{"id":287140,"date":"2025-02-03T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=287140"},"modified":"2025-01-30T06:31:24","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T06:31:24","slug":"biden-or-trump-us-latin-american-policy-remains-contemptible-migration-drugs-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/02\/biden-or-trump-us-latin-american-policy-remains-contemptible-migration-drugs-tariffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden or Trump, US Latin American Policy Remains Contemptible: Migration, Drugs, Tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

30 Jan 2025 –<\/em> With Donald Trump as the new US president, pundits are speculating about how US policy towards Latin America might change.<\/p>\n

We look at some of the speculation, then address three specific instances of how the US\u2019s policy priorities may be viewed from a progressive, Latin American perspective. This leads us to a wider argument: that the way these issues are dealt with is symptomatic of Washington\u2019s paramount objective of sustaining the US\u2019s hegemonic position. In this overriding preoccupation, its policy towards Latin America is only one element, of course, but always of significance because the US hegemon still treats the region as its \u201cbackyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, some examples of what the pundits are saying. In Foreign Affairs<\/em>, Brian Winter argues that Trump\u2019s return signals<\/a> a shift away from Biden\u2019s neglect of the region. \u201cThe reason is straightforward,\u201d he says. \u201cTrump\u2019s top domestic priorities of cracking down on unauthorized immigration, stopping the smuggling of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, and reducing the influx of Chinese goods into the United States all depend heavily on policy toward Latin America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Berg, who is with the thinktank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, funded by the US defense industry, is also hopeful<\/a>. Trump will \u201cfocus U.S. policy more intently on the Western Hemisphere,\u201d he argues, \u201cand in so doing, also shore up its own security and prosperity at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to blogger James Bosworth<\/a>, Biden\u2019s \u201cbenign neglect\u201d could be replaced by an \u201caggressive Monroe Doctrine – deportations, tariff wars, militaristic security policies, demands of fealty towards the US, and a rejection of China.\u201d However, notwithstanding the attention of Trump\u2019s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, Bosworth thinks there is still a good chance of policy lapsing into benign neglect as the new administration focuses elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The wrong end of the telescope<\/strong><\/p>\n

What these and similar analyses share is a concern with problems of importance to the US, including domestic ones, and how they might be tackled by shifts in policy towards Latin America. They view the region from the end of a US-mounted telescope.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s approach may be the more brazen \u201cAmerica first!,\u201d but the basic stance is much the same as these pundits. The different scenarios will be worked out in Washington, with Latin America\u2019s future seen as shaped by how it handles US policy changes over which it has little influence. Analyses by these supposed experts are constrained by their adopting the same one-dimensional perspective as Washington\u2019s, instead of questioning it.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one example. The word \u201cneglect\u201d is superficial because it hides the immense involvement of the US in Latin America even when it is \u201cneglecting\u201d it: from deep commercial ties to a massive military presence. It is also superficial because, in a real sense, the US constantly<\/em> neglects the problems that concern most Latin Americans: low wages, inequality, being safe in the streets, the damaging effects of climate change, and many more. \u201cNeglect\u201d would be seen very differently on the streets of a Latin American city than it is inside the Washington beltway.<\/p>\n

Who has the \u201cdrug problem\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The vacuum in US thinking is nowhere more apparent than in responses to the drug problem. Trump threatens to declare Mexican drug cartels to be terrorist organizations and to invade Mexico to attack them.<\/p>\n

But, as academic Carlos P\u00e9rez-Ricart told El Pais<\/em><\/a>: \u201cThis is a problem that does not originate in Mexico. The source, the demand, and the vectors are not Mexican. It is them.\u201d Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also points out that it is consumption in the US that drives drug production and trafficking in Mexico.<\/p>\n

Trump could easily make the same mistake as his predecessor Clinton did two decades ago. Back then, billions were poured into \u201cPlan Colombia\u201d but still failed to solve the \u201cdrug problem,\u201d while vastly augmenting violence and human rights violations in the target country.<\/p>\n

A foretaste of what might happen, if Trump carries out his threat, occurred last July, when Biden\u2019s administration captured Ismael \u201cEl Mayo\u201d Zambada. That caused<\/a> an all-out war between cartels in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum rightly turns<\/a> questions about drug production and consumption back onto the US. Rhetorically, she asks: \u201cDo you believe that fentanyl is not manufactured in the United States?…. Where are the drug cartels in the United States that distribute fentanyl in US cities? Where does the money from the sale of that fentanyl go in the United States?\u201d<\/p>\n

If Trump launches a war on cartels, he will not be the first US president to the treat drug consumption as a foreign issue rather than a concomitantly domestic one.<\/p>\n

Where does the \u201cmigration problem\u201d originate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump is also not the first president to be obsessed by migration. Like drugs, it is seen as a problem to be solved by the countries where the migrants originate, while both the \u201cpush\u201d and \u201cpull\u201d factors under US control receive less attention.<\/p>\n

Exploitation of migrant labor, complex asylum procedures, and schemes such as \u201chumanitarian parole\u201d to encourage migration are downplayed as reasons. Biden intensified US sanctions on various Latin American countries, which have been shown<\/a> conclusively to provoke massive emigration. Meanwhile Trump threatens to do the same.<\/p>\n

Many Latin American countries have been made unsafe by crime linked to drugs or other problems in which the US is implicated. About 392,000 Mexicans were displaced<\/a> as a result of conflict in 2023 alone, their problem aggravated<\/a> by the massive, often illegal, export of firearms from the US to Mexico.<\/p>\n

Costa Rica, historically a safe country, had<\/a> a record 880 homicides in 2023, many of which were related to drug trafficking. In Brazil and other countries, US-trained security forces contribute<\/a> directly to the violence, rather than reducing it.<\/p>\n

Mass deportations from the US, promised by Trump, could worsen these problems, as happened<\/a> in El Salvador in the late 1990s. They would also affect remittances sent home by migrant workers, exacerbating regional poverty. The threatened use of tariffs on exports to the US could also have serious consequences if Latin America does not stand up to Trump\u2019s threats. Economist Michael Hudson argues that countries will have to jointly retaliate by refusing to pay<\/a> dollar-based debts to bond holders if export earnings from the US are summarily cut.<\/p>\n

China in the US \u201cbackyard\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump also joins the Washington consensus in its preoccupation with China\u2019s influence in Latin America. Monica de Bolle is with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a thinktank partly funded<\/a> by Pentagon contractors. She told<\/a> the BBC<\/em>: \u201cYou have got the backyard of America engaging directly with China. That’s going to be problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently retired US Southern Command general, Laura Richardson, was probably the most senior frequent visitor on Washington\u2019s behalf to Latin American capitals, during the Biden administration. She accused<\/a> China of “playing the \u2018long game\u2019 with its development of dual-use sites and facilities throughout the region, \u201cadding that those sites could serve as “points of future multi-domain access for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and strategic naval chokepoints.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Foreign Affairs <\/em>points out<\/a>, Latin America\u2019s trade with China has \u201cexploded\u201d from $18 billion in 2002 to $480 billion in 2023. China is also investing in huge infrastructure projects, and seemingly its only political condition is a preference for a country to recognize China diplomatically (not Taiwan). Even here, China is not absolute as with Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay, which still recognize Taiwan. China still has direct investments in those holdouts, though relatively more modest than with regional countries that fully embrace its one-China policy.<\/p>\n

Peru, currently a close US ally, has a new, Chinese-funded megaport at Chancay, opened in November by President Xi Jinping himself. Even right-wing Argentinian president Milei said of China<\/a>, \u201cThey do not demand anything [in return].\u201d<\/p>\n

What does the US offer instead? While Antony Blinken proudly displayed<\/a> old railcars that were gifted to Peru, the reality is that most US \u201caid\u201d to Latin America is either aimed at \u201cpromoting democracy\u201d (i.e. Washington\u2019s political agenda) or is conditional or exploitative in other ways.<\/p>\n

The BBC cites<\/a> \u201cseasoned observers\u201d who believe that Washington is paying the price for \u201cyears of indifference\u201d towards the region\u2019s needs. Where the US sees a loss of strategic influence to China and to a lesser extent to Russia, Iran, and others, Latin American countries see opportunities for development and economic progress.<\/p>\n

Remember the Monroe Doctrine<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those calling for a more \u201cbenign\u201d policy are forgetting that, in the two centuries since President James Monroe announced the \u201cdoctrine,\u201d later given his name, US policy towards Latin America has been aggressively self-interested.<\/p>\n

Its troops have intervened<\/a> thousands of times in the region and have occupied its countries on numerous occasions. Just since World War II, there have been around 50 significant interventions or coup attempts, beginning with Guatemala in 1954. The US has 76 military bases<\/a> across the region, while other major powers like China and Russia have none.<\/p>\n

The doctrine is very much alive. In Foreign Affairs,<\/em> Brian Winter warns<\/a>: \u201cMany Republicans perceive these linkages [with China], and the growing Chinese presence in Latin America more broadly, as unacceptable violations of the Monroe Doctrine, the 201-year-old edict that the Western Hemisphere should be free of interference from outside powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bosworth adds<\/a> that Trump wants Latin America to decisively choose a side in the US vs China scrimmage, not merely underplay the role of China in the hemisphere. Any country courting Trump, he suggests, \u201cneeds to show some anti-China vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Freeman is with the Council on Foreign Relations, whose major sponsors are also Pentagon contractors<\/a>. He thinks<\/a> that a new Monroe Doctrine and what he calls Trump\u2019s \u201chardball\u201d diplomacy may partially work, but only with northern Latin America countries, which are more dependent on US trade and other links.<\/p>\n

Trump has two imperatives: while one is stifling China\u2019s influence (e.g. by taking possession of the Panama Canal), another is gaining control of mineral resources (a reason for his wanting to acquire Greenland). The desire for mineral resources is not new, either. General Richardson gave an interview<\/a> in 2023 to another defense-industry-funded thinktank in which she strongly insinuated that Latin American minerals rightly belong to the US.<\/p>\n

Maintaining hegemonic power against the threat of multipolarity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer, writing<\/a> 20 years ago for yet another thinktank funded by the \u00a0defense industry, openly endorsed the US\u2019s status as the dominant hegemonic power and decried multilateralism, at least when not in US interests. \u201cMultipolarity, yes, when there is no alternative,\u201d he said. \u201cBut not when there is. Not when we have the unique imbalance of power that we enjoy today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norwegian commentator Glen Diesen, writing<\/a> in 2024, contends<\/a> that the US is still fighting a battle \u2013 although perhaps now a losing one \u2013 against multipolarity and to retain its predominant status. Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica first!\u201d is merely a more blatant expression of sentiments held by his other presidential predecessors for clinging on to Washington\u2019s contested hegemony.<\/p>\n

The irony of Biden\u2019s presidency was that his pursuit of the Ukraine war has led to warmer relations between his two rivals, Russia and China. In this context, the growth of BRICS has been fostered \u2013 an explicitly multipolar, non-hegemonic partnership. As Glen Diesen says, \u201cThe war intensified the global decoupling from the West.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other steps to maintain US hegemony \u2013 its support for Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza, the regime-change operation in Syria and the breakdown of order in Haiti \u2013 suggest that, in Washington\u2019s view, according to Diesen, \u201cchaos is the only alternative to US global dominance.\u201d Time and again, Yankee \u201cbeneficence\u201d has meant ruination, not development.<\/p>\n

These have further strengthened desires in the global south for alternatives to US dominance, not least in Latin America. Many of its countries (especially those vulnerable to tightening US sanctions) now want to follow the alternative of BRICS.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, Trump has been highly critical of this perceived erosion of hegemonic power on Biden\u2019s watch. Thomas Fazi argues<\/a> in UnHerd <\/em>that this is realism on Trump\u2019s part; he knows the Ukraine war cannot be conclusively won, and that China\u2019s power is difficult to contain. Accordingly, this is leading to a \u201crecalibrating of US priorities toward a more manageable \u2018continental\u2019 strategy \u2014 a new Monroe Doctrine \u2014 aimed at reasserting full hegemony over what it deems to be its natural sphere of influence, the Americas and the northern Atlantic,\u201d stretching from Greenland and the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica.<\/p>\n

The pundits may not agree on quite what Trump\u2019s approach towards Latin America will be, but they concur with Winter\u2019s judgment<\/a> that the region \u201cis about to become a priority for US foreign policy.\u201d His appointment of Marco Rubio is a signal of this. The new secretary of state is a hawk, just like Blinken, but one with a dangerous focus<\/a> on Latin America.<\/p>\n

However, the mere fact that such pundits hark back to the Monroe Doctrine indicates that this is only, so to speak, old wine in new bottles. Even in the recent past, an aggressive application of the 201-year-old Monroe Doctrine has never seen a hiatus.<\/p>\n

Recall US-backed coups that deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (2009) and Bolivian Evo Morales (2019), plus the failed coup against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (2018), along with the parliamentary coup that ousted Paraguayan Fernando Lugo (2012). To these, US-backed regime change by \u201clawfare\u201d included Dilma Rousseff in Brazil (2016) and Pedro Castillo in Peru (2023). Currently presidential elections have simply been suspended in Haiti and Peru with US backing.<\/p>\n

Even if Trump is more blatant than his predecessors in making clear that his policymaking is based entirely on what he perceives to be US interests, rather than those of Latin Americans, this is not new.<\/p>\n

As commentator Caitlin Johnstone points out, the main difference<\/a> between Trump and his predecessors is that he \u201cmakes the US empire much more transparent and unhidden.\u201d From the other end of the political spectrum, a former John McCain adviser echoes<\/a> the same assessment: \u201cthere will likely be far more continuity between the two administrations than meets the eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, Latin America will continue to struggle to set its own destiny, patchily and with setbacks, and this will likely draw it away from the hegemon, whatever the US does.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Nicaragua-based John Perry is with the <\/em>Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition<\/em><\/a> and writes for the <\/em>London Review of Books, FAIR, and<\/em> CovertAction. <\/em><\/p>\n

Roger D. Harris is with the <\/em>Task Force on the Americas<\/em><\/a>, the <\/em>US Peace Council<\/em><\/a>, and the <\/em>Venezuela Solidarity Network<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 Jan 2025 – With Donald Trump, pundits are speculating about how US policy towards Latin America might change. We look at some of the speculation and address three instances of how the US\u2019s policy may be viewed from a progressive, L.A. perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":275436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[867,2197,1126,1050,541,2616,3324,2137,249,70],"class_list":["post-287140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-anglo-america","tag-biden","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-migration","tag-north-america","tag-south-america","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287142,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287140\/revisions\/287142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}