Trump & LatAm: Hot air and empty threats

Over 200 days into the job, Donald Trump's policy on Latin America is just as muddled and incoherent as everything else in his US presidency.

His constant threats to make Mexico pay for a border-long wall, contrasting with his own private comments to President Enrique Peña Nieto; his attacks on the North American Free Trade Agreement and pledges to scrap the tri-party deal; and his comments on Venezuela, in which he said military intervention was an option to resolve the country's crisis, all highlight the US president's lack of vision and rationale.

The military threat against Caracas was particularly counter-productive, not to say downright foolish. It not only gave the government of Nicolás Maduro ammunition to drum up sympathy, but also served to unite Latin America against long-despised Washington intervention just at a time when pressure was building within the region for a change of direction in Venezuela and the restoration of full democracy and the rule of law.

Interestingly, in imposing sanctions against certain Venezuelan officials and taking certain other measures, Trump stopped short of a potentially devastating ban on oil imports from the country. Likewise, while cooling ties with Cuba following Barack Obama's rapprochement policy, he hasn't gone so far as to break off full diplomatic relations.  

A few days after his Venezuela comments, Trump's vice president Mike Pence began a Latin America tour, in an apparent attempt to ease concerns regarding trade, immigration and other issues, including, as a late item on the agenda, the possibility of a military attack on Venezuela. The countries he chose to visit – Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Panama – were all going to give Pence a courteous, if cool, welcome. Despite the fact that the chosen nations are all in favor of free trade and open markets, and ruled by business-friendly governments (Trump has past business ties with Argentina's President Mauricio Macri), it is doubtful whether Pence enjoyed much success given the White House's seemingly unending outflow of contradictory messages.

He certainly didn't succeed in persuading Chile, Brazil, Peru and Mexico to break off diplomatic relations with North Korea, a request categorically rebuffed by the government of Michelle Bachelet in Santiago. Chile, like other South American nations, has strong commercial ties with resource-hungry China, Pyongyang's sole ally in the world, and upsetting Beijing would probably not be wise.

After more than seven months in office, and as talks on renegotiating Nafta are set to restart on September 1 – which Trump has said will probably end up with his government "terminating" the pact – there is still no clear indication from the US administration as to what the irascible president's true attitude to Latin America actually is. The most likely scenario is that there will continue to be plenty of virulent rhetoric but little action, mirroring Trump's domestic agenda, which by all accounts has been an abject failure since his inauguration in January, as measure after measure has floundered, most notably his efforts at repealing Obama's signature health reform.

It is, however, folly to try to seek any rationality in the likes of Trump, who is the antitheses to reason. He deems himself a dealmaker, striving on his gut feelings and playing on people's prejudices. But in Latin America – where a significant number of people have strong feelings and prejudices of their own regarding the historic role of the United States in the region and its president's brand of reality – any type of deal with Trump may be a very tough sell.