U.S. President-elect Donald Trump demanded over the weekend that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States if the country did not alter its management of the waterway. He said that current fees for use of the canal are “ridiculous” and a “complete rip-off.” Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino rebuffed Trump’s comments, saying the fees are not inflated and that the canal is Panama’s sovereign territory. (The Guardian)
Our Take
Trump’s threats against Panama, stated both in a social media post Saturday and a speech yesterday, are just the latest bellicose declarations he has made toward U.S. allies in the Americas since winning reelection last month. He has repeatedly threatened to impose blanket tariffs on exports from Canada and Mexico if they don’t crack down on migration and drug trafficking across their borders with the United States. And he has also suggested that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, even taunting Canadian PM Justin Trudeau by calling him “Governor Trudeau” in repeated social media posts.
Yesterday, Trump also repeated his threat to designate drug cartels in Mexico as terrorist organizations. There now appears to be a growing consensus in the incoming Trump administration that the U.S. should use the military to attack drug cartels. As James Bosworth wrote recently, the only real division among Trump’s advisors “is whether the Mexican government should be asked to be a partner in these offensive operations or if the U.S. should launch them unilaterally without consulting Mexico first.”
The common thread running through all of these declarations is Trump’s consistent focus on the Western Hemisphere. That isn’t entirely surprising when it comes to migration, which has long been one of Trump’s most consistent fixations when it comes to Latin America. Indeed, he campaigned this year on a mass deportation scheme that he promises to implement once in office.
But this focus, especially with regard to the threat of military action—explicit in Mexico, implicit in Panama—does stand in stark contrast to Trump’s first term, when besides efforts to stem migration and pressure Venezuela’s authoritarian regime, his administration broadly neglected Latin America. It also contrasts with what until recently most observers expected Trump’s second term foreign policy would look like: His first term was more disruptive for U.S. partners and allies in Europe and Asia, and both regions were bracing for a similar effect during his second term.
Trump’s apparent preoccupation with the Western Hemisphere, though, means his second term may look very different in terms of foreign policy. After all, the complex logistics necessary to implement Trump’s mass deportation scheme will require cooperation from countries in the region to accept the return of their nationals, and Trump will likely have to use a combination of threats, tariffs and withholding of aid to get these countries to go along with it. Meanwhile, the return of millions of migrants to the region would itself have a destabilizing effect. And that’s to say nothing of the possibility of U.S. military adventurism, which would create even more insecurity, itself one of the primary drivers of migration to the United States.