"For Trump, Central America does not exist and is reduced to migration"

Riccardo Savi
Monday, November 11, 2024
Roman Gressier
Leer en español

On the heels of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election last week, Central America is holding its breath. With his return to the White House, critical civil society groups who are documenting grave human rights abuses under the Salvadoran state of exception, or who last year denounced Guatemalan prosecutors’ assault on the electoral process, are suspicious of greater authoritarian synergy in the region: In his second term, the U.S. president-elect has threatened to punish his foes and purge from the civil service those who would obstruct his agenda. He has also proposed the deportation of millions of immigrants to their home countries, once again hardening immigration policy toward undocumented communities —among them, parts of the Central American diaspora— and labor force.

Laura Chinchilla, the president of Costa Rica from 2010 to 2014 and a front-row actor to this day in regional politics, laments that “relations are totally fragmented in Central America, which strengthens Trump’s transactional politics.” She told El Faro, via videoconference during a public panel at the Central American Journalism Forum on Saturday, November 9, that for Trump “the defense of a common agenda does not matter; only whether countries fulfill his strictly national interests.” She also anticipates “a contagion from the United States to Latin America, which will without a doubt deepen even further the democratic decay in our region.”

Emily Mendrala, who until weeks ago was a senior advisor to Joe Biden on migration, accompanied Chinchilla from the forum stage in Antigua Guatemala. “In the immigration enforcement system there is a severe lack of resources,” she underscored. “In the early days he will very visibly display what he is doing, but I doubt he will be able to do it at the level that he has promised.” Mendrala, who also served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Central America, said between the lines that she expects financial cuts to civil society. “I also fear that many people will leave for retirement,” she added, referring to U.S. diplomacy and other federal areas. In the region, she asserted, “we will see an anti-corruption policy set on a greatly country-by-country basis, depending on the president, his advisors, and each government.”

Where does Central America fit on Donald Trump’s map of the world?

EM: In a word, the effect of the U.S. elections for Central America will be unpredictable. To understand how President Trump will handle foreign policy in his second term, we must look to how he did so in the first. He focused mostly on migration, but in a transactional way. While Biden, too, focused on migration, he did so through alliances and partners in the region. In his first term, the president-elect made commercial threats against Mexico and Central America until he got what he wanted. He even canceled bilateral assistance to Central American countries to obtain their cooperation. This shows his transactional way of working.

His migration policies were harsh and inhumane: the separation of children from their parents at the U.S. border, the Migrant Protection Protocols [better known as Remain in Mexico], and the [safe-third-country] asylum cooperation agreements. He also reduced legal migration to the United States by 45 percent through the refugee program and temporary work visas. He also had a complicated relationship with corruption and democracy.

More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202411/centroamerica/27628/for-trump-central-america-does-not-exist-and-is-reduced-to-migration