Thousands of migrants from Central America have made their way to the United States. Out of anger, US President, Trump wants to shorten their countries of origin in money. Experts are warning of a destabilization of the Region.
Migrants storms in Guatemala, a border crossing to Mexico
U.S. President Donald Trump on Twitter is always angry and the caravan of Central American migrants draws unimpressed. Neither massive Police detachments, nor is it a hastily applied commuting for those willing to move back to the Guatemalan-Mexican border have had a far effect. “Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not in the position, your people from your project to stop coming illegally across the US border. We are now going to cut the funds for you radically, or dispense with it entirely,” said Trump on Twitter.
With the threat, he suggested that the U.S. consider Central America as in the days of the Cold war as their backyard, and there, with a mixture of military and economic assistance to their interests intend to enforce. Such threats may in the short term to impress with views of the US mid-term elections Trumps electoral base. In the medium term, it could destabilise the Region, analysts warn.
“The US development aid goes mainly to the Poorest and is a contribution to the containment of Migration,” said the former Salvadoran Ambassador to the US, Rubén Zamora, the DW. “It is an own goal.” However, Trump is also so unpredictable, that one could not be sure whether he makes good on his threat.
US-AIDS are not a big Item
The overall economy of the US aid is not a big Item for Central America. In 2017, the government issued in Washington, $ 500 million for Central America. The Remittances of emigrants to their home to be, however, a multiple thereof. Honduras, for example, received in the previous year, Transfers in the amount of 4.3 billion U.S. dollars.
Economically, the threat of runs so largely into the Void. Politically, Trump – with the exception of El Salvador, of all places, on the chair on the right President, the US saws have diplomats yet courted. The extent to which this is intended, is for Zamora unclear. “Trump has in the short term, the next election,” says the Ex-Ambassador. “A clear Latin American strategy does not seem to be there anymore, which is subject to external policy to his whims.”
Differences to Obama’s policies
Otherwise the Trumps democratic predecessor, Barack Obama was. In the time of his presidency there were in the Latin America policy in a new direction. Drug trafficking and Migration were no longer considered as military-to-solve safety problems, but were classified as social and economic challenges – with a corresponding change in approach.
Obama (2.v.l.) in the year 2014 with the then heads of state of the “Northern triangle” in the White house
So Obama promoted in the politically and economically fragile States of the “Northern triangle” – Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – the development aid Agency, USAID, the United Nations and the churches of programmes for the prevention of crime, rural development and the fight against corruption. This approach was long-term and within the Elite in Washington is controversial. Resistance came especially from the Anti-drugs Agency DEA and the U.S. Department of defense, which viewed with concern how Central America developed in the past decade, the main transshipment point for the smuggling of drugs into the United States.
Support for controversial heads of state
With Trump, the hawks were in the US Administration the upper hand, people like Vice-President Mike Pence and chief of staff, John Kelly, formerly known as commander-in-chief of the Südkommandos of the U.S. armed forces (Southcom) is responsible for the military strategy in Latin America. You try in the driving water of the nationalist and racist discourse under Trump your point of view. Therefore, it takes in Central America’s governments, acting with a heavy Hand, and ideologically in line with the United States, also to stop the growing influence of China in Latin America.
Therefore, the United States supported in Honduras the conservative President, Juan Orlando Hernández, although this could enforce a year before his re-election, but only thanks to a controversial “reinterpretation of the Constitution,” and with the organization of American States (OAS) manipulated the ballot box. In Guatemala, the U.S. government was behind the charges of corruption and illegal campaign financing defendant’s President Jimmy Morales and desavouierte the created by the United Nations Commission against impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). The CICIG was mainly funded by the United States and Europe, and achieved great progress in the fight against corruption and judicial reform. Thus, the Commission was disturbed by the interests of corrupt politicians, entrepreneurs and military with good relations to the US-Republicans, such as Pence and Senator Marco Rubio, froze recently, at the instigation of this Lobby, the US funding for the CICIG.
Under suspicion of corruption, but of the United States of Guatemala President Jimmy Morales supports:
Less leverage there is in El Salvador, which is ruled by the left of the Ex-Guerrilla FMLN and close relations with Venezuela, Cuba and China. However, there will be mixed in February, with early elections on the cards, and the polls suggest a victory for the FMLN. “I wonder what the United States intended to in Central America. New military dictatorships, and thus more violence and new waves of migration?”, Zamora asks.
Mexico between the fronts
Between the chairs Mexico, the traditional transit country for Central American migrants, and at the same time important economic partners of the United States? Already Obama had in mind with the “Plan Frontera Sur” from the year 2014, to extend Mexico an upstream border post – a strategy that Trump followed up and so far has worn quite fruits. Human rights activists complain anyway, Mexico transferred, in the meantime, in some years, more Central Americans than USA.
President-elect Lopez Obrador: opposes Mexico to the United States in the future, more self-confident?
Experts believe that this is a mistake and hope for a change in direction following the change of government in Mexico, where on 1. December, the left-wing nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador assumes the presidency. “Especially with regard to Central America, it is important that Mexico is not in front of the carts of the US security agenda spans, but with the southern neighbours, a regional policy designs, which is also financially independent of the United States,” calls Carlos Heredia from the center for economic research and teaching (CIDE) in Mexico city. “Otherwise incur dependencies and threaten countless problems.”
In the short term, but could be quite useful, the migrants to stop, writes the political scientist Cecilia Soto: “The caravan to allow Trump plays into the hands and could help the Republicans win the mid-term elections. Mexico’s most important goal must be to weaken the Trump and sabotage his re-election. Therefore, it may be wise to stop the caravan, and for the time being, with the help of the UNHCR in the shelters to accommodate.” The question is whether it works.