Given that Donald Trump was inaugurated a little over ten days ago and Monday was our first day of the spring semester, it’s been hard to focus on Central America. Obviously, the first few days of his administration were full of concerns about the building of a wall on the US’ southern border and President Trump’s needless attacks against Mexico. Needless seems to be the key operative word here.
Trump could have pursued a policy to extend the wall on the southern border, add border agents, and increase cooperation with Mexico. Instead, it all had to be a spectacle. The same goes for the so-called extreme vetting of people Muslims from seven other countries. While we already have some of the world’s most rigorous policies for processing migrants and refugees into our country, one could easily make the argument that we should reassess how we are doing. Instead, the Trump administration ran full steam ahead with a Muslim ban that left so much open to interpretation because of their incompetence or disdain for bureaucracy and American, Christian, and human values.
What does that mean for Central America? It’s tough to say. Several reports of the last few weeks argue that we should have taken Trump both literally and seriously. Unfortunately when it comes to Central America, Donald Trump and his team have had very little to say. Retired General John Kelly was supposed to be a man of reason at the Department of Homeland Security but neither Trump’s border policy nor his ban on Muslims seems to be consistent with what Kelly might have supported.
I do worry what happens when Trump turns his eyes towards Central America because very little of what he sees is based on any evidence. It’s all a matter of perception and feeling, not empirical reality. Not to say that perception and feeling should never be a part of one’s thinking.
Which brings us to Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal. While Obama’s policy towards the region was one of engagement with political actors across the political spectrum, including people in governmental and non-governmental positions, if O’Grady has her way the US will return to a policy of preferential engagement towards right-wing, conservative forces, in business and government. The George W. Bush administration on steroids.
The complaints extend beyond a difference of opinion about the role of the state. During the Obama years Uncle Sam repeatedly backed those who flouted the rule of law in the name of “social justice”.
Five months after Obama took office in 2009, the administration sided with Honduran allies of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who were trying to install their own permanent strongman in violation of the Honduran constitution.
Another memorable Obama moment came in 2013 when the former FMLN guerillas ruling El Salvador declared a 2002 partial privatisation of the state-owned electricity company a crime. The Salvadoran attorney-general targeted two Salvadorans with American citizenship for their roles in the transaction, despite zero evidence of fraud, embezzlement or criminal action. The Obama administration turned a blind eye to the persecution while approving hundreds of millions of dollars in new foreign aid for the corrupt government.
The US backing of the settlement between the Colombian government and the drug-trafficking terrorist group FARC is extremely troubling in a region hungry for legal certainty. Like the agreement rejected in the October 2, 2016, national plebiscite, it features amnesty for war crimes — including recruitment of child soldiers — and unelected seats in congress for the FARC. Colombia is again the world’s largest exporter of cocaine. When Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, blocked a 2016 Venezuelan recall referendum that would have triggered a new presidential election, the Obama State Department gave him cover by engaging in “dialogue”. The delay was essential to the dictatorship’s survival since any recall vote this year — per the constitution — will skip new elections and put the vice-president in charge until 2019.
The common denominator in all of this is Obama’s worldview, saturated as it is in a distrust of markets, a disregard for private property rights and an obsession with income equality over liberty.
Those on the left and the right were frequently disappointed with the Obama administration’s policies towards Latin America as he often, though clearly not always, sought compromise, pragmatism, and the middle ground. He tried to engage Latin America in finding solutions to regional problems, rather than imposing them.
His anti-corruption initiatives would annoy the Guatemalan right and the Salvadoran and Honduran left. His immigration approach for the first few years seems to have been guided by a belief that a hard-line on immigration would eventually bring Republicans around to support comprehensive immigration reform. Instead, no one was happy with his policy towards undocumented immigration. I have no idea if there was a consistent policy towards Venezuela. From the outside, it was more like let them figure it out. Greater US involvement isn’t going to help anyway.
We should learn more about Trump’s policies towards the region within the next few months. “Obama’s” signature successes are the peace process in Colombia and US opening towards Cuba. It’s not clear that Trump’s Latin American advisors are happy with either of those developments even if they have been supported by people throughout the hemisphere.
