Within the weeks earlier than he took workplace, Donald J. Trump repeatedly vowed to hold out the biggest deportations in U.S. historical past and to militarize the border, all while his transition team rebuffed requests from regional leaders to fulfill over the results of his promised strikes.
He made nations resembling Mexico targets of his assaults, claiming migrants have been flooding the USA with fentanyl and threatening to implement devastating tariffs. He additionally zeroed in on Panama, repeatedly asserting that the nation had permitted China to take management, compelling the USA to intervene and reclaim the Panama Canal.
In order Mr. Trump was inaugurated in Washington on Monday, the standard congratulatory messages have been additionally accompanied by some from Latin American leaders that deviated sharply from the same old diplomatic norms.
“There isn’t a purpose why Mexico ought to hold its head down or really feel lesser than. We’re a fantastic nation, a cultural energy,” stated President Claudia Sheinbaum throughout her each day morning information convention. “Our relationship with the USA will likely be one in every of equals.”
She additionally tried to reassure unauthorized Mexicans dwelling in the USA who would possibly face elimination. “Mexicans are essential to the U.S. financial system, and the Trump administration is aware of it,” Ms. Sheinbaum stated. “To our countrymen and ladies: You aren’t alone, and you need to stay calm.”
Mexico is the nation with the very best variety of undocumented immigrants in the USA, with round 4 million Mexicans living there without authorization as of 2022, in line with the Pew Analysis Middle.
Mexico’s international minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, additionally stated on Monday that Mexico wouldn’t help the anticipated transfer to reinstate a coverage often called Stay in Mexico, which below the primary Trump presidency pressured migrants making use of for asylum to attend in Mexico till the time of their hearings in immigration courtroom. The coverage was a boon for drug cartel members, who focused asylum seekers to extort, kidnap and rape them, human rights groups say.
“Sure, they’ll do it; it’s their proper,” Mr. de la Fuente stated of the USA. However whereas permitting that “some agreements” may very well be reached, he identified that Mexico had no authorized obligation to course of migrants’ asylum requests for the USA.
Hours later, in a message on social media, Ms. Sheinbaum congratulated Mr. Trump. “As neighbors and buying and selling companions, dialogue, respect and cooperation will at all times be the image of our relationship,” she wrote.
However throughout a marathon session of signing govt orders, Mr. Trump stated Monday that he would slap 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1, accusing each nations, as he has prior to now, of permitting undocumented immigrants and fentanyl into the USA. Ms. Sheinbaum and a few of her administration officers have beforehand stated Mexico would have to hit back on the USA with their very own tariffs.
Following Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, who warned earlier this month that she was ready to expel the U.S. navy from the nation if Mr. Trump pursued mass deportations, restricted herself to sending a well mannered message welcoming him again into workplace.
However the nation’s deputy international minister, Tony García, stated in a phone interview on Monday afternoon that his nation and a number of other of its neighbors didn’t plan to simply accept massive numbers of flights carrying deportees with out first negotiating the method with the incoming administration.
“They’ll’t be carried out unilaterally,” he stated, of mass deportations.
Mr. García stated that whereas there are presently no plans to finish Honduras’s navy settlement with the USA, which allows U.S. operations from a big navy base, the Castro administration remains to be contemplating it as a possible choice, so “they take us extra significantly.”
The international ministers of a number of nations met final week to debate their response to the incoming Trump administration in Mexico Metropolis, together with Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela. In keeping with Mr. García, the nations agreed that they might not “permit anybody to be deported by drive. If a rustic says nobody can are available, not one aircraft can contact down.”
Honduras is estimated to have about 525,000 unauthorized immigrants dwelling in the USA, in line with the Pew Analysis Middle. Mr. García stated it had obtained flights carrying greater than half 1,000,000 deportees from the USA within the final decade. He stated the nation deliberate to proceed receiving such flights, however the two governments needed to work out a plan first.
“We’re in favor of coordination,” he stated. “Not subordination.”
His have been a few of the sharpest phrases for the brand new president.
In Panama, a target of Mr. Trump’s recent criticisms, together with his false claims that China controls the Panama Canal and that the USA ought to take it again, President José Raúl Mulino roundly rejected the president’s assertions, which he repeated throughout his inaugural speech.
“The Canal is and can proceed to belong to Panama and its administration will proceed to be below Panamanian management,” Mr. Mulino said in a statement posted on X.
Nonetheless, later within the day, the Panamanian comptroller’s workplace introduced that auditors had visited the county’s maritime authorities to provoke an audit of Panama Ports Firm, a Hutchison Ports Holding subsidiary. The corporate is a serious ports operator and the nation’s predominant port concessionaire. Additionally it is a part of CK Hutchison Holdings, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate.
“The aim of this exhaustive audit is to make sure the environment friendly and clear use of public assets,” the comptroller’s workplace said.
Mr. Trump’s inaugural tackle — by which he stated he would “repel the disastrous invasion of our nation” — incessantly took goal on the area, as did most of the govt orders he signed Monday evening.
However some leaders reaffirmed their intention to work with the brand new president and help his coverage objectives.
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who has shut ties to Mr. Trump and his household, was invited to the inauguration however didn’t attend, stated Cindy Portal, a Salvadoran senior international ministry official, in a radio interview. As a substitute, the nation was represented by its ambassador to the USA.
Ms. Portal didn’t point out any plans to push again once more deportations of Salvadorans, which additionally make up one of many largest teams of unauthorized immigrants within the nation. El Salvador had 750,000 unauthorized immigrants dwelling in the USA in 2022, in line with the Pew Analysis Middle.
As a substitute, Ms. Portal emphasised the Bukele administration’s ties each to Mr. Trump’s son and Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, who was confirmed Monday evening.
“The message we’re giving Salvadorans as the federal government of El Salvador is to attend and never get forward of ourselves,” she stated. “President Trump has been clear about returning unhealthy individuals who went in to destroy.”
She stated if Salvadorans haven’t dedicated against the law in the USA, they don’t have anything to concern.
Nations within the area which were economically remoted by U.S. sanctions had quite a lot of responses to Mr. Trump’s return to energy and his flurry of orders. Nicaragua’s authorities remained silent, whereas Venezuela’s inside minister wished Mr. Trump “one of the best.”
Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced “the fraudulent designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism,” in a message on social media. “The results of the acute financial siege measures imposed by Trump has been to impress shortages amongst our individuals and a big enhance within the migratory stream from Cuba to the USA,” the assertion stated.
However, in a shift, nations which were shut buying and selling companions of the USA additionally noticed their economies menaced. By late Monday, Mexican leaders had not but responded to Mr. Trump’s tariffs risk. However Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, did.
“Our nation is totally prepared to answer any one in every of these situations,” Mr. LeBlanc stated. “We nonetheless proceed to consider that it will be a mistake.”
Reporting was contributed by Simon Romero, James Wagner and Yubelka Mendoza from Mexico Metropolis; Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Toronto; Genevieve Glatsky from Bogotá, Colombia; Mary Triny Zea from Panama Metropolis; Gabriel Labrador from San Salvador; Jody García from Guatemala Metropolis; and Joan Suazo from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
