FROM the Monroe Doctrine to its ‘Donroe’ variant, the US has regarded Latin America as its backyard, a vast protectorate whose resources — natural and human — must always remain available for exploitation to the regional hegemon that replaced European colonial powers more than a century ago. The Cuban revolution of 1959 posed the first insurmountable challenge to this trend. Five years earlier, the US had successfully deposed a reformist government in Guatemala (among the witnesses to this catastrophe was a young Argentinian doctor, Ernesto Guevara), just a year after thwarting democracy in Iran. The bearded rebels who had overthrown the Batista dictatorship in Cuba proved harder to dislodge — and, 67 years later, the US is still on the job.
The advent of Latin America’s ‘pink tide’ at the turn of the century, with the election of Hugo Chávez as Venezuela’s president took Washington by surprise, focused as it was at the time on Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then, a number of hopeful trends have been witnessed in the region, represented by figureheads such as Manuel Zelaya and Xiomara Castro in Honduras, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Michelle Bachelet and Gabriel Boric in Chile, arguably Néstor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, Gustavo Petro in Colombia, Evo Morales in Bolivia and, perhaps above all, the late José ‘Pepe’ Mujica in Uruguay.
Before long, Uruguay might be the only country on the continent that could be perceived as at least vaguely progressive. A dark tide has lately been creeping across the rest of the continent, facilitated by the regressive Trump regime’s open war against any trends it does not appreciate. The threats range from withholding investment and other funds unless any given electorate behaves according to the wishes of the ogre in the gilded Oval Office to dire vows of military retaliation if the serfs resist their overlord’s dictates.
The consequences range from the empowerment of Nasry Asfura in Honduras and José Antonio Kast in Chile to the impending inauguration of Abelardo De La Espriella in Colombia and Keiko Fujimori in Peru. They will join the likes of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, Rodrigo Paz in Bolivia and Argentina’s chainsaw-wielding showman Javier Milei. The trend towards authoritarian extremism was arguably spearheaded by Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently under house arrest for trying to foment a military coup following the 2022 election he lost to Lula. It remains to be seen whether Lula, now an octogenarian like Donald Trump, will win a fourth term in October, when his primary rival is expected to be Jair’s son Flávio Bolsonaro, who has been lobbying a receptive Trump.
A dark tide has been creeping across much of South America.
There’s a common thread that stretches across the continent’s far-right revivalists, involving deregulation, privatisation and open markets, alongside a range of guarantees for international (ie, American but not Chinese) investors. China becoming the leading trading partner of major economies in Latin America disturbed the US, and it’s far from obvious whether that logical trend can easily be turned. But there’s also another key aspect. The most vociferous official criticism of the genocide in Gaza, now extended to the West Bank, has come from that part of the world, with Colombia’s Petro going to the laudable extent of breaking off diplomatic and trade ties with Israel. They will no doubt be restored under his reactionary successor.
That, too, threatens to become a continent-wide trend. It should come as no surprise that the level of hasbara exposed in the Honduras-gate leaks is merely a small example of what Israel’s influence operations are striving for in a region that is not its backyard. But having an overbearing godfather in the zone is obviously an advantage. Zionist lobby groups across the continent have deployed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s absurd definition of antisemitism to legally entrap critics of the Israeli genocide.
America’s interests extend much further. It covets the region’s natural resources and threatens anyone who defends the economic sovereignty of its targets. There’s nothing new in that form of neocolonialism. The only difference is that now there are no holds barred. The emperor is voracious, and doesn’t care if anyone knows it. If his insatiable greed involves assassinating or kidnapping foreign heads of state, so be it. That becomes the new foreign policy.
Who can say when a backlash will decisively emerge against the fascistic trend now rampant in South and Central America, although it eventually must. Across most nations, the divided left should be answerable for its serial woes. In many cases, though, there’s scope for hope that the US/Israeli-aided triumph of the far right will turn out to be short-lived, provided la lucha continua — the struggle carries on.
Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2026
