For years, Central America has contended with the violence and corruption stemming from organized crime and the drug trade. Now the countries of the region also find themselves in U.S. President Donald Trump’s line of fire, due to the many desperate Central Americans who make their way across Mexico to seek asylum at the United States’ southern border.
The steady stream of outward migration is driven by ongoing turmoil, particularly in Nicaragua and in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The three Northern Triangle countries rank among the most violent in the world, a legacy of the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, which destabilized security structures and flooded the region with guns. In that context, gangs—often brought back home by deportees from the U.S.—have proliferated, and along with them the drug trade and corruption, fueling increasing lawlessness. Popular unrest has done little to produce political solutions, leading many of the most vulnerable to flee.
The highly publicized and politically instrumentalized caravans of migrants have drawn Trump’s ire, resulting in threats to cut U.S. development aid to the region. Some experts predict this will only fuel more people to flee. Meanwhile, Washington’s influence is also being steadily eroded as administrations across Central America consider deepening their ties to China.
The presidential election earlier this year of a 37-year-old populist in El Salvador and an anti-corruption crusader in Panama might signal that new efforts to address graft and violence are on the horizon. But entrenched interests will likely do their best to maintain the status quo, much as they have in the face of reformist efforts in other countries in the region.
WPR has covered Central America in detail and continues to examine key questions about what will happen next there. Will the regime of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega succeed in stamping out that country’s protest movement? What are the implications if Trump follows through on his threats to cut aid to the region? And what will come of the migrants that prompted the Trump administration’s backlash? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.
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