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LATIN AMERICAN LEADERS ARE PUTTING UP RESISTANCE TO TRUMP  
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Cruz Bonlarron Martínez
January 31, 2025
Jacobin
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_ Donald Trump’s belligerence toward Latin American leaders raises
the prospect of a more concerted regional resistance, one its popular
left bloc is well positioned to lead. _

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Donald Trump’s first days in office have proved that his earlier
isolationist rhetoric was always a facade. Statements about conquering
Greenland, “retaking” the Panama Canal, and invading Mexico have
made headlines; it seems that the administration has done away with
the formalities of “diet” imperialism and fully embraced Trump’s
supersized version. But like all gluttons, he may have bitten off more
than he can chew.

On Sunday, Trump entered into a duel of words with Colombia’s
leftist president, Gustavo Petro, who refused to accept a US military
plane of shackled Colombian immigrants. As the contents of the social
media posts of both Trump and Petro have made the rounds
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the US media, much of it has claimed
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as the victor and quickly moved on to the next scandal. Yet had the
media chosen to pay attention a little bit longer, it would have seen
that Petro’s public challenging of Trump worked; the Trump
administration agreed to allow the immigrants to return home in a
dignified way and decided not to enforce any of the sanctions that
Trump threatened. The next day, the same Colombians who were
previously shackled reached Bogotá uncuffed on the Colombian
presidential plane.

Reporters rushed to interview the migrants as soon as they descended
the stairs onto the runway. The stories they told were a testament to
the cruelty of the Trump administration and the dehumanization of
migrants that has characterized US politics over the past year. While
many ran past the cameras, a woman with a child in her arms stopped
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story. She said that she had crossed the Sonoran Desert with her child
when she was robbed by coyotes and forced to endure hunger, only to be
apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and forced
into detention. She ended by saying that people are being held in
custody and there are people _desaparecida_ — a phrase that
hearkens back to some of the darkest days in Latin American history,
when military dictatorships and paramilitaries forcibly disappeared
the “undesirable” elements of society, whether that be leftists,
unionists, queer people, drug addicts, sex workers, or just poor
people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Another man, José Erick, an asylum seeker, was interviewed
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the lobby of the airport, telling a similar story of crossing the
desert and being forced to endure sleep deprivation in ICE custody, a
practice Colombian journalist Diana Carolina Alfonso identifies
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a form of torture, banned by international law. Erick then told the
story of how he was seeking asylum to join the rest of his family in
the United States and escape violence, a problem in Colombia fueled by
arms that are manufactured in the United States. Another man was asked
to respond to Trump’s accusations
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board were criminals. “I’m a mechatronic engineer,” he replied.
“Trump needs better advice on who was on that plane.”

The highly publicized return of the immigrants under more humane
conditions put on show for Latin America and the Caribbean the horrors
of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy. For Petro, this was a moral
victory.

President Petro also laid the groundwork for a regional coalition that
might overcome ideological divides and unite the majority of Latin
America behind a shared agenda in the face of threats from the Trump
administration, including tariffs. This took the form of a Community
of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) emergency meeting
convened in Honduras by that country’s president, Xiomara Castro.
While the meeting was canceled once Colombia and the United States
reached an agreement, other leaders have been keen to show their
disdain for Trump’s treatment of their citizens.

Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s left-wing president, has also made
headlines for her tongue-in-cheek response to Trump, particularly his
proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of
America.” She countered by proposing that the continent of North
America change its name to “América Mexicana,” citing a
colonial-era Spanish map as evidence.

In response to Google’s recent approval of Trump’s name change,
the Mexican Foreign Ministry sent a formal complaint
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the company, reminding them that it violated international law.
However, despite a brief spell
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the denial of a deportation flight last week, Mexico has been
diplomatic about how it plans to receive migrants. Still, if things
were to heat up, it could deny the use of its airspace to the Trump
administration, making their deportation flights to other countries
extremely costly.

The Trump administration has wasted no time in alienating even
would-be regional allies beyond the far-right governments of El
Salvador and Argentina. Even Panama’s center-right president, José
Raúl Mulino, found himself in an awkward position after Trump
targeted the country in speeches falsely claiming that the Panama
Canal is in the hands of China and that the United States may need to
“take back” the canal. Mulino has made clear that these statements
violate the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which returned sovereignty of
the canal to the Panamanian people in 1999 after nearly a century of
US occupation.

The fact that Trump has attacked some of the United States’
traditional allies in the region could push its leaders to look toward
bolstering relations with China, Russia, and Europe and give impulse
to a new wave of Latin American integration. The prospect of a
concerted Latin American response to the Trump administration across
left-right divides remains unlikely, but recent US aggression and a
popular left bloc in the region has made it far less remote. That bloc
alone could put significant pressure on the current administration.
Even as parties alternate power, the inhumanity of the United
States’ recent actions won’t soon be forgotten.

_Cruz Bonlarron Martínez
[[link removed]] is an independent
writer and was a Fulbright Fellow in Colombia from 2021–2022. His
writing on politics, human rights, and culture in Latin America and
the Latin American diaspora has appeared in various US and
international publications._

_Jacobin [[link removed]] is a leading voice of the American
left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and
culture. The print magazine is released quarterly and reaches 75,000
subscribers, in addition to a web audience of over 3,000,000 a month.
Subscribe [[link removed]] to Jacobin magazine._

* Latin America
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* Latin American Left
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* US Foreign Policy
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* imperialism
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* Monroe Doctrine
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