Latin America Reacts to Trump’s Election, With Will Freeman (Transition 2025, Episode 5)

LINDSAY:
Welcome to The President's Inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Mary and David Boies distinguished senior fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is the fifth episode in a special presidential transition series on The President's Inbox. From now until Inauguration Day, I'm sitting down with experts to unpack who will staff the Donald Trump administration and how it will likely approach the many foreign policy challenges it faces. This week's topic is Latin America reacts to Trump's election.

Will is a fellow for Latin America studies here at the Council, he has written extensively on the region with a particular focus on the rule of law, corruption and organized crime, elections and constitutional change. He recently wrote a piece in the Journal of Democracy with Javier Corrales titled "How Organized Crime Threatens Latin America." Will, thank you for joining me on The President's Inbox.

FREEMAN:
Thanks so much for having me.

LINDSAY:
I guess where I'd like to begin is getting your overall assessment of how Latin America has reacted to Trump winning the November 5 election in returning to the White House in January.

FREEMAN:
Well, I think across Latin America, this was not a surprising outcome. In certain ways, you could see that governments—from those hostile to the United States to ones that typically align with us—they were all making small or big steps to prepare for this. So I think that this is a development some leaders in the region have actually seen coming. That said, I do think it's going to imply some big changes and they're bracing for that. One, I think there's a widespread expectation that the style of diplomacy towards the region will be more coercive. This is an administration surrounded by people who talk about reviving the Monroe Doctrine, the idea that the U.S. should be the only great power really present in the Western Hemisphere, the exclusion of China, others, etc. And I think that as well, countries are looking at how they can negotiate. Trump, famously, thinks of himself as a deal maker. He's interested in cutting one particular deal which is stopping migration. Seemingly, he wants to stop it entirely. Most of the migrants arriving at the southern border, about 95 percent last year come from Latin America. And so every government will be, I think, looking to address that issue in some way, either using migration enforcement as a bargaining chip, pushing back against the Trump policy on migration, or taking another approach.

LINDSAY:
So Will, are there countries in Latin America that are applauding the return of Donald Trump? I've heard some talk about Argentina being pleased with his election.

FREEMAN:
I think it's interesting, actually, that in Latin America, you have much closer alignment between conservatives there and here in the United States. I mean, they speak to each other more. They visit each other more often. I think they think of themselves as part of a team, in a sense, more than you see with the center left, with Democrats and their centrist or center-left counterparts across the region. So exactly as you mentioned, Javier Milei, the libertarian president of Argentina, is an absolute fan, devotee of Trump, showed up at CPAC the annual conference to give Trump a hug several months ago. We also had Nayib Bukele, the right-wing—I would say autocratic president of El Salvador, is very happy about this. And then you saw some more center-right governments, which were also pleased, I think like Panama's. But on the other hand, you have plenty of governments that are as worried as these other ones were grateful or celebratory. You have the Petro government, a leftist government in Colombia, you have the government of Lula, the president of Brazil who actually endorsed Kamala Harris, and you have several others. Most of the region right now is still governed by the left or the center-left. So it's a whole mix of reactions and reflecting political diversity of this region. But I'm not sure that the initial reactions tell us all that much about how these governments will interact with the Trump administration once it's actually in office.

LINDSAY:
How do you anticipate relations will be, Will, between a Trump presidency and Lula's presidency in Brazil, especially because Lula defeated Jair Bolsonaro who was a big fan of Donald Trump's.

FREEMAN:
Although I think the politics appear and actually will be pretty fractious here, you actually see Bolsonaro giving an interview to the Wall Street Journal in which he says that he hopes Trump would be re-elected and that it will help him run for office in 2026. I think Brazil will not rank as highly on the priorities or list of concerns of the Trump administration as say Mexico or countries sending large numbers of migrants and refugees to the United States. Brazil is not anywhere near the top of that list. And although Brazil does have a deepening trade relationship, diplomatic relationship with China, you see China building large infrastructure in Brazil, the relationship expanding in all kinds of ways, I think that even the most hawkish members of the Trump administration probably realize that it's too late to, through coercion alone, pressure Brazil to decouple there. So I don't think that it will be, let's say, among the top three or four relationships we hear about the most between a Latin American country and Washington over the next few years.

LINDSAY:
So which countries do you think will top that list, Will?

FREEMAN:
Absolutely Mexico. This is the relationship everyone's watching and the one that is, by far, the most consequential for us here in the United States. Of course, Mexico is now our largest trading partner. We are even more of a weighty commercial partner when it comes to Mexican exports, the Mexican economy. But this is the relationship that you've seen Donald Trump pay most attention to personally.

LINDSAY:
So what else would be on that list after Mexico? We can get into the specific issues in a moment.

FREEMAN:
Sure. After Mexico, I think we'll see Northern Central America, again, a focus. These are countries that although migration has declined from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, it's still substantial, still quite substantial. I think we'll see Colombia high on that list, both because of Trump and because of the nominee for Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They both have a very unfavorable opinion of the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and I think will be pressuring him hard, even threatening to decertify Colombia as a partner in the war on drugs and cutting aid significantly to that country in order to try to get more cooperation, fighting coca, cocaine, other drugs.

LINDSAY:
And that's because they believe he's been soft on drug traffickers and drug producers.

FREEMAN:
Yeah, I mean in Marco Rubio's words, "An agent of chaos." I think that they believe he's been more than soft, that he's in fact complicit. So I think that's one relationship that you'll see very rocky early on. But going back to Mexico, if I may, I mean here is a relationship where Trump is making some promises, which if implemented would be 180 degree turns. I mean, he's talked about a hundred percent tariff on cars made in Mexico, a 25 percent tariff on all other goods until Mexico stops migration through its country and fentanyl. If actually implemented, we're talking about no more Ford, Chevrolet pickup trucks in the U.S., hardly anymore. Half of our fruit that's imported by dollar value would go away. Two-thirds of our vegetables in dollar value come from Mexico. Four out of five gallons of beer that people drink in the U.S., made in Mexico, Tesla factories in Mexico. Economists at the Peterson Institute have talked about a $1,700 to $2,600 per year rise in the costs for your average family after taxes. That's substantial, right? And if we see this play out, if these tariffs actually go into effect, we're also talking about maybe 1 percent lower real U.S. GDP in 2026, inflation continuing to increase above baseline expectations in 2025.

Now, I know some people are saying, look, that sounds so catastrophic, and it's almost like economic mutually assured destruction that we can't see it happen. But keep in mind that these are threats or policy promises Trump continues to make. We've actually seen Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, say that she will retaliate with 25 percent tariffs of her own. Now you hear claims that they're working through it, that they're talking, but I don't think that we should write this off. So on the one hand, you have the trade with Mexico, and if I may add just one more thing, you also have the issue of migration, which although now most migrants don't come from Mexico itself, or at least they haven't in recent months, recent years, Mexico is going to be the key country for trying to implement Trump's vision of a hard and shut southern border. What he wants Mexico to do is to cut border crossings and cut migration flows through the country from further south, even more than Mexico's government has done already. The number of migrants arriving at the border is already 80 percent lower than it was a year ago. So it's a big demand for Mexico. I do think because of that overwhelming economic interest Mexico has and a good relationship, the Sheinbaum government will try. But there are outstanding questions. I mean, we have to ask ourselves, "Does Mexico have unspent capacity to lower the number of migrants crossing the country even further? Can it fully shut down its southern border with Guatemala, which is currently cartel-dominated and, I mean, in some places in the grips of a low-level civil war between cartels, if you will?" So I think that that's the reason that people are focusing on this relationship, U.S.-Mexico as the million-dollar question, as the one that we really don't know how it'll pan out either way. It's going to have huge consequences.

LINDSAY:
I want to dive a little bit more into the policy issues that you raised, but before we do that, I just want to stick on this question of relations with countries in the region broadly and who might be in the crosshairs. You've mentioned Mexico. What I haven't heard you mention is Cuba.

FREEMAN:
That's right. And I think it's relevant with Marco Rubio nominated to be Secretary of State, Marco Rubio himself, Cuban-American. This issue is close to his heart. It's one he's built his political career around, and many people he will presumably bring with him into the State Department, into the administration, possibly, will also care deeply about, you know what, this side of the spectrum calls the 'troika of tyranny,' the left-wing authoritarian governments in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Now, I think on Cuba, we will see tightening of sanctions. That said, the Biden administration did not in any significant way roll back the tight sanctions Trump put on Cuba during his last term. So already we're seeing maximum pressure in Cuba. Maybe it'll become a bit more maximal. But I think where there's still really an open question is on the relationship with Venezuela. So that's obviously one that's received a lot of attention this past year. Venezuela had elections, which the Biden administration tried to use leverage to make more free and fair where the opposition scored a landslide victory. And where dictator, Nicolás Maduro then as many predicted, stole those elections, he remains in power today. So the question is, how will Rubio and Trump approach such a thorny problem, a country that has produced one of the largest refugee crises in the world with an increasing number of those refugees and migrants arriving to the U.S., and how will they deal with this deeply entrenched dictator? I think you'll see here a tension emerge, and I'm not alone in thinking this, between Marco Rubio who will have a more ideological approach, that it's for humanitarian reasons, for reasons of supporting democracy necessary to do all we can to remove Nicolás Maduro and possibly a wedge with Trump, who I think has a different view, who will be more transactional, who may be more willing to listen to oil companies which are already lobbying the incoming administration to cut a deal with Maduro, sell the U.S. more oil, take deportation flights once again from the country, and ease up U.S. pressure. So I think that that's one where we're going to see more movement, more questions. In Cuba, again, I think you'll have consensus there, strong pressure. But I would be surprised if during the next three or four years, a regime that's lasted the last 60 is about to break down.

LINDSAY:
I take your point, Will, that Marco Rubio will come to the Secretary of State's job with some set ideas about Latin America, but there's sort of a big question hanging over all of this, and that is, do you expect Rubio to make Latin America or individual countries in Latin America a priority or will he, as most secretaries of state do, focus his attention either on Asia, Europe or the Middle East?

FREEMAN:
I think you'll make it a priority as much as he's able, as much as his bandwidth allows him to. Of course, it's a difficult moment to come into this job. Look at the way that he has managed his portfolio on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I mean, he has been a leader on so much legislation on the region, so much bipartisan legislation I'll add, even if that might be surprising from some of the rhetoric. And so I think that it is something, it is an area where he will be intensely focused. And again, particularly on those countries where I think his view, his more ideological view, is that there is a dangerous potentially authoritarian left-wing current taking control of politics, weakening rule of law, advantaging U.S. geopolitical adversaries.

LINDSAY:
Is he right in that assessment Will?

FREEMAN:
I think that no one and no Democrats, mainstream Democrats, would dispute either that that's just the reality in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Those are authoritarian regimes. We know they work with geopolitical adversaries and the Biden administration was quite tough on them as well. I think on Colombia, you're going to see divergence there. There's a real debate to be had over whether or not there's some element of corruption or complicity in the Gustavo Petro government with forces eroding order in Colombia, or if this is a case of incompetence, a lack of seriousness, maybe distraction, and where it might be more counterproductive to drive Colombia further away at this very moment. And when you go down the list to other countries, I think you kind of have to go one by one. But I think there's an element of truth to the view, but taken too far, it can lead to seeing the region in pure black and white and specifically in left and right. And if we're honest with ourselves, this is a region where you've seen right-wing governments grow close to China and left-wing ones do it, where you've seen right-wing governments become mafia states and narco states, you've seen that happen with left-wing governments in power. So for me, it's not the best lens to look at the region. It can distort things.

LINDSAY:
So let's talk about some specific policies you've raised a few, particularly with respect to Mexico, and that is Trump's threats to impose tariffs. Indeed, he has started his diplomacy even before taking the oath of office, as you alluded to, just before Thanksgiving he put some posts up on truth social saying that he was going to impose a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and also from Canada until they clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl and also for Mexico in terms of migration. But I want to sort of focus on this issue of the problem the United States faces with drugs coming across the border from Mexico, and particularly given concerns, I think on both sides of the aisle, that Mexico does not have its drug cartels under control, that the problem has not gotten better, it's gotten worse, and is actually threatening the stability of the Mexican state. Is that a fair argument? And how do you see the Trump administration dealing with that issue of the strength of drug traffickers in Mexico?

FREEMAN:
I think it is a fair assessment to say that the situation has gotten worse. Now, I would differ with those who say that it's exclusively or almost overwhelmingly been just over the last six years since you've had the government of the National Regeneration Party, Morena, led by formerly by Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, AMLO, and now by Sheinbaum in office. I think that the story of drug cartels eroding institutions, capturing them, weakening the state, it goes back decades, but it's certainly what you're seeing. You have parts of the country now, which it's really difficult to say the national government in Mexico City has real control over, and I think in some way Republicans have been better at talking about that issue to the U.S. public than Democrats have been. I think it's an issue where Democrats need to figure out how do we address this because it's a foreign policy crisis in a way or a crisis in a foreign country that affects so many Americans' daily lives. I mean, the people who die from fentanyl overdoses, people who are coping with city-state governments stretched thin because of the arrival of refugees, migrants from Mexico and this part of the world.

But in terms of the approach, here's where I think there's real danger, and that's that it's become a mainstream Republican idea echoed by Donald Trump himself, that the solution to this can be sort of selective military intervention, U.S. military intervention in Mexico to destroy fentanyl labs or target the groups trafficking fentanyl. And I think that that kind of a Rambo approach to counter-narcotics in Mexico and the hemisphere, it might make for okay optics. It might convince the American public for a short period of time that we're doing something about the problem. It's not going to disrupt what's in fact a multinational, multi-billion dollar criminal industry, which can find a new port if you stage an intervention in one where the chemicals are coming in, which can build a new fentanyl precursor or fentanyl processing lab in a new part of Mexico if you crack down on the existing ones. I think the effective approach, and it's completely daunting. I mean, I realize this is not easy and it would take years and if not decades, but it's to rebuild institutions in Mexico that can punish these groups financially, cut into their bottom line, make it harder for them to operate.

LINDSAY:
How do you make that work Will, and the level of violence in Mexico is stunning. There have been assassinations of a large number of political officials or candidates for office who've criticized the drug traffickers. We've seen the drug traffickers buy off politicians. What is the choice set that the Trump administration actually has?

FREEMAN:
Well, I think the choice set is to try to maintain a collaborative relationship on security and counter-narcotics as much as is possible with the Sheinbaum government, or they could nuke relationship by staging an intervention which will give Sheinbaum in a way no choice but to become very hostile to the Trump administration.

LINDSAY:
What would that mean in practical terms?

FREEMAN:
I think in practical terms, it could mean ending all cooperation with U.S. law enforcement. I think it could mean, again, going back to this sort of retaliatory tariffs and trade wars. I mean, this would be really serious. This is, of course, Mexico is a country that lost two-thirds of its territory at one point to a U.S. invasion is an incredibly sensitive issue there, and I don't think any Mexican politician would be able to survive politically standing by as there's unauthorized use of U.S. military force on their territory. I mean, that's just my perspective on it.

LINDSAY:
What about the suggestion that President Sheinbaum has made that the United States should focus its attention on first curtailing its seemingly insatiable appetite for drugs and also stemming the flow of weapons across the border into Mexico? She wrote Trump a note saying that 70 percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country.

FREEMAN:
I personally agree with those recommendations. Now, I will say that there are some members of her party who have used those suggestions in a way to deflect attention from their own inactivity on criminal groups, corruption at home, their own unwillingness to fight it, and sometimes their own complicity with it. Look, it's a fact that 70 percent of crime guns recovered in Mexico were made in the U.S. Mexico does not have plants that manufacture AR-15s, that manufacture high-caliber weapons, which are necessary to control territory. I mean, can you imagine Sinaloa Cartel or Jalisco Nueva Generación, the other big one, controlling whole parts of states with pistols? I mean, it's unimaginable. So the U.S. is part of this problem. I wish that that was more of a focus front center for both parties. I don't expect that the Trump administration will see it that way or will make those issues priorities. But again, I think there's probably some space as our colleague, Shannon O'Neill has written about, for the incoming administration or any administration to partner with the Sheinbaum government on some security measures. I do think Sheinbaum personally has a slightly different vision of security in Mexico than her mentor and predecessor AMLO. AMLO was very hands-off, Sheinbaum ran Mexico City, where she was previously head of government, in a different way. She relied somewhat less on the military, more on civilian police. There was more of a coherent strategy towards dismantling crime groups. It's very hard to replicate that on the national level for the reasons that you've already alluded to, but I think that there's at least some room to cooperate there and a unilateral military intervention will end that. It'll close that space.

LINDSAY:
Do we see any evidence, Will, that President Sheinbaum is actually moving to take serious steps to confront the drug traffickers?

FREEMAN:
Yeah, in the last few weeks, you have seen increased confrontations between the National Guard, which is now the military run security force that operates throughout the country. You've seen increased confrontations between them and criminal groups, so shootouts and clashes that you just didn't really see many of during the AMLO years. But I don't want to undersell that this is an incredibly tough issue. Had you asked me about organized crime in Brazil or even in Colombia, I would say I give the governments better odds of being able to make a significant difference in the short-medium term in Mexico. Look, this will be a problem for years and decades, but I don't think we should make the mistake of assuming it can't get any worse.

LINDSAY:
I want to change topics, Will, and talk about migration and particularly Donald Trump's promise, pledge to deport millions of undocumented people back to their home countries. As you've mentioned, most of those people come from countries in Latin America. We still don't know the exact scope or pacing of the Trump plan, but I think we can take him at face value that he's going to ramp up the pace of deportations. How is that likely to play out with the receiving countries? Will they take people back?

FREEMAN:
I think that in Mexico and Northern Central America where the trade relationship with the U.S. is still very deep, and where the Trump administration, or any U.S. administration, would have quite a bit of leverage, yes, countries will have no choice but to take back these deportation flights. However people arrive, whatever countries or whatever nationalities are being sent their way. President Sheinbaum in Mexico has already said she has a plan to take in undocumented Mexicans and undocumented people of other nationalities who are deported to Mexico. And I think you'll see Guatemala, even Honduras, which is a more hostile relationship with the U.S., El Salvador, and others align themselves. And this could be something where it works out conveniently for the Trump administration that still much of the undocumented population in the country in the U.S. comes from those countries. But it'll be a really tough moment, I think, and potentially a very destabilizing moment for those countries, especially the Central American ones. In Northern Central America, in countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, north of a fifth of GDP is accounted for by remittances, by payments that immigrant families in the U.S. send back through MoneyGram or wire transfers. When they come back, when those people are deported, it will not only mean that you have several tens or hundreds of thousands of new people to incorporate into your overstretched labor markets. It'll also mean that you no longer have that inflow of remittance money or it's substantially curved. And I think it's an open question what that will do to already precarious countries like Honduras or Guatemala, to countries in an economic situation like that of El Salvador where the economy is still so rough that quite a few people are migrating every month because of it.

LINDSAY:
So will migrants who come from, let's say Cuba, be sent back to Cuba, or are you telling me that what will happen is that they're going to go to Mexico, and if they go to Mexico, how many migrants can the Mexican society absorb before that becomes a breaking point for them?

FREEMAN:
Well, Cuba is considered a non-cooperative country, does not take deportation flights currently. It was in talks with the Biden administration to consider taking some in exchange for green cards for Cubans reaching the U.S. I don't think given the kind of pressure Secretary of State, Rubio and others will put on Cuba that we're going to see Cuba throw open its doors to deportation flights. Cubans may have a slightly easier time remaining in the U.S. also because of their diaspora's political weight in Washington. But yeah, the question of whether Mexico or other countries can absorb this, the other nationalities, especially Venezuelans that may be coming their way, Haitians, Nicaraguans, I think it's going to be really tough. I mean, look, we're looking at a moment in Mexico when economic growth is slowing to around 1.5 percent, 2024, it's looking at it'll be 1.3 percent in 2025. There's a real risk that these hundreds of thousands, let's say, conservatively, or maybe millions of people deported to Mexico and other countries end up without jobs, and that they actually become, in some cases and not by their own choice, forcibly recruited into organized crime. So I think that this could be, as I've stressed, I mean quite destabilizing for Northern Central America and Mexico. Mexico is a bigger country, of course. It has a more formidable economy, maybe it can absorb this for longer. It all depends.

LINDSAY:
You've talked, Will, about a lot of the things that the Trump administration is planning to do that could be destabilizing in Latin America. Do you see any policy proposals coming out of the new Trump administration that you think could actually improve life and stability in Latin America?

FREEMAN:
Yeah. Well, I think on the one hand, I mean you have, this is not precisely from the administration, but Republican-led legislation, which is really promising. If you look at the Americas Act, an it's bipartisan but led by Bill Cassidy, Senator from Louisiana, would create a mechanism for countries outside USMCA or CAFTA-DR, the big trade agreements with Mexico and Central America to actually join those agreements, something similar, benefit become bigger trading partners of the U.S.. It may sound a bit idealistic when we know that this is an administration with very mixed views on trade, and I think with a base that's in some level hostile to free trade, but you have countries around the region like Ecuador, Uruguay that have been clamoring for years to trade more with the U.S. Maybe Trump will see that. Maybe he'll see that there is an opportunity to be had there. In terms of other issues, other questions, maybe those who fear what this administration could mean for Latin America. Now there's a chance that right now they're are too worried, I think. Again, you look south of Central America to South America, I think that just the distance from the U.S., the fact that some of these countries aren't particularly relevant for migration, that that will mean that there are not as much on the agenda in Washington as some people might be thinking now. So in a sense, they'll be left to do their own thing. And if you're sitting in Peru or Chile or even Argentina, for some people, that might be seen as a good thing. I will say, I think having a Secretary of State like Marco Rubio who, agree with him or disagree with him, he is intensely invested in this region. He's very knowledgeable about it. That could be critical if we see a country in the region like Nicaragua hit a real turning point.

Nicaragua's authoritarian president Daniel Ortega, it seems to be on his last legs. I mean, he's very old. People expect he will pass away sometime in the next few years. There could be a succession crisis in Nicaragua. I think that's a crisis where inattention from Washington could be a real issue if you didn't have someone in a position of leadership willing to take an otherwise small country that might not always make it into the news or on the top of the agenda and make it a real focus. I'm sure if Marco Rubio is still Secretary of State and there's some kind of crisis unfolding in Nicaragua, we will see a concerted effort to play a role there and to play a role positively for a return to democracy to that country.

LINDSAY:
Fair enough. And on that note, I'll close up this fifth presidential transition episode of The President's Inbox. My guest has been Will Freeman, fellow for Latin America studies here at The Council. Will, thank you very much for joining me.

FREEMAN:
Thank you, Jim.

LINDSAY:
This presidential transition series is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at Carnegie.org. Please subscribe to the President's Inbox in Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify or wherever you listen, and leave us your review. We love the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode and a transcript of our conversation are available on the podcast page for the President's Inbox on cfr.org. As always, opinions expressed on the President's Inbox are solely those of the host or of our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Today's episode was produced by Molly McAnany, with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. This is Jim Lindsay. Thanks for listening.