LatAm in Focus: Did Trump's Day One Set the Tone for Latin America?

On January 20, Donald Trump, once again, became president of the United States. This time around, Latin America was not just watching from home. The leaders of Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Venezuela were in Washington, some of them at the Capitol’s rotunda for the swearing in. During his inauguration speech, Trump spoke about the region several times, saying he would sign executive orders on the U.S. Southern border, immigration policy, and changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico. He followed through on these promises a few hours later, signing 26 executive orders. 

If Trump's first-day priorities are any indication, 2025 is promises a shake up in the region. In this episode of Latin America in Focus, we convened a panel of Council of the Americas experts: Carin Zissis, editor-in-chief of AS/COA Online, Brian Winter, AS/COA vice president and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, and Juan Cruz Díaz, managing director of Cefeidas Group in Argentina and special advisor to AS/COA. In conversation with AS/COA Online’s Luisa Leme, the three experts lay out what Trump’s day one executive orders say about the new U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.

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Carin Zissis

“There was a moment on the night of his first day in office when Trump said 'we don't need Latin America, Latin America needs us.' I don't know that that's completely true,” Zissis says. She discusses possible upcoming tariffs on Mexico and and what is to come for Trump’s relationship with President Claudia Sheinbaum, when so many of the U.S. president's polices will run through Mexico. 

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Juan Cruz Díaz

One leader with VIP status at the inauguration: Argentina’s Javier Milei. "Certainly there's a big opportunity that comes from that personal relation," says Díaz, “In many ways, [Milei] admires President Trump: the way he handles power, the way he runs his politics, the way he fights his cultural wars. And, he's very aligned on that…  But also there's a big challenge there because President Milei and President Trump, they will need to build an infrastructure to make something of this bilateral relation.”

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Brian Winter

During his speech, Trump also mentioned the Panama Canal several times. “We’re taking it back,” he threatened. Will he try to follow through? “We have experience with Donald Trump and a lot of the time when he says that he's going to do a very dramatic thing, 10 days out, that is Trumpese for, let's negotiate, bring me your best offer,” Winter says. And where does Chinese investment in Latin America fit into Trump’s “America First” approach? “For many of our countries, it's a very tricky situation. We cannot afford to break with China or with the U.S.,” Díaz says.