Five questions and predictions on LatAm policy during Trump’s first 100 days
The odds of tariffs on Mexico and a military strike on cartels are higher than anything that dislodges Maduro from power in Venezuela.
Inauguration day begins a 100 day sprint to start a marathon of a presidency. I wrote those cliche words and then realized that running is actually a terrible metaphor here. I once ran a 5k in Mexico City and watched dozens of people sprint out the first few blocks only to find themselves walking and being passed by everyone before 1k was even over. Why?
Fortunately, that’s not how politics works. Sprinting across the first 100 days makes sense and can define the marathon of the presidency. It sets the agenda and takes advantage of the early political capital that may otherwise disappear. In the coming weeks, Trump will issue dozens of executive orders that will have a direct or indirect impact on Latin America. His agenda and budget will also begin to take shape in Congress. The first 100 days won’t define the full Trump presidency, but by the end of the timeframe, we should have a much better sense of what was campaign rhetoric vs what is reality.
By next week, we should know more about the specifics of the executive orders. Guessing at those details this morning would just be wasted space. So instead, here are five big-picture questions to watch in the first 100 days as well as which way I think the answers will land. I have no sense for how correct or incorrect I’ll be on those predictions (maybe I’m wrong on all of them!). I’m writing the prediction more to suggest where my thoughts are now than with an intent to keep score (unlike my prediction post two weeks ago). No matter how the predictions turn out, I do think the questions will provide important markers at the 100 day point. I’ll revisit them around that time.
Are deportation logistics organized?
There will be changes in border policy, raids that detain people without the right documents, and some deportations, particularly of violent criminals who have already been arrested. Whether those things happen is less of a signal than how organized those actions appear. The first Trump administration never hit the numbers of deportations they wanted, facing bureaucratic and logistics challenges that simply overrode their competencies. They also confronted huge surges of migration, peaking in 2019, that really only ended with Covid, not exactly a successful border wall. Deporting a half million or million people from the US requires a vast and costly logistics operation of detentions, holding facilities, international negotiations, busses and plane flights. We should learn in the first 100 days whether “mass deportations” and “shut down the border” is simply aspirational or if they have the business-like management to pull it off this time.
Prediction: They hit stumbling blocks early. There will be raids and deportations, but the basic challenges of following through with deportations mean they will struggle to get numbers that are much higher than Biden’s fourth year in their first year. We’ll see indications of those challenges in the first 100 days.
Are tariffs implemented or just threatened?
Trump has promised to implement a 10% across the board tariff on everything and a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada (placing higher tariffs on our North American allies than we do on China would arguably be the trade dumbest policy possible, but not my call.) His advisors have floated the idea of massive tariffs within the opening weeks, making claims about how the US economy will only benefit from them. They have also floated the idea of tariffs of only a few percentage points with a wide array of limitations to prevent those tariffs from hitting US inflation and causing other negative effects. As with mass deportations, the first 100 days will let us know if “massive tariffs” is an actual policy with real details or if it remains a talking point for international negotiations and domestic politics without much to back it up.
Prediction: Tariffs will be more real than not. I don’t know if they will be 25% and there will probably be some exceptions, but big tariffs will hit early, including on hemispheric allies.
What is Trump’s early Venezuela policy?
The conventional wisdom is asking how hard the hardline policy goes during the first 100 days. While some commentators are once again speculating about military action against Venezuela, the country is not on the list of places Trump threatens to use the US military (unlike Mexico and Panama). There is an alternative analysis that suggests that big donors, oil companies, and bondholders are going to push Trump toward a deal with Maduro.
Prediction: My analysis remains that Trump starts with a hardline policy demanding sanctions and regime change and then pivots to negotiations with Maduro later in his term. This will be a hardline policy in the sense that no public negotiations will occur in the first 100 days. For the first 100 days, Rubio’s presence on Venezuela is loud and Grenell’s is quiet (though that will not hold true for all four years). Most noticeably, Trump will take action to limit or fully remove the Chevron license. However, though announced, that move on the license may not be implemented instantly. Even if oil companies are forced to scale back until the pivot, I would bet that Chevron is operating in Venezuela in January 2029. Sectoral sanctions will become a key tool of policy again, but announcements will outweigh enforcement both in the first 100 days and beyond, as occurred in the first Trump term. No invasion will happen in the first 100 days or during the next four years.
Is there military action against Mexico’s cartels?
There will be an early executive order classifying the cartels as terrorist organizations. The conventional wisdom is that the US is not going to conduct a military operation early and that Trump’s threats are a bluff.
Prediction: As I’ve written before, I think some form of military action is likely in the first year and I’d say the odds of it occurring in the first 100 days are decently high. We’re not talking about a full invasion here. Just a drone strike or small operation (using the word “just” there is terrifyingly wrong, yet correct in relative terms to something that could be much bigger). At the very least, we’ll see greater talk of military action and some planning and preparation in the first 100 days that make people take this more seriously than they do today. I think analysts and the Sheinbaum government are heavily underestimating this risk right now. The amount of energy being put towards discussing a hypothetical invasion of Venezuela should instead be focused on action in Mexico. Sheinbaum and the Trump administration would be better off negotiating the terms of security cooperation than finding themselves at odds over this.
Is there a bigger focus on Latin America, and what does that focus mean?
There have been plenty of articles and analyses discussing how much the Trump administration will be focused on Latin America and how much some of the nominees, particularly Rubio, care about Latin America policy. Trump’s talk about invading Panama has led some conservative commentators to discuss a “Donroe Policy” in which Trump reshapes US policy towards a Teddy Roosevelt-like era of gunboat diplomacy. Despite the talk, you should definitely be able to imagine the opposite scenario in which Trump’s policies are more similar to the same level of attention as other administrations in recent decades. Domestic policy and political intrigue could be far more of a focus than foreign policy. And to the extent foreign policy matters, China, Israel, Ukraine, and whatever else becomes the crisis of the week could dominate the discussion as they usually do.
Prediction: Compared to previous administrations, there will be a heavier focus on Mexico and the border but not on Latin America as a whole. There will be a surge of initial policies and executive orders that give the illusion of lots of attention, then the pendulum will swing back to more of a “benign neglect” stance. We will not invade Panama in the first 100 days. While, people who care about Latin America including the author of this newsletter will find plenty to discuss, the focus on the region beyond Mexico will not be greater than under Biden, Obama, or the first Trump administration. That said, even if attention levels are similar to Biden’s team over the first 100 days and first year, leaders around the region should be prepared for Trump, Rubio, and the variety of other individuals who insert themselves into the process to have opinions that are quite different from Blinken and the Biden administration.