediately following Trump’s initial tariff announcement, Lula and Sheinbaum spoke by phone on the need to strengthen CELAC to serve as an alternative to US commercial ties. Lula, like Sheinbaum, combined caution with firmness (at one point he called Trump a “bully”). Lula’s action on the international front is designed to promote a multilateral response to Trump’s tariff surge. In late March, he traveled to Japan to gain support for a customs agreement between that nation and MERCOSUR, which takes in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

The collective approach to tariffs that the progressive Latin American governments are now proposing, with Lula at the helm, is diametrically opposed to the bilateral agreements that the United States has pushed in the region since 2005. That year, Latin American progressive presidents led by Hugo Chávez delivered US-style multilateralism in the form of the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal (FTAA) a fatal blow, much to the chagrin of then president George W. Bush.

The polarization that pits progressive governments, which favor Latin American unity, against those on the right, which sign bilateral trade agreements with Washington, was on full display at CELAC’s ninth summit held in Honduras in April. The rightist presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, and Ecuador were conspicuously absent, while those on the left side of the spectrum, representing Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Honduras, and Venezuela participated.

Especially significant was Lula’s insistence that countries in the region move away from the dollar by trading in local currencies. In an obvious reference to Trump, Lula said, “The more united our economies are, the more protected we are from unilateral actions.” And the summit’s host, Honduran president Xiomara Castro de Zavala, remarked, “We cannot leave this historic assembly . . . without debating the new economic order that the United States is imposing on us with tariffs and immigratory policies.”

The right-wing presidents of Argentina and Paraguay, Javier Milei and Santiago Peña, met separately in Asunción to reject CELAC’s united position on tariffs. Their representatives at CELAC refused to sign the final document called the “Declaration of Tegucigalpa,” which opposed unilateral international sanctions and Trump’s tariffs.

Both nations objected to Xiomara Castro’s use of the term “sufficient consensus” to refer to support for the declaration at the summit. Arguing that the term does not exist in international law, Paraguay questioned whether the final document could be issued in the name of the organization and unsuccessfully insisted that the dissenting position of both countries be officially recognized.

The question of the appropriateness of the phrase “sufficient consensus” was taken up by the Right throughout the region. But the issue went beyond semantics. The intention was clearly to discredit, if not sabotage, steps taken to achieve Latin American unity

 

Polarization Hurts the Right

Trump’s policies have intensified the extreme polarization in which the far right has replaced the center right at the same time the left has gained influence. A case in point is Venezuela. The deportation of 238 Venezuelans from the United States to an overcrowded for-profit prison in El Salvador, and others to Guantanamo, has horrified Venezuelans.

Some have taken to the street to protest, including scores of family members holding photos of victims. One typical sign read “Jhon William Chacín Gómez — He’s Innocent.” Chacín’s wife and sister told reporters that his only crime was his tattoos. In a show of pro-Venezuelan solidary and in defiance of the repressive atmosphere that exists in the nation, protesters in El Salvador also hold signs with photos of individual Venezuelan prisoners.

The issue has put the Venezuelan right led by María Corina Machado in a bind. Machado knows that even the slightest criticism of Trump’s deportation policy will lose her the support of the president. For that reason, she has firmly backed Trump on the issue. She has said, “We respect the measures taken in the framework of the law by democratic governments like the United States . . . to identify, detain and penalize the Tren de Aragua and we trust in the rule of law that exists in those democratic nations.” Machado calls the Tren de Aragua gang “the executing arm of the Maduro regime,” thus feeding into Trump’s narrative that demonizes Venezuelan immigrants.   

The issue of deportations has divided the Venezuelan opposition, more than it already is. The hard-line opposition that supported the candidacy of Machado and then her surrogate Edmundo González is now split. In April, the two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles was expelled from one of the nation’s major parties Primero Justicia due to his differences with Machado, one of them being on the issue of the deportations. Capriles asked with regard to Venezuelan deportees, “What is their crime? What is the criteria for proving it?” He went on to demand “respect for human rights,” adding “it is unacceptable to characterize all [Venezuelan] migrants as delinquents.” José Guerra, a leading member of the Venezuelan opposition, told me “there’s no doubt that the issue of the deportations is playing a fundamental role in splitting the opposition into two blocs.” 

The Irony of Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

It's ironic that the twenty-first-century president who proclaims the Monroe Doctrine as the cornerstone of US policy south of the border is distancing Latin America so much from Washington. Events since Trump took office that portend a worsening of relations between the two include the election of an OAS secretary general who doesn’t share Trump’s objectives and may result in Washington’s defunding of the organization or its complete withdrawal; Trump’s remarks that display complete insensitivity to nationalist sentiment in the region; his weaponization of tariffs that single out Venezuela and Nicaragua for special treatment and serves as a warning for governments such as Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay; the gutting of foreign aid programs; and mass deportations. In addition, the fervent anti-China campaign that invokes the Monroe Doctrine will clash with the reality of Chinese economic expansion in the continent.

If Latin America does move away from the US camp, the blame can’t be placed entirely on Trump. His bullying is just a more extreme version of the imperialism that has always characterized US actions south of the border. Progressive governments in the region now seem more determined than ever to put a check on it.

 

Steve Ellner is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over forty years. His latest book is his coedited Latin American Social Movements and Progressive Governments: Creative Tensions Between Resistance and Convergence.

https://jacobin.com/2025/04/trump-deportations-oas-sheinbaum-lula