Echoing Trump, Latin America’s leaders boost allies across borders
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
By EMMA BUBOLA, ANNIE CORREAL and ANA IONOVA
Dancing, beating his chest and hugging Flávio Bolsonaro, the right-wing candidate seeking to become Brazil’s next leader, President Javier Milei of Argentina launched into a tirade against Brazil’s current president, calling him a “thief” and “socialist trash.”
Milei was seeking to aid Bolsonaro, who is running against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in this October’s election, but that brash display of camaraderie in São Paulo came with consequences. After the event last month, Brazil recalled its ambassador to Argentina, generating the most serious rift in decades between South America’s two largest economies.
The episode was only the latest example of the personal alliances and international endorsements reshaping Latin American politics, as right-wing candidates win elections across the region.
Sharing hard-line policy proposals, campaign mascots and videos of themselves together, they are sending a message of right-wing unity. And, borrowing heavily from President Donald Trump’s playbook, they are openly stepping into neighbors’ elections.
The ascent of right-wing leaders comes as many Latin American voters are frustrated with soaring crime and insecurity, and with what they see as left-wing leaders’ failure to deal with these and other issues, including the economy and immigration.
Like-minded leaders banding together is nothing new on the right or the left, as in the long alliance between Venezuela and Cuba. But this new crop of conservative leaders — many of them political newcomers — is promoting a new, brazen, often social media-powered version of this dynamic.
“There were always political preferences, but they remained veiled,” said José Alfredo Graça Lima, a veteran diplomat and vice president of the Brazilian Center for International Relations. “Now they are explicit.”
At the center of the right-wing alliance is Washington, seeking to lead by strengthening ties with conservative leaders, including through the Shield of the Americas, a new security alliance against drug traffickers and organized crime.
Aligning with the Trump administration can yield rewards, such as financial bailouts and fast-tracked military or disaster aid. Yet analysts warn that this alignment-first diplomacy carries potential risks, too.
The breach with Lula, for instance, could affect Argentina’s relationship with Brazil, its main trading partner, as Milei tries to stabilize his country’s economy.
Allies across borders
From Colombia to Peru to Bolivia and Chile, the right-wing candidates that won recent elections differ in major ways, and some triumphed by razor-thin margins.
But they espoused a common message. Many pledged to take on rising violent crime and to bring economic recovery — pressing issues in many voters’ daily lives.
They also adopted strident ideological language. The newly elected Colombian president, Abelardo De La Espriella, has promised to “disembowel” the left, and Milei has said he wants to defeat the “cancer of socialism.”
Whether in opposition to criminals, immigration or “woke” ideology — “wokismo” or “cultura woke” — the right-wing leaders are drawing from a shared set of symbols and terms, often echoing Trump and the U.S. right.
They invoke one another, too, in tactics like adopting the national soccer jersey as campaign attire, or imagery like a giant pair of scissors, a nod to Milei’s chain saw, his symbol of government cuts.
Some have vowed to build “megaprisons” in the style of El Salvador, whose president, Nayib Bukele, is among the region’s most popular leaders.
Aided by social media, they are also finding novel ways to weigh in on each other’s elections.
On the eve of Colombia’s first-round vote in May, De La Espriella posted online a video call with Ecuador’s conservative president, who said he would lift tariffs on Colombian products in light of the candidate’s positions.
The move was swiftly denounced by Colombian officials as election interference, but it showed voters that De La Espriella had powerful friends.
Experts say the Shield of the Americas and its military arm could limit their own effectiveness by excluding Latin America’s biggest countries, Mexico and Brazil, which are run by leftist leaders.
What is certain is that the inaugural summit, held at Trump’s Doral, Florida, resort in March, served as a premier networking opportunity. De La Espriella, then a defense lawyer virtually unknown in international political circles, arrived hoping to rub shoulders and scored a coffee nearby with Bernie Moreno, a Colombian-born U.S. senator from Ohio.
He soon brought De La Espriella’s long-shot campaign to U.S. officials’ attention, including Trump’s, Moreno said in an interview.
Lula vs. Milei
It is unclear whether this new iteration of partisan diplomacy is merely political theater; cross-border cooperation between left- and right-wing governments on issues like trade and crime has not stopped, experts say.
But at least for Milei, it is having an impact.
In addition to withdrawing its ambassador, Brazil asked the Argentine ambassador to leave Brasília, downgrading the countries’ diplomatic relations. Experts and diplomats warned that Brazil could escalate its retaliation, potentially affecting trade relations.
A deteriorating relationship with Brazil, warned Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, could hurt Argentina’s ability to repay its billions in debts to the International Monetary Fund.
“Milei’s behavior is not only damaging to the bilateral relations,” she wrote in an analysis this month, “but also potentially economically destructive.”
Milei did not respond to a request for comment. But his supporters say that fully aligning with Trump has brought huge advantages — chiefly access to a $20 billion financial lifeline from the U.S. Treasury. They also defended a pivot from left-wing governments that cultivated ties with Venezuela and Cuba.
“Milei took a clear political decision,” Diego Santilli, Milei’s Cabinet chief, said Thursday, “to return Argentina to the ranks of Western democracies.”
Diplomats say, however, that aligning with the Trump administration could also bear costs — isolating Argentina on the international stage.
Cherry-picking friends
Beyond Argentina, voters’ support for right-wing leaders might falter if they succumb to pressure from the Trump administration, for example by allowing military operations in their territory, said Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based group.
He cautioned that such moves could end up heightening instability and sow doubts about whose interests the leaders are serving — Washington’s, or the voters.
De La Espriella has already begun facing such questions. This month, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the new president would allow joint military operations, prompting an uproar across Colombia’s political spectrum, especially that such a major step could be announced by an American.
De La Espriella also faced criticism when, after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, his administration cherry-picked just four countries it would receive search-and-rescue teams from: the United States, Israel, Ecuador and El Salvador.
The move, which Colombian officials maintained was ideologically neutral, nonetheless drew questions from leaders, including Mexico’s president. “In a tragedy, political ideologies mean nothing,” said Héctor Méndez, a well-known Mexican rescuer.
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