Trump's contagion in Latin America advances
It is inevitable to put your hands on your head or even laugh at some of the comments and occurrences of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. How can he say this or that? How can they vote for him? Why is there no reaction? The truth, however, is that between one outburst and another, his ultraconservative agenda is advancing everywhere, and no one, deep down, dares to contradict him. He has managed to impose his program beyond his country, where he clearly represents a considerable sector of American society, which not only laughs at his jokes but wholeheartedly shares his ideology and does everything it can to apply it, with the relentless help of the entire state apparatus.
Beyond the United States, which may not be bigger than before but is certainly more dangerous and less solidarity than ever, the Trumpist agenda is also being implanted in what in other times was known as its "backyard," and which it now effectively wants to turn into its pen. Since 2023, a great blue wave has been mutating the political map of Latin America. The latest to join this ultra wave have been Peru, with Keiko Fujimori, and Colombia, with Abelardo de la Espriella, who will soon be sworn in, but before them there were Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador. In all these countries, in recent years there has been a shift, not always massive, and certainly fostered and with the clear support of the United States, towards the far right.
Although the internal situation is complex and there is internal division and many differences between countries, the truth is that this ultra wave is worrying because its objective is to install itself in power and stay there. This is, at least, what Trump is trying to do in his own country right now. He changes laws to secure power, places his friends in relevant positions, makes and unmakes the administration without consideration, and if even then there is a danger that he might lose power, he is already preparing the ground by ensuring that there will be electoral manipulation and that if he loses it will be because the election has been stolen from him, which would justify intervening even militarily to recover what he believes is his. He has already done it. He provoked a coup d'état with the assault on the Capitol, and even so, they voted for him again. He knows he can repeat it.
This example can be reproduced in other countries within his sphere of influence, and here lies the great danger. He attacks the very foundation of democracy, because he does not believe in it unless it is at his service. That is why what happens now in the only two bastions of democratic left in the region, Brazil and Mexico, which are also the two largest economic and demographic powers in Latin America, will be key. From now on, attacks and interferences of all kinds from the Trump administration will be constant.
Having friendly governments is fundamental for Trump in the current context of direct persecution and deportation of immigrants, mostly Latin Americans. On the horizon looms a potential invasion or intervention in Cuba; the still open melon of Venezuela, turned into a kind of false protectorate, and, above all, the midterm elections in November, in which not only the immediate future of the United States is at stake, but also that of a large part of the world.
