Indignation and resistance to United States President Donald Trump’s bullying, deportations and economic reprisals are spreading across Latin America.
The mainstream media has amply covered pushback from Canada and Western Europe and the street protests and town halls in the US — along with the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-Bernie Sanders “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. However, it has not given much attention to the growing defiance to the south.
Opposition to Trump throughout Latin America is taking on many forms. In places such as Mexico, presidents have forged a united front over US tariffs with prominent businesspeople and some opposition leaders. Diplomatic initiatives by other presidents, such as Lula of Brazil, are aiming to build a unified Latin American stand against Trump’s measures by shoring up regional organisations, principally the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
The opposition has also included street mobilisations. Most recently, Panamanians reacted to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s visit on April 12 by taking to the streets. The National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso) — one of the main sponsors — denounced Washington’s veiled schemes to establish four military bases in the country. Frenadeso also denounced José Raúl Mulino Quintero’s capitulation to US pressure that resulted in Panama’s exit from China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Three issues have galvanised the pushback against Trump in Latin America: tariffs, deportations and Washington’s policy of exclusion. The latter includes ostracising Cuba and Venezuela from the Latin American community of nations, as well as rhetoric and actions designed to drive China from the continent.
Trump’s policies have intensified the polarisation in Latin America that pits left and centre-left governments against the far right, which is closely aligned with Washington and Trump in particular. They also stimulate anti-Americanism, which according to Bloomberg columnist Juan Pablo Spinetto, is “gaining new life in Latin America”.
Defeat at the OAS
Suriname’s Albert Ramdin was elected secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) on March 10, after his only competitor, Paraguay’s foreign minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, dropped out of the race.
Reporting on the event, the mainstream media largely took their cue from the claim by the White House’s Latin American envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone, that “the OAS Secretary General will be an ally of the United States”. He added that Ramdin’s government is “on the right path economically … That’s bringing in foreign investments that’s non-Chinese.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Ramdin opposes US sanctions and favours dialogue with the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro. In contrast, his rival, Ramírez, had pledged to promote regime change in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
Furthermore, China, with its OAS observer status, had supported Ramdin’s candidacy, while the right-wing, pro-Trump governments of Argentina and El Salvador backed Ramírez. Ramdin defends the “one China” policy; in a 2006 trip to Beijing, he stated that his goal was to “expand and deepen” the relationship between China and the OAS, a strategy that he evidently continues to support.
Ramdin owes his nomination not only to the unanimous support of Caribbean nations, but also the joint endorsement by the progressive governments of Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile.
If the past is any indication, the Trump administration may attempt to blackmail the OAS by threatening to reduce its contributions to the organisation, currently representing 60% of its budget. In fact, some Trump advisors have privately raised that possibility, and Washington has already frozen “voluntary contributions” to the OAS.
Challenging the hegemon
After Trump announced a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian imports, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called a rally for March 6 at Mexico City’s central plaza to announce retaliatory measures. Although Trump postponed the tariffs, Sheinbaum held the rally anyway and converted it into a festival to celebrate Washington’s turnaround.
In front of an estimated crowd of 350,000 Mexicans, some of whom held signs reading “Mexico is to be respected”, Sheinbaum said: “We are not extremists, but we are clear that … we cannot cede our national sovereignty … as a result of decisions by foreign governments or hegemons.”
The showdown with Trump has helped forge a “common front”, a term used by Francisco Cervantes Díaz, president of Mexico’s main business organisation, who pledged that more than 300 businesspeople would attend the rally. Some members of the Mexican opposition to Sheinbaum and her ruling Morena party also took part.
But the nation’s two main traditional parties, the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the National Action Party, refused to unite behind the president.
Sheinbaum’s decisiveness resonated in Mexico, with her approval rating climbing to 85%. Her reaction to Trump stood in sharp contrast with the submissiveness of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who immediately headed to Mar-a-Lago after Washington first announced the tariff hikes. Panama’s Mulino also buckled.
Immediately following Trump’s initial tariff announcement, Lula and Sheinbaum spoke by phone on the need to strengthen CELAC to serve as an alternative to US commercial ties. The collective approach to tariffs that the progressive Latin American governments are now proposing, with Lula at the helm, is diametrically opposed to the bilateral agreements that the US has pushed in the region since 2005. That year, Latin American progressive presidents, led by Hugo Chávez, delivered US-style multilateralism in the form of the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal a fatal blow, much to the chagrin of then-President George W Bush.
The polarisation that pits progressive governments, which favour Latin America unity, against those on the right, which sign bilateral trade agreements with Washington, was on full display at CELAC’s ninth summit held in Honduras in April. The rightist presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, Peru and Ecuador were conspicuously absent, while those on the left side of the spectrum, representing Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Honduras and Venezuela, participated.
Especially significant was Lula’s insistence that countries in the region move away from the dollar by trading in local currencies. In an obvious reference to Trump, Lula said, “The more united our economies are, the more protected we are from unilateral actions.” The summit’s host, Honduran President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, remarked, “We cannot leave this historic assembly … without debating the new economic order that the United States is imposing on us with tariffs and immigratory policies.”
Polarisation hurts the right
Trump’s policies have intensified the extreme polarisation in which the far right has replaced the centre right, at the same time the left has gained influence. A case in point is Venezuela. The deportation of 238 Venezuelans from the US to an overcrowded for-profit prison in El Salvador, and others to Guantanamo, has horrified Venezuelans.
Some have taken to the street to protest, including scores of family members holding photos of victims. One typical sign read “Jhon William Chacín Gómez — He’s Innocent.” Chacín’s wife and sister told reporters that his only crime was his tattoos. In a show of pro-Venezuelan solidary and in defiance of the repressive atmosphere that exists in the nation, protesters in El Salvador also hold signs with photos of individual Venezuelan prisoners.
The issue of deportations has divided the Venezuelan opposition, more than it already is. The hard-line opposition that supported the candidacy of María Corina Machado and then her surrogate Edmundo González is now split. In April, the two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles was expelled from one of the nation’s major parties, Primero Justicia, due to his differences with the pro-Trump Machado, one of them being on the issue of the deportations. Capriles asked with regard to Venezuelan deportees, “What is their crime? What is the criteria for proving it?” He went on to demand “respect for human rights”, adding “it is unacceptable to characterise all [Venezuelan] migrants as delinquents”.
The irony of Trump’s Monroe Doctrine
It’s ironic that the 21st-century president who proclaims the Monroe Doctrine as the cornerstone of US policy south of the border is distancing Latin America so much from Washington.
Events since Trump took office that portend a worsening of relations between the two include: the election of an OAS secretary general who doesn’t share Trump’s objectives and may result in Washington’s defunding of the organisation or its complete withdrawal; Trump’s remarks that display complete insensitivity to nationalist sentiment in the region; his weaponisation of tariffs that single out Venezuela and Nicaragua for special treatment and serves as a warning for governments such as Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay; the gutting of foreign aid programs; and mass deportations.
If Latin America does move away from the US camp, the blame can’t be placed entirely on Trump. His bullying is just a more extreme version of the imperialism that has always characterised US actions south of the border. Progressive governments in the region now seem more determined than ever to put a check on it.
[A version of this article appeared in Jacobin. Steve Ellner is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for more than 40 years. His latest book is his co-edited Latin American Social Movements and Progressive Governments: Creative Tensions Between Resistance and Convergence.]