Latin America and the evolution of Trump impact

 

A trade war, or even a bluff, makes things uncertain, stops investments and affects the region's growth.

On the one hand, a typical bluff/bravado of a pampered NYC real estate entrepreneur or on the other hand a tactic of a larger strategy of dismantling the liberal order. However you interpret it, Trump is here to do harm and it is not an ideological trench position, as there is ample historical evidence that such breakaway leaderships, born out of fear of loss of power as well as those who want their space (Thucydides' Trap), often generate more trauma than benefits to the international order and even to the economies and societies under their jurisdiction. To some extent, it has not been surprising, but it always generates a minimum of panic to see the devil arrive and the region responds in the three logical ways one usually responds to these challenges: 1) freeze, do not breathe (Brazil), 2) make a gesture of dignity and then freeze and/or retreat (Colombia and Mexico or far outside the cultural region Canada), 3) rise to the challenge (Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Venezuela).

Trump shows his big stick and little carrots style. He assaults, advances and believes he is achieving results. He will not achieve any of the goals he sets out to achieve because the problems he seeks to solve are not fixed like the real estate environment he has been used to in his life. It is much more complex. It requires reason, public policies, a great deal of pressure, pressure certainly, but above all consensus. With panic you don't achieve consensus if you don't tackle all the problems from all angles. The Latin American political class knows this well. Except in the case of Colombia, which was a mistake (it is still a trill away from another crisis), Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela are preparing their contingency plans. They know that it is only a storm and that in the end everything will remain more or less the same, but with the United States undermined in its prestige and capabilities, which indicates that to a certain extent a geopolitical support for Latin America is lost and it is left in the hands of the Eurasian powers and the EU, which in its structural weaknesses and also the target of internal divisions, will not know how to take advantage of the golden moment that is offered to consolidate its positions in the region.

With every threat Trump generates damage and awakens old resentments installed in the old Latin American universities. He ruins the idea of belonging to the West and facilitates the coupling of China as a model and culture. Still distant and difficult to succeed, but Trump shortens times and stimulates the desire for this rapprochement.