Irene Mia
Just a couple months into President Donald Trump’s second term, United States–Latin America relations have hit a new low. While past administrations largely overlooked the region, Trump’s ‘America First’ vision has gone beyond neglect to a position of overt hostility. His administration views Latin America primarily as a security threat, associating it with drug trafficking, organised crime and incoming migration, while also perceiving its ties with US geopolitical rivals, particularly China, as uncomfortably close. Based on this reading, the US approach has become essentially negative, prioritising unilateral action and dominance rather than partnership. In a revival of the nineteenth-century Monroe Doctrine, the region is being treated less as an equal partner and more as a sphere of influence to be controlled in line with US strategic interests.
Trump has wasted no time in pushing forward his negative Latin America agenda. The region has been unusually prominent as a target of some of the array of domestic and foreign-policy measures already introduced by the new administration. These measures have included imposing a 25% tariff on goods (with some exceptions) from Mexico in retaliation for its perceived failure to curb the flow of fentanyl and migrants across the border; designating eight Latin American transnational criminal groups as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs); threatening to take back control of the Panama Canal as a matter of national security; and initiating large-scale, often unlawful deportations of Latin American migrants, either to their home countries or to ‘safe’ third countries in the region. Trump’s muscular approach appears to be yielding some early success. However, its short-term focus and one-dimensional nature could undermine its stated goals in the long run.
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