LatAm in the Trump era

Jan. 20, 2025

Donald Trump will return to the White House today — and Latin America’s anxious eyes are watching to see how much of his bluster will translate into real policy moves, as well as how diverse countries in the region respond to diplomatic pressure on key U.S. concerns: migration and illicit drug trafficking.

Trump plans to issue a flurry of executive orders and directives after he is sworn in today, reports AFP. Sources familiar with the planning said more than 100 such orders and directives could be released as early as day one, in what his team has described as a "shock and awe" effort.

With regards to Latin America’s 2025, “the main question mark revolves around the man in the White House—whether he will follow through on tariffs and other threats, or perhaps pursue a more benign strategy of integrating supply chains and cooperation on security issues,” Brian Winter wrote in America Quarterly.

Leaving aside personal ideological affinities, such as Trump’s fondness for Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, “his agenda for Central America is basically migration and security. That’s it,” journalist Carlos Dada told the Guardian. “The traditional, post cold-war US agenda, which had a strong emphasis on democracy and human rights, is gone.”

Despite the unprecedented connections between the administration’s foreign policy team and Latin America, James Bosworth predicts that after a few headline grabbing actions, the pendulum will swing back to benign neglect. (Latin America Risk Report)

In terms of style, perhaps the region serves to understand the great power to the north. Boris Muñoz compares Trump to demagogues on the left and right, including Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, as well as Adolf Hitler. “Yes, Trump is part of that infamous lineage. They all came with the promise of giving back to the ‘people’ something that had been taken from them and ended up creating an establishment to protect themselves, but not the citizens.” (El País)

Venezuela

• Trump’s highly LatAm focused foreign policy team mixes high-profile Venezuela hawks — State Secretary nominee Marco Rubio said Biden got duped by Nicolás Maduro — with presidential envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell – who has previously held secret talks with one of Maduro’s closest allies. Experts say it is not clear whether Trump will go for maximum pressure, some conservatives have even pushed for military invasion, or a negotiation with Maduro in exchange for oil and migration cooperation. (See Dec. 16’s post, for example.)

• David Smilde, a Venezuela specialist at Tulane University, said Trump’s contrasting picks – coupled with his “new sort of interventionist obsessions with Canada, Greenland and Panama” – has left enormous space for speculation about the path he would take. (Guardian)

• The outgoing Biden administration rejected last year’s election results in Venezuela, but has maintained the Maduro government’s financial lifeline: a permit for U.S. energy giant Chevron to pump and export Venezuelan oil, reports the Associated Press.

Mexico

• Trump has come in swinging against Mexico, threatening with sky-high tariffs, mass deportations and military strikes on cartels. The last time this happened, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador forged a warm personal relationship — and a pragmatic policy of cooperation. “Mexico’s top negotiators are adopting an assertive stance to negotiating with Mr. Trump this time around,” reports the New York Times. “President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has set the tone of this approach. While Mexico’s government has been unable to meet with the incoming Trump administration, she has blended conciliatory words for Mr. Trump with rhetorical pushback and vows that Mexico could hit back with retaliatory tariffs of its own.”

• “Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country. Let it be heard loud and clear, let it be heard far and wide,” she said at an event this weekend. Nearly 40 million U.S. residents are Mexican or of Mexican descent, according to a recent official U.S. Census survey. At the same time, at least five million Mexicans live in the United States without papers, according to the Migration Policy Institute. (El País)

• The incoming administration has rebuffed requests by Mexico for a formal meeting, insisting that detailed discussions will only begin after Trump is sworn in today, reports the New York Times.

• Trump has threatened to classify Mexican criminal cartels as terrorist organizations, a move supported by members of his team, including Rubio. “Experts say the designation wouldn’t give the US many more tools to go after organised crime, and that it may simply be a threat to force more action from Mexico itself,” reports the Guardian. “But some fear it could be the first step towards US military strikes in Mexican territory.”

• The Trump team is particularly concerned about Chinese economic presence in Mexico, which they say is a backdoor to the U.S. market — a narrative others say isn’t backed by facts on the ground. “As Trump threatens to further escalate tariffs on China, nations like Mexico are facing a new calculus: How much trade with China is okay? And can countries maintain access to the American market without sacrificing Chinese investment?” - Washington Post

Cuba

• Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer was released from prison last week as part of a deal with the outgoing U.S. Biden administration and brokered by the Vatican, after more than four years in prison, much of it spent in isolation. Hours later, in an interview with the Miami Herald, called on the incoming U.S. administration to make no concessions to Havana. (See last Wednesday’s post.)

• William LeoGrande analyzes the motives for Biden’s last-minute move to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, in Responsible Statecraft. “Havana’s prisoner release demonstrates to the international community at large its willingness to compromise and desire to reduce conflict with Washington. It puts the United States government on record acknowledging that Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism. And it puts the Trump administration in the awkward position of having to choose between leaving the new measures in place or reneging on an agreement to release 553 people from jail.”

Haiti

• A new group of 217 police officers from Kenya arrived in Port-au-Prince on Saturday to shore up the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, part of a reinforcement promised by Kenyan President William Ruto last year, but stalled amidst political uncertainty after the U.S. presidential election and turmoil in Haiti’s transitional government, reports the Miami Herald.

• Ruto’s concerns about lack of funding seem to have been put to rest after Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, signaled continued support for the Kenya-led security mission. (See last Thursday’s post.)

Migration

• Raids to detain and deport migrants living in the US without permission are set to begin today, reports CBS.

• Trump has vowed mass deportations of migrants and strict entry controls, but along the Mexico border “the number of migrants has steadily dropped in recent months. The decline has been attributed largely to hardened restrictions introduced by the Biden administration and by Mexican and Panamanian officials meant to deter migration,” reports the New York Times.

• While Trump will attempt to increase raids and deportations of migrants, “the basic challenges of following through with deportations mean they will struggle to get numbers that are much higher than Biden’s fourth year in their first year,” predicts James Bosworth. (Latin America Risk Report)

• Besides deportations, Trump wants to cancel the CBP One app used by migrants in Mexico to arrange asylum appointments, and again force asylum seekers towait in dangerous Mexican border cities while their applications were processed. The Trump also reportedly wants to revive a pandemic-era public health policy that expelled people without letting them request asylum. Combined, these policies could be overwhelming, reports the Guardian.

• Humanitarian volunteers on the U.S. border describe a rising fear of vigilantes and climate change, and are bracing “for a new wave of reprisals by state forces and rightwing militia” under the incoming administration. In Trump’s first term, several were prosecuted for humanitarian work, and groups and others critical of the border wall construction and heavy handed enforcement were also targeted for surveillance and raids, reports the Guardian.

Colombia

• Colombia’s leftist government faces several potential flashpoints with Trump: increased coca production, President Gustavo Petro’s diplomatic relationship with Maduro, and the ambiguity of the immigration policy, reports El País.

• Colombia will be a pawn in the power struggle between the U.S. and China, argues Juanita León in La Silla Vacía.

Argentina

• Another regional ally, is Javier Milei, who will attend today’s presidential inauguration in DC. Members of the Trump team have lauded the Argentine leader, who has pushed down inflation, albeit at the cost of increased poverty. Though Argentina’s crisis-ridden economy differs greatly from the U.S.’s (can’t believe I wrote that), some analysts think Miliei’s deregulatory push could be relevant for Trump, according to the Washington Post.

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ELN massacre in Colombia

More than 80 people were killed Colombia’s northeast Catacumbo region, near the border with Venezuela, over the weekend following the government’s failed attempts to hold peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN). (La Silla Vacía)

Thousands of people have been displaced, and Colombia’s army deployed some 5,000 troops to the cocaine-growing Catatumbo region, reports AFP.

The Ombudsman's Office, a rights watchdog, cited reports of ELN rebels going from "house to house," killing people suspected of ties to the FARC dissidents.

It warned that "peace signatories, social leaders and their families, and even children, face a special risk of being kidnapped or killed" and said many had fled for the mountains. (AFP)

Among the victims are community leader Carmelo Guerrero and seven people who sought to sign a peace deal, and three other people associated with the peace process were kidnapped, according to authorities. (Associated Press)

Mexico

• Mexican authorities ordered the shutdown of a Monterrey area recycling plant that processes hazardous waste exported from the U.S., after an investigation by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab revealed heavy metals contamination in nearby homes and schools. (Guardian, see last Tuesday’s briefs.)

Bolivia

• A Bolivian judge ordered the detention of former Bolivian president Evo Morales, who had a relationship with a teenager while in office, is accused of statutory rape. Morales skipped a hearing on a potential pre-trial detention for a second time on Friday. The ruling, which was broadcast on state television, also included a freeze of Morales’s assets and a ban on him leaving the country. Morales said the case is politically motivated and aimed at preventing him from running in this year’s presidential election. (Guardian, AFP)

Regional Relations

• Suriname’s foreign minister, Albert Ramdin, who left the Organization of American States after two terms as assistant secretary general a decade ago, is planning a run for the organization’s top post, reports the Miami Herald.

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s vice-president, Verónica Abad, has accused President Daniel Noboa of violating the country’s constitution as he seeks a second term, by refusing to handover power to her during campaigning ahead of next month’s elections. She told the Financial Times it forms part of pattern of authoritarian behavior.

Argentina

• “The International Monetary Fund will send a technical team to Buenos Aires next week following an "excellent meeting" between its managing director and President Javier Milei in Washington,” reports the Buenos Aires Times.

Peru

• A bronze statue of Francisco Pizarro, Peru’s Spanish conqueror, has been returned to the streets of Lima, 22 years after it was removed, “in an apparent attempt to rehabilitate the conquistador’s controversial legacy,” reports the Guardian.

Justice

• Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden granted a posthumous pardon to Jamaican-born civil rights and human rights leader Marcus Garvey. (Washington Post)