The Americas' Axis of Affinity: US coercion, influence, and the ghosts of gunboat diplomacy

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00Today we're going to take a more in-depth look at how Donald Trump is trying to reshape some of

00:06Washington's relationships with Latin American countries. The U.S. has, of course, long taken

00:12a close interest in the events and the politics of Central America and South America, and Washington

00:18has a long history of backing coups in various countries as it attempts to either further its

00:26own interests or simply to try to stop problems in what it calls its backyard, ending up on U.S.

00:33territory. So to discuss all of this, I'm joined by Daniel Landsberg-Rodriguez, who is a specialist

00:41in this area at Northwestern University in Illinois in the United States. First of all,

00:48Daniel Landsberg-Rodriguez, thank you so much for your time. Welcome to the program.

00:55Thank you for having me on the show.

00:56Good to be with you. You know, I struggle. Where to start? Donald Trump openly medals

01:03everywhere in this region. How do you think, for an overview, would you characterize Trump's

01:09approach to these countries? What are his motivations? Is this about stopping immigration,

01:14stopping drug imports to the U.S.? What is it all about?

01:17Well, first of all, I think that you brought up, rightly so, the history of the U.S. as sort of the

01:27dominant player in the region. But what we're seeing right now is actually, I'd say, something that's

01:32quite new. The sort of idea that there's almost sort of an axis of affinity that's being created or that's

01:41being nurtured by Washington in which countries that are a little bit Trumpier in terms of their

01:48leadership. And by Trumpier, I mean, you know, right-leaning, but also a little bit more populist,

01:54a little bit more conventionally anti-institutional. They tend to get a tremendously better treatment

02:03under this administration than under previous administrations, dating back really to probably

02:09the 19th century. You're talking about, you know, the Malays of this world who get bailouts in terms

02:18of their financial prices. Xavier Millet in Argentina.

02:21Exactly. Or Ecuador's Noboa, who's getting additional security aid and very, let's say,

02:29understanding treatment in his own relations with the IMF. Or El Salvador's Nayib Bukele,

02:35who has become a bit of a fixture in Washington circles and is seen by sort of the right in Latin

02:44America as kind of a cause celebre in terms of his strong-arm views on anti-crime. You know,

02:50these are figures who are getting, you know, contracts, they're getting bailouts, they're getting

02:56additional aid. But countries that sort of fall afoul of the United States are treated much worse than

03:02under previous administrations. And we're seeing that with Venezuela. We're seeing that to a certain

03:07degree with Colombia as of yesterday. We were seeing it for a while with Brazil when you had

03:12tariffs lodged against a major economy due to what their independent Supreme Court, you know,

03:20decided in terms of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is seen as sort of a Trumpy figure,

03:26being condemned for rebellion. So it's, I'd say it's a very different dynamic than really anything

03:34we've ever seen before. It's not about coercion. In the 19th century, or the early 20th century,

03:411910, you know, you had gunboats off the coast of Venezuela because former Venezuelan President

03:46Cipriano Castro had defaulted. They bombed Puerto Cabello, he paid up, they went away. This isn't that.

03:52You know, there are gunboats off the coast of Venezuela now once again, but it's unclear what

03:58they want. There isn't something clear that Maduro could do, you know, presumably short of stepping

04:03down, that it, you know, would make that go away because it's not about politics. It's nominally about

04:10anti-narcotics. And that's something that, you know, can be declared a win at any time. But that also

04:16requires metrics. It's not binary, which means that for the first time, really, the power of escalation

04:24is not in the hands of Latin American countries that may oppose the United States. It's in the

04:30hands of the United States, which is throwing a bit of a curveball for the Maduros and Cubas

04:36and Nicaraguas of this region.

04:39That's really interesting. I was going to ask you about what he might do with what Venezuela

04:46might do to push back, but you've already answered that. Perhaps we can look specifically at some of

04:51those countries you mentioned, starting with some in the non-Trumpy camp. Colombia, what are the

04:58specifics of that relationship between the US or between Donald Trump and Colombia? And how

05:05important is the drugs factor, which is resurging in Colombia, as I understand?

05:11Oh, it's quite important. The United States has stronger institutional ties to Colombia really than

05:17anywhere in the region, give or take Mexico, because of the trade element. Colombia has very strong

05:23collaboration in terms of security, in terms of anti-narcotics. It's been a big receptor of aid.

05:29And a lot of those institutional relationships remain relatively strong. The issue right now is that

05:36the two presidents really do not get along. They're quite similar in terms of both Gustavo

05:42Petro and Trump. They are sort of communicators first, administrators second. They live very active

05:49lives on social media and very much in opposite camps. And they have a tendency to distract from domestic

06:00stories that may not be very flattering or useful politically by involving themselves or by pushing

06:08sort of external stories, whether that be Venezuela, Palestine. So they're quite similar in that regard,

06:15but they are at opposite ends. So a couple of weeks ago, you had essentially a decertification

06:22of Colombia as a partner in anti-narcotics, which comes with a price tag in terms of USAID.

06:30But there was a one year waiver that was granted to this, which basically at the time seemed like the

06:36United States didn't want to give up on those institutional relations. But they wanted to sort of put the

06:41country on notice. Colombia has an election next year. By the time that waiver ran out, you would

06:47probably have a new president. Gustavo Petro is not very popular. So it seemed like a bit of a forward

06:52bet on, you know, if we can wait this out from the U.S.'s perspective. Now, because of some of the

07:00comments that Gustavo Petro has made in terms of both the gunboat diplomacy, in terms of the sinking of

07:08some of the ships off the coast of Venezuela, one of which Petro claims was a Colombian fishing vessel.

07:15And then also some of the comments, which was probably relevant, the comments that he made about

07:21Trump, specifically when he was in New York, that led to his visa being pulled, despite being the head of

07:30state of an allied country. That is something that seems to have changed that dynamic a bit. We're still

07:36waiting to see exactly how much, you know, there's going to be in terms of pain points for Colombia.

07:43You know, it's very difficult to cut all eight at once, even though that's what was announced by

07:48Trump on Truth Social. Some of these are multi-year contracts. Some of these have legal protections.

07:54Some of these have already been paid. So it's unclear how much it'll really damage. But symbolically, it is

07:59really, really different. And it's something that is really reshaping the region, because smaller

08:04countries right now are really incentivized to prove that they are part of this axis of affinity.

08:09You know, you have to aspire. It's almost like a beauty contest. You have to aspire to be,

08:15you know, in that Malay Noboa Bukele Club. So if you are Panama, you are getting rid of

08:22Chinese ports. If you are Paraguay, you are a sort of changing recognition to Taiwan. If you are Dominican

08:30Republic, you know, these are, you know, right center right countries, but they're countries that aren't really

08:36trumpy in terms of tone and style. So they have to sort of give an extra pound of flesh in order to make

08:41sure that they're on the winning side. Other countries like Trinidad, which has been very much a partner to

08:46Venezuela on essentially anything having to do with oil or natural gas for more than a decade, you know,

08:52has been being forced to choose between being with the United States and being with Venezuela at a time

08:58when Venezuela is uniquely weak. So now you have, you know, a country that was very much sort of the

09:05junior varsity partner to Venezuela, helping the United States with some of these anti-narcotic logistics

09:10in the Caribbean. So you're basically, you know, you're creating a binary choice. It's almost, you know,

09:17if we look at sort of the old big stick diplomacy as having been coercive, this is not, this is

09:23actually a little bit more futile. It's not about trying to make countries fear Washington.

09:29It's about trying to make countries be more like Washington. And as we hit an electoral super cycle

09:34over the next 15, 16 months, and Peru is going to have a new president, Colombia is going to have a

09:40new president, Chile is going to have a new president, that dynamic, you know, that promise that you will get

09:45more by being Trumpier is something that we expect to have a lot of impact in terms of how second

09:51round runoff dynamics work, in terms of how primaries work, and the types of candidates who end up,

09:58you know, representing the rights. We don't have a lot of time. So if you can briefly, I was just

10:05wondering, how do you think all this is working out for the United States? I'm thinking, you know,

10:10Claudia Scheinbaum in Mexico, he said, stop the illegal migrants coming in, or I will hit you

10:16with huge tariffs. They did seem to reach some agreement broadly. How would you say this is

10:22working for the US, this, this Trump foreign policy on that in America? We don't have a huge

10:28amount of time left. Yeah, I'd say right now, it's been tremendously successful from the US's

10:33perspective. So I can't imagine them abandoning course, anytime in the near future. Basically,

10:40you're having a lot of the smaller countries that were in Venezuela's fear of influence because of

10:44oil diplomacy for many years, have now come very directly back into the fold. And it's something

10:50that is basically reshaping the dynamic, so that you might end up with a sort of larger, you know, US

10:57sphere in which you have elites that are much more closely aligned to Washington, in theory,

11:04than even to some of their own people in their own country. It's almost a globalisation of the US's

11:10backyard, but hemispherically divided, or defined. So yeah, it's going well. And it's unclear really

11:19what, you know, is going to make them change course. Okay, I'm afraid we're out of time,

11:25I wish I could talk longer. Really, really interesting. Daniel Landsberg Rodrigo is there

11:30from Northwestern University, with that very broad, a big picture look at Trump in Central

11:37and South America. Thanks very much for that.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended