The calamitous war on Iran and continuing failure to rein in Israel have brought United States President Donald Trump collapsing approval ratings and growing public animosity at home. Yet there is one area of his foreign policy that is perhaps serving as a consolation: Latin America.
Over the past year and a half, a slew of right-wing leaders has taken power in the region through electoral victories for which Trump has more or less taken personal credit. These leaders appear eager to facilitate the resurgence of US power projection in what Trump has, with characteristic pompousness, called the “Donroe Doctrine”. This, to put it mildly, is not great news for the average Latin American.
One need only glance at the extensive history of US collaboration with right-wing Latin American regimes in the ostensible fight against leftist politics and “narco-terror” to assume that what is coming will entail a whole lot of civilian casualties.
In Colombia, for example, where far-right millionaire businessman and former criminal defence lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella was just sworn in, the US track record of funnelling heaps of money to a homicidal army joined at the hip with right-wing paramilitary outfits produced a good deal of bloodshed. And what do you know: De la Espriella amassed a portion of his lawyerly fortune defending paramilitary leaders.
In addition to having charmingly pledged to “disembowel” the left, de la Espriella is obsessed with jumpstarting fracking and pursuing other environmentally destructive projects. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.