Latin America grapples with U.S. deportations
Jan. 28, 2025
Regional leaders will meet Thursday in an emergency Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) summit convened by Honduras to discuss the U.S. government’s mass deportation policy.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs and sanctions against countries that do not cooperate — and on Sunday forced Colombian President Gustavo Petro to back down, after refusing to accept two military-run deportation flights due to concerns about conditions migrants were subjected to.
But while the balance of power is tilted towards the U.S., it cannot act unilaterally, notes the Financial Times. Colombia’s frontal approach failed against Trump’s bluster, and the spat will likely temper other countries responses to mass deportation efforts. But deportations cannot happen without the receiving country’s cooperation, and Brazil and Mexico have more quietly voiced disagreement.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s stance is showing a combination of conviction and pragmatism that seems the most productive approach. "The important thing, as I said from day one, is to always act with a cool head, defending the sovereignty of each country and respect between nations and peoples," she said yesterday. (El País)
Mexican authorities are building on experience with the first Trump presidency and are “convinced now more than ever that they have to avoid a clash with Trump at all costs and bet on a negotiated solution to the challenge posed by the American president,” reports El País.
The U.S. is concerned about Chinese influence in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Trump’s hostile stance is an opportunity for Beijing to present itself as a friendly great power alternative. Should Trump’s tactics become too heavy handed, a perception of bullying could push countries towards Chinese economic opportunities, according to Bloomberg. (Also New York Times)
“Celac is the platform for China in Latin America, so Thursday’s summit is a kind of proxy for showing [Washington] that if [it is] really going to punish us, then China’s willing to fill the gap and come in even more than it has already,” Inter-American Dialogue’s Michael Shifter told the Financial Times.
More Deportations
Testimony from a deportation flight to Brazil this weekend details a harrowing flight on a plane with mechanical malfunctions, no air conditioning, and violence from U.S. authorities. “The complaints appear to be setting an early precedent for the limits of what Latin American countries will accept when it comes to the return of their citizens,” reports the Washington Post.
However, there are reports indicating that handcuffs and shackles are not uncommon in deportation flights - La Silla Vacía
“Recalcitrant countries,” those that refuse to take back undocumented immigrants pose a challenge for Trump’s mass deportation plan. There are 42,084 deportable Cubans in the U.S., but Cuba has only accepted 4,662 people in the past decade, the significant U.S. sanctions already in place against Cuba give Trump little leverage. Venezuela has signaled willingness to negotiate in exchange for oil licenses, reports the Washington Post.
Mexico has received non-Mexican migrants from the United States in the past week, and Central American nations could also reach similar agreements with the U.S. to accept deportees from other countries, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said yesterday. (Reuters)
Regional Relations
“Trump’s rhetoric has shifted from isolationist to expansionist,” writes James Bosworth in a World Politics Review column that warns the world is unprepared for a U.S. government interested in territorial expansion. “Trump’s glib comments about his willingness to use the U.S. military in the Western Hemisphere should not be treated as too absurd or anachronistic to believe. To the contrary, Panama, its neighbors and the world should be taking Trump’s calls for a U.S. return to Manifest Destiny and territorial expansion very seriously. They signal a huge shift in the guiding principles of U.S. foreign policy.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is asking the Trump administration to provide additional exemptions to a 90-day freeze on all U.S. foreign aid, reports the Miami Herald.
The head of Haiti’s transitional presidential council said the Trump administration’s decisions to freeze aid programs, deport migrants and block refugees will be “catastrophic” for Haiti, reports the Associated Press.
Boz maps out 20 themes to watch for in Trump’s LatAm policy. (Latin America Risk Report)
Google has confirmed it will rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on Google Maps in the U.S., following Trump’s recent directive, reports the Guardian. “Across Mexico and Cuba, the other countries with maritime boundaries in the gulf, Mr. Trump’s move was met with a combination of bewilderment, indignation, indifference and, at times, laughter,” reports the New York Times.
Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Vladimir Putin of Russia held a telephone conversation yesterday. Lula accepted the invitation to attend the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow in May. (Mercopress)
Colombia
Colombia’s army is moving to retake control of the Catatumbo region, where after a week with no reported murders, authorities confirmed another 16 killings, reports El País. So far nearly a 100 people have been killed, 25,000 are confined in their homes and 48,000 have been displaced, in a region where the total population is about 300,000.
Attacks by Colombia’s ELN guerrillas against a FARC dissident group could spread conflict in other parts of the country, reports El País: “The intelligence received by the government is that the Gulf Clan, a paramilitary and drug-trafficking group, wants to take advantage of the fact that the ELN has been careless in some regions to attack it head-on.”
Costa Rica
A cousin of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has political aspirations in Costa Rica - El Faro
Histories
Scientists have long been divided over whether the potato disease linked to the Irish famine cropped up in the Andes or originated in Mexico — new evidence points to South America, reports the Guardian.