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TRUMP’S LATIN AMERICA POLICY: INCONSISTENCIES AND VACILLATIONS  
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Steve Ellner
March 12, 2025
NACLA Reports
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_ The Trump administration’s volatility on foreign policy reveals
internal divisions within Trumpism. But when threats and populism lose
their momentum, the anti-communist hawks may get their way. _

President Trump meets with far right former Brazilian President Jair
Bolsonaro at the G20 summit in Japan in 2019, (Palácio do Planalto /
CC BY 2.0).

 

During his first term, President Donald Trump exerted a “maximum
pressure” campaign against perceived U.S. adversaries in Latin
America and elsewhere. Among other hardline policies, he levelled
crippling sanctions against Venezuela—leading, ironically, to a mass
exodus of Venezuelans to the United States—and reversed former
President Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba.

But just how committed is Trump to fighting communism in Latin
America—in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua? Today, it’s anyone’s
guess.

Trump’s recent threats against Panama, Canada, and Greenland, on top
of his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, take the
spotlight off the “real enemies,” as usually defined by
Washington. In that sense, Trump’s foreign policy actions in the
first 10 weeks of his second administration are a far cry from his
first, when regime change was the unmistakable goal.

In sharp contrast to the rhetoric of his first administration, in his
March 4 address to the Joint Session of Congress Trump made no
reference to Nicolás Maduro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, or Daniel Ortega.
It’s even unclear whether Trump will pursue the use of international
sanctions, which he ratcheted up against Venezuela and Cuba in his
first government. So far, Trump has indicated that his use of
“tariffs as punishment” may be preferable to international
sanctions, which, as one insider stated
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the president “worries are causing countries to move away from the
U.S. dollar.”

Unlike Trump’s policies on immigration, trans rights, and taxation,
his Latin American policy is plagued by vacillations and
uncertainties, a sign of his deepening reliance on a transactional
approach to foreign policy. The anti-communist hardliners in and
outside of the Republican party are not pleased.

THE VENEZUELAN PENDULUM

Take Venezuela as an example. The Venezuelan opposition led by María
Corina Machado had all the reason to be upbeat when Trump won in
November and then chose Latin America hawk Marco Rubio as Secretary of
State.

“Sadly, Venezuela is governed by a narco-trafficking
organization,” Rubio declared at his confirmation hearing, in which
his appointment was unanimously ratified. He then said
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administration got played” when it negotiated with Maduro in late
2022 and issued a license to Chevron, which is “providing billions
of dollars into the regimes’ coffers.” With regard to Cuba, Rubio
issued an ominous warning: “The moment of truth is arriving, Cuba is
literally collapsing.”

Events in Syria added to the euphoria on the right. Just days before
Trump’s inauguration, Machado told the _Financial Times_
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“Don’t you think [the generals supporting Maduro] look in the
mirror and see the generals which Assad left behind?”

But then came the friendly encounter between Trump’s envoy for
special missions Richard Grenell and Maduro in Caracas in late
January, when Maduro agreed to turn over six U.S. prisoners in
Venezuela and facilitate the return of Venezuelan immigrants from the
United States. Days later, the Biden-approved license with Chevron for
exploiting Venezuelan oil, constituting a quarter of the nation’s
total oil production, was allowed to roll over. At the same
time, Grenell declared
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Trump “does not want to make changes to the [Maduro] regime.”

To complicate matters further, the Department of Homeland Security
announced that it would cancel Biden’s extension of Temporary
Protected Status for over 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants, on grounds
that
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are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public
health, and crime that allow for these nationals to be safely returned
to their home country.”

These developments did not sit well with the Miami hawks and the
Venezuelan opposition. Notorious _Miami Herald_ journalist Andrés
Oppenheimer put it forcefully
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“The handshake of Grenell and Maduro fell like a bucket of cold
water on many sectors of the Venezuelan opposition…and was like a
legitimation of the Maduro government.” Oppenheimer went on to point
out that although the Trump government denied it had cut a deal with
Maduro, “many suspicions have been raised and will not dissipate
until Trump clarifies the matter.”

After Grenell’s trip to Venezuela, the issue of the renewal of
Chevron’s license took surprising twists and turns. In a video
conversation on February 26, Donald Trump Jr. told María Corina
Machado that just an hour before, his father had tweeted that
Chevron’s license would be discontinued. Following a burst of
laughter, a delighted Machado directed remarks at Trump Sr.
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President, Venezuela is the biggest opportunity in this continent, for
you, for the American people, and for all the people in our
continent.” Machado appeared to be attempting to replicate the deal
between Zelensky and Trump involving Ukraine’s mineral resources.

But simultaneously, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the State’s
Department’s Special Envoy for Latin America, told Oppenheimer 
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the license granted Chevron was "permanent" and automatically renewed
every six months. Then, just one week later, Trump reversed his
position again. Axios reported that the latest decision was due to
pressure from three Florida GOP House members who threatened to
withhold votes for Trump’s budget deal. Trump allegedly acknowledged
this privately, telling insiders
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"They're going crazy and I need their votes."

TRUMPISM’S INTERNAL STRAINS

rump’s threats against world leaders come straight out of his 1987
book _The Art of the Deal_. For some loyalists, the strategy is
working like magic. Trump’s approach can be summarized as “attack
and negotiate.” “My style of deal-making is quite simple,”
he states in the book
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“I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing…to get
what I’m after.”

This is precisely what happened when Trump announced plans to
“reclaim” the Panama Canal, prompting a Hong Kong-based firm to
reveal plans to sell the operation of two Panamanian ports to a
consortium that includes BlackRock. Not surprisingly, Trump took
credit for the deal.

A similar scenario played out in the case of Colombia, in which
President Gustavo Petro yielded on U.S. deportation flights to avert
trade retaliations. For the same reasons, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum
began sending 10,000 troops to the northern border to combat irregular
crossings and then, on March 6, asked Trump by phone
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“How can we continue to collaborate if the U.S. is doing something
that hurts the Mexican people?” In response, Trump temporarily
suspended the implementation of 25 percent tariffs on Mexican goods. 
 

In _The Art of the Deal_, Trump boasts about this strategy of
bluffing, such as when he told the New Jersey Licensing Commission
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he was “more than willing to walk away from Atlantic City if the
regulatory process proved to be too difficult or too
time-consuming.” Similarly, Trump has repeatedly stated that the
United States does not need Venezuelan oil. In fact, global
oil volatility
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possibility that other nations will gain access to Venezuela’s vast
oil reserves are matters of great concern
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Washington.

The “Art of the Deal” approach to foreign policy exemplifies
Trump’s pragmatic tendency. The Maduro government and some on the
left welcome the pragmatism because it leaves open the possibility of
concessions by Venezuela in return for the lifting of sanctions.
Venezuelan government spokespeople, at least publicly, give Trump the
benefit of the doubt by attributing his annulment of Chevron’s
license and other adverse decisions to pressure from Miami’s far
right. The _Wall Street Journal
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several U.S. businesspeople who traveled to Caracas and “met with
Maduro and his inner circle say the Venezuelans were convinced that
Trump would…engage with Maduro much like he had with the leaders of
North Korea and Russia."

But this optimism overlooks the contrasting currents within Trumpism.
Although the convergences are currently greater than the differences,
priorities within the MAGA movement sometimes clash. On the one hand,
right-wing populism spotlights the issue of immigration,
anti-“wokeism,” and opposition to foreign aid, all designed to
appeal beyond the Republican Party’s traditional upper and
upper-middle class base of support. On the other hand, the
conventional far right calls for nothing short of regime change and
destabilization actions against Venezuela and Cuba. While progressives
have sharply different views on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, the
far-right hawks currently define all three governments as
“leftist” and, in the recent words of Rubio
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“enemies of humanity.”

Maduro’s agreement to collaborate on the repatriation of immigrants
in return for the renewal of the Chevron license exemplifies the
conflicting priorities within Trumpism. For the anti-left far right,
the alleged deal
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a “betrayal” of principles by Washington, while for the right-wing
populists it was a victory for Trump, especially given the enormity of
Venezuela’s immigrant population.

Another example of clashing priorities upheld by the two currents is
the Trump administration’s decision to cut foreign aid programs to a
bare minimum. In his recent address to Congress, Trump denounced an $8
million allotment to an LGBTQ+ program in an African nation “nobody
has heard of,” and other alleged woke programs. Even Florida’s
hawk senator Rick Scott has questioned
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effectiveness of foreign aid, saying: “Let’s see: the Castro
regime still controls Cuba, Venezuela just stole another election,
Ortega is getting stronger in Nicaragua.” Scott’s statement
reflects Trump’s transactional thinking
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the Venezuelan opposition: too many dollars for regime-change attempts
that turned out to be fiascos.

In contrast, hawk champion Oppenheimer published an opinion piece in
the _Miami Herald_
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“Trump’s Foreign Aid Cuts are a Boon for Dictators in China,
Venezuela and Cuba.”

The issue of U.S. aid has also produced infighting from an unexpected
source: within the Venezuelan right-wing opposition. Miami-based
investigative journalist Patricia Poleo, a long-time opponent of Hugo
Chávez and Maduro, has accused Juan Guaidó
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interim government of pocketing millions, if not billions, granted by
the U.S. government. Poleo, now a U.S. citizen, claims that the FBI is
investigating Guaidó for mishandling the money.

The influence of the anti-leftist component of Trumpism can’t be
overstated. Trump has become the leading inspiration of what has been
called the new “Reactionary International
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committed to combatting the Left around the world. Furthermore, the
hawks who have expressed interest in toppling the Maduro
government—including Rubio, Elon Musk, Claver-Carone, and National
Security Advisor Michael Walz—populate Trump’s circle of advisors.

It is not surprising that during the honeymoon phase of Trump’s
presidency, a populist wish list would receive considerable attention.
But the annexation of the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland is
unrealizable, as is the conversion of Gaza into a Riviera of the
Middle East. His tariff scheme is not far behind. Furthermore, while
his use of intimidation has helped him gain concessions, the
effectiveness of this bargaining tactic is limited—threats lose
power when endlessly repeated over time. Finally, Trump’s
unfulfilled promises to lower food prices and achieve other economic
feats will inevitably add to the disillusionment of his supporters.

Trump loathes losing and, in the face of declining popularity, he is
likely to turn to more realistic goals that can count on bipartisan
support, in addition to endorsement from the commercial media. In this
scenario, the three governments in the hemisphere perceived as U.S.
adversaries are likely targets. Short of U.S. boots on the
ground—which would not garner popular support—military or
non-military action cannot be discarded against Venezuela, Cuba, or
Nicaragua, or, perhaps, Venezuela, Cuba, _and_ Nicaragua.

_STEVE ELLNER is a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in
Venezuela where he lived for over 40 years. He is currently an
Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. His latest
book is the co-edited collection Latin American Social Movements and
Progressive Governments: Creative Tensions Between Resistance and
Convergence._

_The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) is an
independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1966 to examine and
critique U.S. imperialism and political, economic, and military
intervention in the Western hemisphere. In an evolving political and
media landscape, we continue to work toward a world in which the
nations and peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean are free from
oppression, injustice, and economic and political subordination._

* Latin America
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* Trump Administration
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* marco rubio
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* Anti-Communism
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