Latin America has not been a priority for US election candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
But this region presents challenges that whoever wins this Tuesday, November 5, must face: from how to respond to the new mandate of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela to how to stem the flow of migrants and China’s growing influence near US borders.
And precisely the arrival of migrants from Latin America to the southern border It has been one of the great themes of the campaign.
Trump, as he did when he won in 2016, placed migration as a priority issue of his electoral campaign and an argument to criticize the current Democratic government and to accuse Harris’ vice president of “incompetence.”
The Republican candidate has promised mass deportation of undocumented migrants as soon as he took office, which would have humanitarian and economic consequences for the country. Legal and logistical challenges, however, cast doubt on its viability.
According to former officials from Trump’s first term, the plan is not only to detain and deport, but to generate a climate of fear by applying the law in an indiscriminate and unpredictable way so that immigrants stop going to public places, their children are afraid to attend schools, and Finally, they decide to leave.
Trump promises to close the border and has linked the arrival of migrants to crimethe increase in housing prices in some parts of the country, the introduction of fentanyl, a drug that wreaks havoc, and the loss and deterioration of jobs for Americans, ideas that were useful in winning over voters eight years ago.
One of the campaign phrases was the unfounded accusation in the debate with Harris that Haitians eat pets in an Ohio city where many migrants have settled.
Republicans accuse the government of Joe Biden and Harris of having facilitated the entry of migrants. The number of encounters at the border grew significantly under Biden, who in recent months, however, revived tough policies similar to Trump’s to reduce the numbers.
Between December 2023 and 2024 the number of undocumented immigrants detained by the border patrol fell by 77% as a result of stricter measures taken by the Mexican government and others in the region to prevent passage to the United States and the Biden administration’s restrictions on allowing entry.
Trump calls Vice President Harris “border czar” since Biden gave her the task of tackling the causes of migration in Central American countries. Harris led an investment plan of $5,000 million dollars to promote development in the region, but its mission was never to deal with the border with Mexico.
Trump is considering suspending the refugee program and reinstating the “remain in Mexico” program, which requires asylum seekers to wait in that country while their cases are handled. In parallel, it would divert potential asylum seekers to third countries willing to accept them.
The proposal of the Democratic candidate, who rejects mass deportations, is that she will be very firm with the objective of create a “secure border” and He supports him in his experience as a prosecutor in cases against organized crime and in the support he gave to a border security bill to which Republican legislators also joined.
Finally, that project was blocked by Trump so as not to give Biden a success close to the elections.
The number of people from the region who want to emigrate to the US has increased in the last decade. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the region “there were 23 million forcibly displaced people in 2023, an increase of one and a half million compared to 2022, driven by displacement situations in Colombia, Venezuela , Haiti, northern Central America, Mexico and Nicaragua.”
Migration is key in the United States not only because 88% of registered voters consider that strengthening the border is a priority issue and that Trump can handle it better than Harris, but because the Latino vote, traditionally Democratic, began to gradually lean towards the Republicans since the presidency of Barack Obama. This can define the electoral results: 36 million Latinos You can vote this year.
All of this means that the political crisis in Venezuela, the economic crisis in Cuba, and the security crisis in Haiti and Ecuador, among others, will be on the agenda of Trump or Harris beyond the internal decisions to admit migrants.
And for all this the relationship with Mexico will be key. Trump, who got along well with Andrés Manuel López Obrador in his first term, he should now do so with his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum.
The candidate has once again said that he would be willing to bomb drug groups in Mexican territory and that he wants renegotiate the free trade agreement with Mexico because he believes it harms American interests, a speech that resonates with voters in key states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“We are going to agree. They are campaigning, obviously there is also greater stridency in one direction or another, but they know and we know that the agreement is essential within the framework of our sovereignty,” said Sheinbaum, conciliator and defender of the current trade agreement.
If Harris wins, both neighboring countries will be led by women. The vice president highlighted that as attorney general of California she already worked with her Mexican counterparts on issues such as trafficking of weapons, drugs and people by cartels.
Dilemmas about Venezuela
Another complex issue for the next president will be what to do before the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, who is expected to assume a new mandate on January 10, ten days before Harris or Trump, despite the fact that many countries, including the United States, do not recognize his supposed victory in the July 28 elections.
During his first term, Trump threatened to intervene militarily in Venezuela, imposed sanctions and recognized the government in exile of the opponent. Juan Guaidó. The Biden government reduced tension and lifted a series of sanctions so that Venezuela could export oil.
But given what happened in the elections, in which the opposition published the minutes that demonstrated the victory of Maduro’s rival, Edmundo GonzálezWashington once again promoted restrictions on the international mobility of members of the government, and delegated to Brazil and Colombia to negotiate, unsuccessfully, a transition between Maduro and the opposition.
It is to be expected that If Harris wins, do not recognize Maduro and impose sanctions. But these would provoke more immigration pressure and criticism from Republicans. According to recent opinion polls, up to four million Venezuelans are considering leaving the country if Maduro continues in power.
You could also maintain some pressure without taking those measures. But this would generate Republican criticism for weakness and complicity with Maduro.
“We are not going to use the Armed Forces there,” the vice president ruled out in a recent interview with Telemundo when asked about Venezuela.
“But let me also be very clear: We must stand firm as the United States and respect the will of the people in those elections. And I have been very clear about this in relation to the elections that took place in Venezuela. The will of the people must be respected. “That is why we have also issued sanctions.”
And what would Trump do? He has said little about Maduro in recent times. He has only referred, without basis, to the emptying of prisons in the country so that alleged criminals can reach the United States.
The future relationship of the White House with Maduro will depend, says Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, of the Torcuato di Tella University, Argentina, on the rhetoric of the Caracas government and the greater or lesser ties it maintains with China and Russia.
The relationship with the region
Beyond the concrete, Trump and Harris offer an opposite way of confronting the issues that concern Latin America, so the relationship with the region’s leaders will be very different.
The Democratic Party, considers Maureen Meyer, vice president of the NGO Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), “is interested in continuing to support programs to strengthen the rule of law and human rights in Latin America, the peace process in Colombia, and a regional response to migration and the climate crisis.”
“Republicans, on the other hand, distrust, for example, the president’s leftist past.” Gustavo Petro in Colombia, they are not interested in programs on human rights or the climate crisis, and they want to stop support for organizations that educate about reproductive rights, access to abortion, and funds to support gender equality, racial diversity, and LGBTQI identities ”says Meyer.
These questions are “culture wars” issues typical of domestic policies, but have become part of foreign policy.
During the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro In Brazil (2019-2022), former President Trump and his closest circle established strong ties with him.
They got so close that in January 2023, when he had to hand over power to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvahis supporters tried to repeat in Brasilia the takeover of government buildings in the style of the assault on Congress by Trump supporters in January 2021.
Bolsonaro is one of the “strong men” that Trumpism courts, as is the president of Argentina, Javier Mileiwho fights battles against the left.
In June 2024, a delegation of ultra-conservatives from the United States, led by Trump’s son, attended the inauguration ceremony for Trump’s second term. Nayib Bukeleidol of the media right in the United States.
Despite accusations of human rights violations due to his government’s “iron fist” policies in the fight against crime, in May the Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkastraveled to El Salvador.
There, both parties celebrated the “close and continued partnership between our countries to reduce irregular migratory circulation.”
The improvement in crime figures in El Salvador has reduced the number of migrants seeking to leave the country and reach the United States, something the Biden government has recognized.
Close the passage to China
In the last four decades Latin America has not been a priority for US foreign policy. Busy with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Middle East and China, Washington neglected this region and China displaced it as its first trading partner.
“The central point now is going to be, for Republicans and Democrats, the relationship with Chinaand its projection in the region,” says Professor Tokatlian.
“Cooperation between China and Latin American countries focuses on the economy and trade,” explains Xulio Ríos, from the Chinese Policy Observatory (Spain).
The region “is rich in resources and China sees there as a key area for the development of its foreign relations.”
“Likewise, for a good part of Latin American countries, China is a first-class business partner which actively invests in various sectors of the Latin American industry. The development of military ties complements its broad strategy.”
Both Trump and Harris have strong coincidences about economic, commercial and technological competition with China.
Like Trump, Biden imposed a harsh policy of tariffs on Chinese products and that had an economic impact on a country like Mexico, which benefited from what is known as nearshoringthe installation of foreign factories near the United States border to take advantage of geographical and commercial advantages of the relationship between the two neighbors.
Competition with China is the fundamental pillar of the attempt, by both Republicans and Democrats, to regain the hegemonic weight that the United States held in the past and to impose policies on other states.
For Tokatlian “there are nuances on important issues between the two parties” that, however, are lost when polarization worsens.
“The quality of democracy It would matter little and would take a backseat if it is about having allies. For example, Milei is one of them against Beijing. As in the Cold War, geopolitical confrontation will be prioritized.”
“The new government will not devote much attention to the region due to active conflicts in Europe and the Middle East,” says Adam Isacson, a security expert at WOLA.
“When there is less attention, coordination between agencies decreases, and those with direct security responsibilities – especially the Southern Command – will have more autonomy (although not more budget) for their priorities.”
Regarding security, some Republicans, explains Isacson, want use military force in Mexico (drone strikes, Special Forces raids) to attack cartel leaders or drug laboratories without permission from the local government.
For Sergio Aguayo, senior researcher at the College of Mexico, his country and the US “share the need to regain control over its southern border”.
“To achieve this, either of the two candidates will require the collaboration of the Mexican government. But the Mexican government has cards to play and we will see how it uses them. In the short and medium term, Mexico’s best bet would be to seriously push for a bilateral security treaty with the United States, based on the thesis of shared responsibility and the rearrangement of world power.”
But neither of the two candidates proposes a treaty of that magnitude or a strategic agenda with Latin America.
The topics on the agenda, indicates Monica Hirst, of the Institute of Social and Political Studies of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, are addressed according to “how they affect the daily lives of Americans.”
“For Republican leaders there is a cause and effect relationship between Latin migrants and public insecurity in the US. But they are not considered foreign policy issues that require the formulation of a Latin American agenda in the strict sense.”
* Mariano Aguirre is an associate researcher at Chatham House and advisor to the Latin American Security Network of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
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