Lee este artículo en español
Nearly 50 percent of Latin America’s population will experience a presidential election this year, and U.S. President Donald Trump is poised to influence any campaign in some way based on his record in the region.
The election campaign across Latin America – voting has begun in Costa Rica and will continue in Peru this weekend – is already marked by security concerns and political instability, as well as Trump’s growing assertiveness.
President Trump, entering his second term, has sought to expand the White House’s influence in the region. He has pressured some Central American countries to accept migrants deported from other countries, ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, attempted to overthrow the Cuban regime in part through an oil blockade, and publicly threatened countries that did not elect candidates of his choice.
“Trump is focused on positioning himself as the leader of the entire Western Hemisphere. As part of that, he does not accept open political or ideological conflict with his core principles,” said Abelardo Rodríguez Sumano, a researcher at Mexico’s Iberoamerican University and an international relations expert. “He wants harmony, he wants complete subordination.”
The dynamic is forcing presidential candidates to recalibrate their campaigns to avoid antagonism with the White House while figuring out how to connect with voters worn down by decades of dramatic political upheaval.
Since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, he has drawn renewed attention to Latin America, even going so far as to explicitly interfere in elections.
Asked to comment on analysts’ belief that President Trump is trying to dominate the hemisphere and influence elections in Latin America, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said, “After years of neglect, President Trump established the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ to restore American primacy in the Western Hemisphere.” He cited “huge successes” in securing the U.S. southern border, working with Latin American countries to defeat drug cartels and achieving “historic economic cooperation with Venezuela” after ousting President Maduro from power.
Analysis: What is “Donroeism”?
We have entered the era of the “Donroe Doctrine.” The term was coined by President Donald Trump to describe the application of the Monroe Doctrine to enforce US interests in the Western Hemisphere. CNN’s Jake Tapper explains.
“The president has succeeded in strengthening our relationship in our own backyard to make the entire region safer and more stable,” Kelly told CNN.
Late last year, President Trump warned in Honduras that he would not work with Nasri Asufura’s new leader unless he won the presidential election. Argentina’s parliamentary elections made Washington’s economic aid conditional on the victory of President Javier Millei’s party. In both cases, he got the results he wanted.
Rodriguez said any government that opposes Trump will instantly become his enemy, “leading to investigations, threats, and visa cancellations.”
“Trump is basically extorting voters,” said Farid Kahat, a professor at the Catholic University of Peru.
He said “the extortion was blatant” in Honduras, where strict U.S. immigration policies and threats to cut aid could affect remittances, a key component of the country’s economy.
Analysts say Trump is likely to explicitly intervene in upcoming elections in Colombia and Brazil, which are currently ruled by leftist leaders.
In countries like Colombia, Trump’s confrontational style could backfire, Cahat said, and he believes Trump changed his confrontational stance toward President Gustavo Petro in an election year as part of this calculation.
Sandra Borda, an associate professor at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, said Trump was “beginning to realize” that too heavy-handed interference “could push voters in the opposite direction.”
“It will be interesting to see where[Colombian voters]place their priorities,” Borda added. Elections in both Colombia and Brazil “will be critical in determining the balance in managing our relationship with the United States,” she said.
The situation in Brazil is very different from that in most neighboring countries. Latin America’s largest economy has a greater ability to counter pressure from Washington in conjunction with other powers in the BRICS bloc, which originally included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa but has since expanded.
“Mr. Trump has openly supported Mr. Bolsonaro, and I think it’s perfectly clear that he would support the candidacy of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the left-wing Brazilian president who seeks to oust the Labor Party,” Rodriguez said.
So far, no candidate backed by President Trump has lost in Latin America, and it is unclear to what extent Trump will follow through on his threats. But Rodriguez believes Trump is prepared to do them. “There are many levels he could take, including diplomacy, economics, customs, military intervention, and intelligence,” the researchers said. “He has an amazing range of options.”
The region is showing signs of fatigue, with the pendulum swinging further and further from the center after a bike ride between left-wing and right-wing leaders.
“I think the most common thing is not a shift to the right or to the left, as is sometimes speculated, but rather that ruling parties rarely get reelected,” said Kahat, who excludes Venezuela, Nicaragua and El Salvador from the analysis because they are not considered democracies. He cited Paraguay and Mexico as exceptions, attributing the phenomenon to a variety of factors, including the pandemic, recession, inflation and murder rates.
Last year ended with three elections (Bolivia, Chile, Honduras) in which the ruling party lost. But this year started with a victory for Costa Rica’s ruling party, and the same scenario could be repeated in other countries.
“In the case of Brazil and Colombia, it is likely, but not certain, that the left will continue to hold power. This is an exception to the famous pendulum swing that prevails in Latin America,” Borda said.
But Rodriguez sees another variable: “political realism on both sides in defining a candidate’s governability and viability.”
The candidates’ hard-line proposals are accelerating as organized crime activity increases in the region.
Although implementation varies, the tough-on-crime model that President Nayib Bukele applied in El Salvador has become a benchmark for candidates who advocate greater territorial control and harsh prison conditions.
The issue is also at the center of campaigns in countries like Chile and Costa Rica, which have long been considered orderly countries with fewer security problems than their neighbors.
“I think a hard-line approach generally benefits the right,” Kahat said, citing research on the impact of proposals for tougher penalties on criminals. “What’s interesting is that harsher penalties don’t solve the problem of crime, at least not by themselves, but they do help garner electoral support.”
The four countries that will hold elections after Costa Rica have more serious security problems.
For Borda, it’s difficult to tell whether voters are supporting him based on economic concerns or fear. She observed that the left’s discourse on security issues was not as strong as the right’s.
Rodriguez said that no matter how many policies governments implement to redistribute wealth, “if it doesn’t translate into the pockets of the people, it will have an impact on the rise in crime and transnational organized crime.” It is in this context, he added, that strong leaders emerge, “even those who oppose respect for human rights.”
In Peru and Colombia, growing rejection of traditional elites has led to political party fragmentation.
Borda noted that at one point, 80 people announced their intention to run to replace Petro as president of Colombia. Outsider and dissident candidates “will continue to exist as long as the reputation of the political class continues to decline,” she says.
Cahat observed that he believes that in Colombia, the division between centrists and rightists is growing further, as the ruling party’s candidate, Iván Cepeda, enjoys high support. At one point, conservatives seemed to be consolidating around lawyer Abelardo de la Espriela, but opinion polls now show him in a close race with Sen. Paloma Valencia, who won the right-wing interparty primary.
The situation is different in Peru, where presidential changes occur frequently. Of the record 35 candidates participating in Sunday’s first round of presidential voting, none reached 20% in the latest poll. That means candidates who barely reach 8% in opinion polls are likely to advance to the second round.
With the reconfiguration of international relations, Latin America is redefining its place on the political stage in response to the new order that the Trump administration seeks to impose.
“There’s a process where everything happens at the same time,” Rodriguez said. “Once the United States defines the continent as its sphere of influence, all Latin American governments are adapting.”
