future bully
Anti-yanqui feeling is in remission in Latin America. Could Donald Trump revive it?
“YOU are the United States, you are the future invader of the guileless America of Indian blood, which still prays to Jesus Christ and still speaks Spanish.” So goes the ode “To Roosevelt” of 1904 by Rubén Darío, a Nicaraguan writer. His poem was occasioned by the seizure of Cuba and Puerto Rico by the United States in the Spanish-American war of 1898, in which Theodore Roosevelt played a minor role that helped him win the presidency, and by his subsequent grabbing of Panama, a province of Colombia.
Darío was prescient: in the next three decades there would be more than 30 military interventions by the United States in the Caribbean basin, in the name of what Roosevelt called “the exercise of an international police power”. These events, and the asymmetry of power and wealth that underlay them, gave rise to an enduring tradition of anti-Americanism (or “anti-yanquismo”, since “América” to Spanish-speakers means the entire land mass). In recent times this has been identified with the left—with Fidel Castro of Cuba, the late Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia. But there is a conservative, Hispanicist strain of anti-Americanism, too, expressed by Darío and others, which claims a superiority of culture and values for Latin America in the face of the bullying and vulgar materialism of the United States.
America has been to dispel anti-Americanism. From the outset of his presidency he said he wanted “an equal partnership” in the Americas. His boldest stroke was the diplomatic opening to Cuba, which was applauded by both left and right across Latin America. And on issues such as Venezuela’s crushing of democracy, the United States has sought to work through partners in the region, though without conspicuous success.
Mr Obama has had an impact in regional opinion. When he was elected in 2008 only 58% of respondents to Latinobarómetro, a region-wide poll, had a positive view of the United States. This year that figure was 74%. Governments’ attitudes have changed, too. Chávez and Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner have departed. Brazil’s new government does not place the hopes that its predecessor did in “south-south” ties. Across Latin America, many governments are now seeking to draw closer to the United States.
That means Latin Americans are especially alarmed by the prospect of Donald Trump occupying the White House. Along with Canada, as neighbours of the United States they have more to lose than anyone else from Mr Trump’s protectionist nationalism. Many Latin Americans see him as a racist who derides “the guileless America of Indian blood”, in Darío’s words. Latin American commentators see in Mr Trump a likeness to the region’s own populist leaders, such as Chávez. Some fear that his advent would prompt a revival of anti-Americanism in the region just when it was going into remission.
In fact, responses are likely to be more considered. Take Mexico. Polls suggest that some 85% of Mexicans abhor Mr Trump. But they also suggest that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a populist leftist hopeful for the 2018 election, who is in some ways a mirror image of Mr Trump, is not profiting from this anger. A poll by Reforma, a newspaper, found support for Mr López Obrador stable at around 28% in August. It is Margarita Zavala, a pro-American conservative, who has received a bounce. “If you have the biggest bully in the world across the border perhaps you don’t want your own bully” but rather a “softer style of leadership”, says Juan Pardinas of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think-tank.
Mr Trump’s effect on Cuba, if he carries out his threat to annul Mr Obama’s diplomatic opening, might be different. That could remove any hope that the transition to a post-Castro leadership, which is due to start in 2018, will involve a loosening of political control. And it is hard to know what will guide Mr Trump’s approach to Latin America. His name is on businesses in Brazil, Panama and Uruguay, and has been linked to other ventures in the region.
Although a President Trump’s blustering and protectionism would prompt anger and disappointment, they are more likely to be met in today’s Latin America with calm rationality than to be copied. Both Mexico and Brazil have experience of responding successfully to American violations of trade rules, for example on cotton, with sanctions targeted for maximum political effect in the United States. Latin American governments are anti-Trump, but that won’t necessarily make them anti-American.
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