For decades, experts have denounced the US president for ignoring the Western hemisphere in support of distant conflicts in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Both Republicans and Democrats have implemented policies either “benign” or “malignant” and threats are growing and missing valuable opportunities.
It cannot be accused of ignoring US backyards. Instead, we see gusts of wind activity that are quite unprecedented in modern times.
Trump dedicated most of his inaugural speech to demanding that Panama return control of the Panama Canal. It is not clear whether Canada is repeatedly jokingly suggesting that it should become the 51st state, but it does not appear to be geologically political, if not part of Denmark or North America. He has revealed that he is seriously considering control of Greenland. One of his first executive orders was renamed the Gulf of Mexico “The Gulf of America.”
Less than a week after his presidency, he was forced to take punitive tariffs and visas on Colombia (our longtime ally) after the country's president, Gustavo Petro, blocked repatriation immigration from the United States. They threatened restrictions. The standoff ends with an agreement and Trump appears to have won the conflict, but details are still a little unclear.
Columbia's Fracas was just a preview of this week's Brinkmanship. Trump threatened 25% tariffs in Canada and Mexico and postponed tariffs for 30 days in exchange for an agreement to strengthen border security. Meanwhile, Trump's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, went to Central America, where he pressured the Panama government to reduce China's presence around the canal. He also stopped in El Salvador. There, President Naive Bukere made an unprecedented, perhaps illegal offer to place deportees of nationalities, including Americans, in his country's infamous prisons.
Above all thatTrump's “Special Missionary Envoy” Richard Grenell travels to Venezuela, where he meets the authoritarian president of the country, Nicolas Maduro, who is not recognized as the country's legitimate leader by the US government, and the six members It secured the release of detained Americans and reached an agreement on the return of Venezuelan deporters, including members of the alleged gangsters.
Rubio's trip was slightly overshadowed by Trump's White House meeting with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and the US proposal to take “ownership” in the Gaza Strip. Trump has already threatened to use economic pressure on South Africa, reinstating so-called “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran. And there are indications that the EU may be next in his crosshairs due to the customs war. However, even when the administration relies on other parts of the world, it remains a historic anomaly that it focuses on this Western hemisphere.
The focus is intentional. “For many reasons, US foreign policy has long focused on other regions, overlooking ourselves,” Rubio said in the Wall Street Journal, dubbed “America's No. 1 Foreign Policy.” I wrote about the recent OP-ED of. “As a result, they hindered the problem, missed the opportunity, ignored my partner. That's over now.”
A embrace of Trump/Rubio's approach to the Americas and a “survival of influence” that returns to Monroe's doctrine in the early 19th century.
In its original form, it was a vague statement from President James Monroe in 1832, with European powers not to intervene in Latin America. Over the years it has become widely regarded as the United States as acting as an outstanding, paternal force that has excelled in the power of the region.
The Trump administration has not departed from comparison. In an interview with Fox News just before Trump took office, national security adviser Mike Waltz said that part of the administration's “America First” agenda would “reintroduce America in the Western Hemisphere.” . ”
“The Trump administration is trying to first create a kind of security perimeter, a security zone for our own shared areas, before we start watching other theatres around the world,” says the Center for Strategy and International Research.
During the Obama administration, Secretary of State John Kelly declared that “the era of Monroe's doctrine is over.” Trump's first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, first declared he'd returned to 2018. Now it looks like it's back again.
However, other countries in the neighborhood may not be happy with it. “This is the continent that was raised as a synonym for American invasion in the Monroe doctrine, and is synonymous with US interventionism and Yankee imperialism,” said former Mexican US ambassador Arturo Salcan. .
But what does this actually look like, and how does this region respond?
What Trump wants in the Western Hemisphere
The main priorities of many administrations include strong local elements, particularly immigration. Trump and Rubio have pressured governments across the region to accept deportation flights. The Brazilian government challenged the treatment of exiles in flight, including the fact that exiles were handcuffed. Mexico even refused one flight.
These incidents received relatively little attention. That wasn't the case with Colombian President Petro, who chose to go toe with Trump on social media. In a 4am message from X, he released a message that he was denied entry to two military deportations.
The Trump administration responded by threatening 25% tariffs on Colombian products, financial sanctions and visa bans on Colombian government officials. After Peter first threatened retaliatory tariffs, referring to Walt Whitman and posting a long diatrib calling Trump a “white slave,” Columbia finally agreed to accept future deportation flights. did.
The incident sent a message backed by a later customs showdown between Mexico and Canada. US allies will not be able to escape the threat of the US. Colombia has been a longtime US security partner and is one of the few countries in the region that still has the US as its biggest trading partner, not China. Colombia is a little more nervous under Peter, a former leftist guerrilla leader, but in recent years it has accepted US deportation flights.
“Essentially, bilateral relations, the most important security relationship for the US in South America, almost collapsed in a few hours,” said Beth Dickinson, an analyst with Columbia-based international crisis group. It's there.
China was one country with a strong interest in the incident. During the crisis, Beijing's Colombian ambassador posted a comment on a social media account claiming that Colombia-China relations have been in a “best moment” since establishing bond 45 years ago.
The issue of China's impact is also central to Trump's fixation on Panama. As is often the case, it can be a little difficult to separate the president's statement from the issues that are in danger.
Trump inaccurately claims that Chinese troops are operating the canals, through which around 5% of the world's maritime trade travels. However, it is true that Hong Kong-based companies manage ports at both ends of the canal. During the Biden administration, military commanders raised concerns that these ports could be used for military purposes.
A generous reading of Trump's approach is that the story of seizing the canal is a negotiating ploy that pressures Panama to agree to curb China's presence around the canal. The administration also wants to do more to suppress Panama's movement through the Darien Gap and connect North and South America. After the meeting, Panama denied the State Department's claim. This means that we have agreed to let the warship pass through the canal for free.
But can the threats like the ones Trump used against Peter's backfire bring more countries closer to China's orbit?
“Trump's tactics may have worked, but it's also clear that it encourages local people to think about alternatives,” Dickinson said. “The catastrophe that nearly fell on us is not something we think can risk happening again.”
The “America First” foreign policy does not only apply to countries south of Rio Grande. Since taking office, Trump has paid an incredible amount of attention to Canada. He said, “We're paying hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize.”
The fentanyl crisis was the ostensible reason for Trump's tariff threat, but relatively few fentanyl entered the United States from Canada. Trump has filed many other complaints against Canada, including low military spending and banking regulations, repeatedly suggesting that it should become the 51st state. This has prompted public backlash in Canada, ranging from the “Canadian Buy” campaign to the US anthem booing of the NHL and NBA games.
“I have been an analyst in this country for 50 years. Janis Stein, director of Mank Global Affairs Public Policy at the University of Toronto, told VOX. In her view, “We've got to be The president of the country we thought was our best friend I chose To do this. ”
It appears that Canadian President Justin Trudeau and President Trump have dealt with the trade war for the time being. (Aside from establishing the position of “Emperor Fentanyl”, it is not clear how much Canada's new commitments are already beyond what is promised in border security.) But the tariff threat is not returned There are almost none.
Former Canadian finance minister and candidate to replace Trudeau with prime minister, Christyre Freeland is hoping for the summit of the country targeted by Trump, including Mexico, Panama and Denmark. However, Stein suggests that as long as its southern neighbors are under hostile government, there are relatively few good options in the country.
“This is our best market,” she said. “We don't want to diversify into China.”
The Berg of the Center for Strategic and International Studies states that the new administration's focus on Latin America is expired and offers opportunities for productive cooperation, but he also said that the US government's “benignty” Countries that were used to neglect can surprise their new approach. “Now they have a rather assertive attitude, not just the attention of the US,” he said. “We can implement policies that strive to build a zone of peace and security within the Western Hemisphere without slamming the table and saying 'Monroe 2.0'. ”
Jay Sexton, professor of history at the University of Missouri and author of Monroe's history, always said that it was “embedded into a culture war,” and that the two inter-internationalists and isolationists regarding the role of America in the world. He said it was linked to debate.
“Today, we live in a new era of geopolitical competition, volatility and uncertainty,” Sexton said. “The influence of the region is the name of the recent game, and are they talking about China in the region or about the Russians in Ukrainian? It looks like the 19th century.”
From the 19th century British and French to today's China, the sloop line of American history states that “the United States is most interested in Latin America when threats are perceived.”
