Image Source: Brendan Smialowski and Patrick T. Fallon/AFP.
While many Americans ponder what the November 2024 election will bring, they are hardly alone; Latin American and Caribbean countries are keenly interested in how the U.S. political landscape will evolve in the upcoming months.
If the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins, will there be a continuation of the Biden administration’s policies vis-à-vis the region, or will a second consecutive Democratic term advance new policy initiatives? Likewise, what happens on the policy front if Donald Trump returns to the White House? Will a Trump 2.0 administration return with a more transactional approach to Latin America and the Caribbean with a new Cold War flavor seen through the lens of a revived Monroe Doctrine?
The Latin American and Caribbean policy-making reality facing both candidates points to a complex mix of economic, security, and ideological pressure points. It does not help that policy approaches to the region by Democratic and Republican administrations have since the early 2000s ricocheted across a jumble of initiatives, often secondary to other global U.S. policy priorities. Today, diplomacy with the region’s larger countries, notably Brazil and Mexico, is tense when they should constitute critical partners if not allies to U.S. national interests. Ties with another key regional actor, Colombia, have deteriorated, while diplomacy toward Venezuela is a deepening quagmire.
Relations with Central America and the Caribbean represent a mosaic of overlapping initiatives uneasily pulled together around migration, the illicit trafficking of guns and drugs, mutual concerns over environmental challenges, and the need for financing of critical sustainability projects. The emergence of hydrocarbon production on a global scale offshore Guyana and Suriname, with its geostrategic and climate change implications, highlights the challenge for U.S. policymakers.
Adding to these hemispheric policy challenges are two additional factors that resonate across a wider U.S. foreign and domestic policy spectrum. One factor is China’s significant profile in Latin America and the Caribbean, with its astute use of economic statecraft. The other factor is a toxic domestic debate about immigration and U.S. border security, increasingly framed in generic terms that undermine policy toward the rest of the hemisphere.
Despite the often-cursory look Latin America gets from U.S. policymakers, the region remains important, especially with trade and investment as well as the development of nearby supply chains and sources of critical materials needed for energy transition. While Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador are important trade partners, the U.S. has free trade agreements (FTAs) with several countries, including Chile, Colombia, and Peru as well as being a member of the USMCA trade agreement, which incorporates Canada, Mexico and the United States. Last, but not least, the U.S. has a long-established preferential trade regime with the Caribbean region through the CBTPA (Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act), renewed in 2020 and due to expire in 2030; it provides a baseline platform for Caribbean-U.S. trade relations and remains more beneficial to the U.S.
In 2023, merchandise trade between the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean totaled over $1.1 trillion and Mexico displaced China as the U.S.’s leading trade partner. The U.S. remains the lead investor in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, announced U.S. deals in the region stood at a little over $17 billion in 2023. Furthermore, the Caribbean has important sea lanes that connect the Atlantic and Pacific Basin economies via the Panama Canal.
A Harris Administration
Harris inherits the Biden administration’s Latin American and Caribbean policies, which are based on support for democratic governance, human rights (including for LGBTQ+ communities), and helping the region contend with illicit trafficking in drugs, guns, and humans. Speaking at the July 2024 Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, Brian Nichols, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, sought to sum up U.S. policy goals vis-à-vis the region: “Through this partnership, we will work together to build resilient supply chains, reinvigorate our region’s economic institutions, and invest in our workers, our infrastructure, and our strategic industries – whether through semiconductors or clean energy, or medical supplies or the critical minerals needed for our modern economy.”
The Biden administration’s track record in Latin America and the Caribbean has been mixed. An open ear to regional concerns was exemplified by the U.S. hosting the most recent Summit of the Americans (June 2022 in Los Angeles), whose most notable outcome was the somewhat illusory Declaration on Migration and Protection in the Americas. But the Summit also underscored the limits in U.S. regional diplomacy with the absence of several heads of state (notably Mexico, Honduras, Bolivia, El Salvador, and Guatemala). Moreover, Biden’s last State of the Union address failed to mention Latin America and the Caribbean, leaving them prey to partisan categorization as mostly representing migration problems. Likewise, policy on Cuba was marked by a few timid steps to loosen some financial sanctions.
Although there was handwringing over Haiti’s descent into chaos, particularly since President Jovenel Moise’s assassination in 2021, it often appeared that the Biden administration was reluctant to play a leadership role. The perception was that the White House hoped others would take up the challenge.
The Biden administration’s loosening of sanctions against Venezuela in exchange for free and fair elections in July 2024 appears painfully naïve as Maduro clearly stole a vote which he soundly lost. Venezuelan oil flowed, and large U.S. energy companies benefited, but the problem of an economically dysfunctional and anti-U.S. regime willing to align with U.S. rivals China, Russia and Iran has not gone away. In fact, it runs the danger of further energizing a triumvirate of allied dictatorships – Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
A Harris administration will inherit all the above – Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela; the challenge from external actors; the need for greater action on climate change; and the complexities of migration policy. Probably the most perplexing is migration, which has become a toxic issue, shaped by confusing policy messaging, partisan posturing, and Congressional paralysis. Immigration consistently ranks as one of the top three issues concerning Americans. A July 2024 Gallup poll showed that 55 percent of those polled want immigration levels reduced, the highest since 2001. Harris is closely associated with the issue and on the defensive.
In March 2021, the vice president was tasked with tackling the “root causes” of migration from the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras). Part of that mandate was to push the leaders of those countries and Mexico to enforce their own immigration rules and to help facilitate some type of economic assistance to the Northern Triangle to break the cycle of poverty, high criminality, and environmental degradation that drives migration.
Dubbed the “border czar” by the media (with no immediate push-back from the White House), Harris was given a complicated problem and hampered by a fundamental confusion over the actual scope of her mission which was finding long-term solutions to the migration crisis rather than the short-term termination of massive migrant flows at the border. The optics of the situation were worsened by the perception of a White House intentionally avoiding the border/migration issue. Regardless of the improving U.S.-Mexico border control data in 2024, this has left a problematic issue for the vice president’s campaign and certainly one which her Republican counterpart has capitalized on.
Since Harris emerged as the Democratic candidate, she has indicated that she would support a revived bipartisan Senate bill to overhaul the country’s immigration system that includes further construction of the wall and an increase of border agents, asylum officers and immigration judges. Earlier in 2024, the Republicans had torpedoed a bipartisan immigration bill.
Harris’ suggestion that she would sign such a bill invites speculation as to the broader character of her plans for legislative strategy, including the high-stakes relations with Mexico. Having voted against the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020, she would preside over its 2026 review and possible renewal. She would likely underscore her concerns over environmental and labor rights protection, and the overall strategic nature of the trilateral trade relationship, rather than the likely Republican response centered on border security and even the notion of using the U.S. military directly against Mexican cartels.
As for addressing the other issues shaping U.S. policy in the region, the likelihood of a simple continuation of policies as they are, will not be enough. Beyond potentially touchy relations with the still emerging Mexican presidency of Claudia Sheinbaum, bilateral diplomacy with other key regional actors (Argentina, Brazil and Chile), involves a mix of economic and security interests. Relations with Colombia need a reset. A Harris presidency would have to deal with sustaining what is left of an Andean anti-narcotics trafficking strategy, as well as dealing with neighboring Venezuela’s post-election crisis.
Venezuela is likely to remain a major issue of the post-election U.S. policy landscape regardless of the occupant of the White House. Worse for Harris, the contours on the ongoing crisis are attributable to the strategy pursued under the Biden presidency, whose trust in Maduro was obviously misplaced. But more broadly, if what is left of Venezuela’s democratic opposition is further destroyed – without a robust response from Washington – this severely undermines a core tenet of U.S. diplomacy regionally in support of democratic governance and the rule of law. And that has global implications.
Harris’ ascendency to presidential candidate has also given hope in the Caribbean due to her father being Jamaican, that she would have a more pronounced interest in the region. Indeed, Harris met with Caribbean leaders in 2022 and again in 2023 to cultivate the U.S. – Caribbean relationship, touching upon such issues as security and firearms trafficking, the need for an enhanced diplomatic presence in the Eastern Caribbean, the crisis in Haiti, and climate change. She also announced that the U.S. was providing more than $100 million in new assistance for the region. Under Harris the Caribbean and Central America could further benefit from better access to development financing for renewable energy programs and education.
But there is a risk that a Harris presidency would generate expectations in Latin America and, in particular, in the Caribbean that cannot be met. As the incoming president, she will face wide range of issues, encompassing everything from a highly polarized electorate; a public sector debt of over 125 percent of GDP and growing and a large fiscal deficit that could constrain spending to the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine; and contending with China over global supply chains and Taiwan’s future. In this context, Latin America and the Caribbean are likely to be relegated to a low diplomatic priority, especially as her forays to the region have been very limited.
A Trump Administration and Latin America and the Caribbean
A Trump 2.0 administration is most likely to initially revert to Trump 1.0’s transaction-driven approach, making a division between those countries with us and those against us. In the aftermath of a possible total implosion of the Biden administration’s Venezuela policy, and the perception of a community of key regional actors unhelpful in opposing Maduro – namely Brazil, Colombia and Mexico – such an approach by Washington may actually be welcomed by some in the hemisphere. A more “America First” rhetoric would further stimulate a new Cold War mentality vis-à-vis China, Russia and Iran. The idea of the Monroe Doctrine would be alive and well – in the White House. That doctrine was first articulated in 1823, indicating that the U.S. would not tolerate external, mainly European, intervention in Western Hemisphere affairs. In such an environment, many other countries in the hemisphere will be consigned to a Trump world view of essentially being sources of drug and gun trafficking, migrants and criminals, not to mention “shithole” countries. The bogeymen for all of this are China, Russia and Iran, a perception that misreads the complexity of the challenge faced by the U.S. in this region.
Under the us and them approach, relations with the conservative-libertarian club of countries that includes Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay and El Salvador would likely remain constructive, but relations with Latin America’s center-left would chill. This would include Brazil under leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombia under Gustavo Petro. Considering that Trump and Petro are both impetuous, love to use social media, and sit at very different ideological poles, Trump’s return to the White House could see another step down in relations.
Three policy points where Trump would most radically differ from a Harris administration are on migration, trade and energy. While Harris would find pressure (especially if Republicans control Congress) to tighten the border and raise spending on migration, Trump’s approach is more draconian, based on finishing the construction of the wall between Mexico and the United States and conducting what he promises to be “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
In a Time Magazine interview, Trump was asked what the reason for largescale deportation is: “Because we have no choice. I don’t believe this sustainable for a country, what’s happening to us, with probably 15 million and maybe as many as 20 million by the time Biden’s out.” And Trump did not rule out the potential for establishing deportation camps and use of the National Guard. Trump’s immigration policy resonates with many Americans who link the massive surge of migrants to higher crime levels and greater pressure on local social services, even in liberal cities such as Chicago and New York City.
The entwinement of migration and Latin America is reflected in that part of the think tank universe from which a Trump administration is expected to draw its personnel. On the America First Policy Institute website, Latin America and the Caribbean are not considered as foreign policy regions (Asia, Europe and the Middle East make the grade) If one wants to find out anything about Latin America and the Caribbean, one must go to migration. Much of the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s work on Latin America is focused on the same issue through its Border Security and Immigration Center or the Allison Center for National Security.
While such a hard-nosed immigration policy would no doubt have a negative impact on Latin American and Caribbean economies which would have to absorb large numbers of these people, the region would also probably be hit hard by the Trump administration’s proposed 10 percent tariff on all imports. In the above-mentioned Time Magazine article, the former president called his tariff idea a “ring around the country”. For many Latin American economies, such an action would hurt economic growth prospects and possibly result in the implementation of tariffs against U.S. goods and/or substituting them with Chinese goods. If nothing else, it would cause a serious rethink about the costs of conducting trade with the U.S. and provide greater impetus to the Global South movement (albeit a still hazy concept). For those with a command of post-World War I U.S. policies of protectionism and isolationism, foreign relations anchored to U.S. tariff barriers open up the specter of unintended global strategic consequences.
On the energy front, a Trump 2.0 is likely to move away from the Biden administration’s green push approach in Latin America and the Caribbean. This could be beneficial to the Southern Caribbean Energy Matrix countries of Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, which constitute a region rich in oil and natural gas. Guyana, which is threatened by Venezuela, was given support by Trump 1.0 and the Biden administration and would likely receive the same support.
Central to a Trump 2.0 energy policy vis-à-vis Latin America could be the revival of América Crece (Growth in the Americas), defined by former Trump official Mauricio Claver-Carone as “an initiative focused on the design and implementation of energy and infrastructure investment frameworks, which would identify new markets, create a tangible pipeline of deals, and harness private capital from the U.S., while weaning countries from their dependence on multilaterals and Chinese-owned entities.” To revitalize América Crece, a Trump 2.0 would most likely conduct a major review of all climate change/energy transition related projects that were implemented by the Biden administration. It would also probably reverse the Biden administration’s opposition to any projects at international financial institutions that directly or indirectly support the fossil fuels industry.
The country that will probably find Trump 2.0 the most challenging is Mexico. Mexico hits all the hot buttons for an incoming Trump administration: powerful drug cartels operating on both sides of the border, high levels of cartel-related violence, and well-organized human smuggling organizations. It has also become a conduit for Chinese goods transiting or being made in Mexico for export to the U.S. to circumvent U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Much of the trade is facilitated through the USMCA free trade deal that Trump 1.0 negotiated and comes up for review in 2026. Mexico is also the major route for Chinese fentanyl entering the United States. The above points to a tougher line on Mexico if Trump wins. Indeed, Trump’s vice-presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance and other high-ranking Republicans have called for the use of the U.S. military to fight against the Mexican drug cartels.
While Mexico is likely to be the chief focus of a Trump 2.0 administration, Cuba and Venezuela will probably be subjected to a re-tightening of economic sanctions. Relations with Daniel Ortega’s dynastic dictatorship in Nicaragua are likely to worsen (as they probably would under a Harris administration). For the Caribbean, the transactional approach could put pressure on CARICOM’s unity as a Trump 2.0 scrutinizes close Chinese relations with countries like Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica.
On Haiti, a Trump administration’s first year in office would coincide with a critical 12-month timetable in the Caribbean country’s transition to democratic governance by early 2026. A Trump 2.0 is likely to be impatient with the currently slow development of the Multinational Security Support mission (MSS). The latter’s transition to a more conventional UN peacekeeping force (an option a Harris White House would possibly welcome) would likely be short-circuited under a Trump 2.0 Indeed, impatience with the fragile nature of Haiti’s political and security scene would likely lead to a more direct, short-term, U.S. approach. This could be mandated in part by a wider regional policy principle to take the fight directly to the drug cartels and their allies.
One last point for whoever sits in the White House in January 2025, the U.S. brand of democracy is not what it used to be. The combination of The Black Lives Matter movement, the January 6th, 2021 upheaval, and Covid have raised questions over just how stable U.S. democracy really is. Add to this the discussion over a possible U.S. civil war and visceral nature of the political dialogue. This plays into China’s and Russia’s narrative in Latin America and Caribbean about the superiority of their authoritarian-state capitalist development model.
Related to the democracy brand issue is painful slowness of appointing ambassadors in the Senate. As of August 2024, there were 28 U.S. ambassador posts unfilled. While some of this is due to conditions in those countries or outright tensions in relations (as with Bolivia and Venezuela), much of the delay stems from U.S. political bloodsport, which often ties other issues to a diplomatic appointment. Two key countries, Colombia (where relations have deteriorated) and the Dominican Republic (a key U.S. ally in the region) lack U.S. ambassadors. The Bahamas is probably the most egregious case, with no U.S. ambassador since 2011. This situation clearly weakens U.S. policy as it sends a bad message to the host country and limits what can be done on an ambassadorial level.
The Biden administration held a Summit for Democracy in late 2021, but unlike the gathering over two decades ago in Warsaw that led to the formation of the Community of Democracies, this last Summit did not conclude with a distinct plan of action. When applied to Latin America and the Caribbean, the absence of forceful U.S. government commitments also underscores the increasingly problematic nature of holding together the region in support of a democracy agenda. The diplomatic mess following the fraudulent Venezuelan election underscores this.
Although on the surface Latin America and the Caribbean may not command as much attention as Europe, the Middle East and China, the confluence of climate change, energy transition, geographical proximity and the return of a Cold War-like geopolitics have conspired to make certain that the White House cannot easily relegate Latin America and the Caribbean to the migration and/or transnational crime files. The next president must remember that there is so much more to the region, The next occupant will rapidly have an opportunity to face the hemisphere’s other leaders at the next Summit of the Americas, in the Dominican Republic in 2025. Under either Harris or Trump, the U.S. is going to need friends and allies in what is going to be an increasingly anarchic world order.
The authors would like to thank former U.S. ambassador Patrick Duddy and former Guyanese ambassador Riyad Insanally for their feedback on this article.
