Latin American leaders were swift to publicly congratulate former U.S. President and now President-elect Donald Trump on his election victory last week. Argentine President Javier Milei was ecstatic in his praise. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva—who just days before had declared his support for Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris—underscored the importance of respecting the democratic election results. And Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in congratulating Trump, simultaneously called for the Global South to unite on issues such as climate change in preparation for a second Trump presidency.
But Petro’s coded warning was about as far as anyone was willing to go in criticizing Trump in the first hours after his victory. Across the region, every leader seemed eager to avoid a public dispute with the next administration while they awaited the new president’s early policy decisions.
Privately, the advisers of those same leaders likely pulled out their copies of “The Art of the Deal,” the 1987 book based on Trump’s business ideas that many had already dog-eared during his first term from 2017 to 2021. Back then, the leaders and countries that managed Trump the best were the ones who recognized that he is a transactional president. Cutting a deal with Trump will be an entirely different exercise than the past four years of working to advance national interests with outgoing President Joe Biden, where ideology and commitment to democracy have played a greater role.