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| U.S. President Trump met with Argentine President Javier Milei at CPAC on February 22, 2025. |
Donald Trump's wielding of the most damaging tariff stik against Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, has attracted international attention. It shows the new orientation of U.S. policy on its own “backyard.”
Rather than picking up the “Growth in the Americas” Latin America policy of Trump 1.0, the U.S. president has dramatically altered his predecessor's approach — “Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity”— and implemented a transactional policy that uses tariffs to bludgeon others in a way that serves MAGA in an all-around way. Driven by “America first,” Trump's backyard policy has shown new characteristics in ideology, strategic focus, means of implementation and priorities.
Cozying up to the right
Despite his repeated criticism of multiple past U.S. presidents for their obsessive interventionism, which aimed to restructure other countries, Trump has apparently diluted his ideological colors and now holds a lingering grudge against the “pink” Latin American political biosphere. Trump has spoken highly of the ultra-right government in Argentina, crediting President Javier Milei's reforms with “making Argentina great again” and calling Milei his “favorite president.”
Trump not only called on the IMF to raise $2 billion for Argentina but also joined hands with Milei to expand the influence of American conservatives in Latin America and all over the world. In sharp contrast, however, Trump has also targeted the largest leftist country in the region, Brazil, levying a 50 percent tariff that took effect on Aug. 6. This will only add to the troubles already caused by Brazil's faltering economy.
Tariffs are alleged to be a punishment for the “unfair” nature of Brazil's Pix instant payment system, but they are actually meant to punish the leftist government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over its “de-dollarization” moves in collaboration with other BRICS nations. Trump has tried hard to support his right-wing political ally, President Jair Bolsonaro, and has intervened in next year's Brazilian general elections in advance, supporting the attempted right-wing comeback and striving to maneuver a reversal in the region's political orientation.
Besides punishing Brazil as the region's leftist leader, Trump has again put Cuba on his list of state sponsors of terrorism. Similarly, Trump has tightened sanctions against Venezuela, another major left-wing country, and signed an order to levy a 25 percent tariff on buyers of Venezuelan oil.
It is thus obvious that even though Trump has repeatedly ridiculed his predecessors for the “stupidity” of ideological interference in other countries, under cover of his transactional and pragmatic economic approach Trump has not forsaken interventions based on ideological alliances and identification with democratic values. He is clearly seeking to rope in right-wing forces and suppressing the left — the purpose of which is to rebuild a fresh political biosphere consistent with U.S. domestic and international strategic adjustments.
“De-sinicization” in Latin America
Known as the backyard of the United States for more than two centuries, Latin America has been a strategic bulwark of U.S. security in the Western Hemisphere in the eyes of all Washington administrations. Trump's comfort level has dropped steadily with China's increasing influence. The unexpected presence of China as a new neighbor has evidently inspired unease in Trump, who made the blunt statement that Chinese control of the Panama Canal is a serious threat to U.S. national security.
Peter Lamelas, whom Trump appointed as ambassador to Argentina, told a Senate hearing that his mission was to suppress China's “malign influence” in Latin America. Members of Trump's core team have frequently visited Latin America to pressure countries in the region to stay away from China. After assuming office as secretary of state, Marco Rubio broke a decades-old pattern and visited five Latin American nations on his first overseas trip. He successfully got Panama to agree not to further expand its partnerships with China under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Obviously the Trump administration has abusively defined and manipulated China-Latin America relations, politicizing them and interpreting everything through the lens of security. The result is not only intensified competition with China over strategic minerals like lithium resources in the Latin American “lithium triangle” and rare earths in Brazil but also the identification of 37 ports, including Kinston Harbor and the Port of Manzanillo, as critical risk projects in China-U.S. competition. The U.S. has tried everything possible to prevent China from controlling or joining those operations.
One can safely predict that the strategic focus of Trump's new backyard policy will be to add political, economic, security and public opinion pressure to prevent nation's in the region from turning their backs on the U.S. and to make every effort to prevent China from growing its Latin American presence.
Tough use of Monroe Doctrine
Over time, the concept of control can be found throughout the entirety of U.S.-Latin America relations. The Monroe Doctrine has also taken different forms — colonialism, realism and equitable partnerships. Its application has alternated between coercion and appeasement but has never varied from the “carrot and stick” pattern.
Trump 2.0 coincides with an unprecedented rise in Latin American strategic autonomy. Facing centrifugal forces, the Trump team has shown less flexibility and greater toughness. The use of the stick as a cudgel has evidently surpassed the lure of the carrot in both frequency and scope. In the absence of the direct use of force, tariffs have become the most favored stick in the U.S. sanctions toolbox. Even traditional geopolitical allies Mexico and Colombia have fallen prey to it.
On top of tariffs, economic and financial sanctions, intervention in judicial systems, freezing of assets in the U.S. and tighter controls over U.S. visas have been added. Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over Bolsonaro's trial, is a typical example of such targeting.
Immigration and drug trafficking
Unlike the Middle East, Europe and the Indo-Pacific, Latin America is not the highest priority on the U.S. global strategic chessboard. For Trump, however, the handling immigrants from Latin America and cracking down on drug trafficking have become foreign policy priorities.
The administration of President Joe Biden came up with a concept called Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity in an attempt to increase U.S. input in Latin America, upgrade regional economic and social development and ultimately tackle the issues of illegal immigration and drug smuggling at their roots. Trump has deemed this to be “childish” and thinks that only building a wall and implementing harsh enforcement tactics will work. While voters of Latin American extraction contributed to Trump's return to the White House, he has not hesitated to repatriate illegal immigrants from Latin America and severely punish countries that refuse to cooperate.
To sum up, Trump's new backyard policy displays new characteristics. It has the basic shape of the centuries-old Monroe Doctrine but has Trump's peculiar transactional and bullying characteristics added to it. It is the latest representation of the clash between Latin American strategic autonomy and U.S. attempts to maintain control under new international conditions.
Against such backdrop, Latin American foreign policies will fall into three categories:
• Some countries will cave in and cozy up to the U.S.;
• Some will seek closer ties with China, looking to the East; and
• Others will adopt a balancing strategy between the two powers, maneuvering cautiously amid the turbulence of China-U.S. competition.
New characteristics also to some extent reveal that Trump's new backyard policy has transcended geopolitics and now reflects the features of a global U.S. foreign policy approach.
