When Donald Trump He began his second term on January 20, 2025, making public two convergent obsessions: recovering control of the Panama Canal and Washington’s hegemony south of the Rio Grande. A year and a half laterthe regional political map has accommodated itself to the desires of the Republican magnate. The triumph of the far-right Abelardo de la Espriella in the presidential elections confirms the speed with which South America turns to the rightwith different intensities and with an eye on the US as the main political, economic and military reference. The speed of change is frenetic: 2026 began with the North American operation in Venezuela that led to the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, and, weeks later, the victory in the Chilean polls of the ultra José Antonio Kast.
The wave has spread along the entire Pacific coast. An electoral procedure delays the confirmation of Keiko Fujimori’s victory in the second Peruvian round by very few votes. Now it is Colombia that joins a common ideological bias that also includes the Ecuadorian Daniel Noboa. Bolivia and Paraguay are also partners in the Shield of the Americas that Trump established months ago, displaying his disdain for the Spanish language in a ceremony held in Washington. Of the “other side“Little Uruguay and Brazil remain. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva He knows in advance that he will fight in October for his reelection in the midst of a trend around him that deepens his siege.
Although Latin America’s two largest economies, according to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), remain governed by the left (Brazil y Mexico), the following three have or will be led by extreme right-wing leaders: Argentina, Colombia y Chile.
Next objective: Brazil
De la Espriella has presented himself in the Colombian elections as a outsider who despises traditional politics and boasts of carrying a US passport, which in fact makes him a true insider. His victory encourages Flávio Bolsonaro, who, in the name of the imprisoned father, wants to regain power in Brazil. “Right-wing agendas continue to triumph throughout Americabecause we fight against narco-terrorist organizations, against corruption, against increased taxes and we fight so that our nations are free and prosperous,” he wrote in X as soon as the Colombian results were known.
Bolsonaro Jr had been received in Washington last May by Trump. From there he contacted De la Espriella. Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in the United States, where he is evading a judicial sentence for promoting a campaign against Brazil from that country, joined the video call. The conversation had a clear purpose: the need to constitute a front against the left in a South America which began its transformations in 2023 with the arrival to power in Argentina of Javier Milei. That alliance has just been strengthened. “Defeat of the socialists, supporters of the FARC and of narcoterrorists now in Latin America. The only thing missing is us and Uruguay,” celebrated Eduardo Bolsonaro.
A new axis
The arrival of the millionaire lawyer to the Casa de Nariño promises to have an impact on the Brazilian electoral campaign. De la Espriella reiterated his desire to have the support of Trump and Israel to attack the remnants of the guerrilla and drug trafficking groups with bombings and fumigation of illicit crops in the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Flávio Bolsonaro would like to do the same. Since, at his request, Trump declared “foreign terrorist organizations” to criminal groups PCC and the Red Commandhegemonic in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and expanded in neighboring countries, gained the reputation of being a privileged interlocutor for the Republican billionaire and will try to make it count in the October elections.
Lula has complained to Trump on more than one occasion that refrain from intervening in Brazil’s internal affairs as it has done in Argentina, Honduras and Colombia. Almost no one expects the president of the United States to recant. Washington is very interested in the constitution of an ultra axis that integrates Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. The Union of South American Nations (Unasur), the integration project that Brazilian diplomacy especially promoted at the beginning of the century, would be completely deactivated. Mexico’s regional isolation would be greater without Lula in the Planalto Palace.
Cuba and Venezuela
Regardless of what may happen in the Brazilian elections, Trump and Marco Rubio have an additional obsession: forcing the collapse of the Cuban Government before the end of the year. The situation on the island is dire. Its wide-ranging economic opening depends on North American endorsement. The silence from the White House is thunderous. Trump does not seem to have given up his desire to “conquer” the largest of the Antilles.
Venezuela, meanwhile, remains in political limbo. Since Maduro’s kidnapping and Delcy Rodríguez’s interim administration, it has functioned as a kind of protectorate of the United States. The new reality led Trump to publish a provocative image of that country absorbed by the United States. For the moment, the State Department does not consider it a priority to accelerate the democratic transition and call elections. For him post maturism It would be a feat to retain the Government against an opposition candidacy backed by the White House. The unpopularity pre-existing on January 3 and the desire of important sectors of society to turn the page invite analysts to imagine Venezuela joining this regional agreement sooner rather than later, to the extent that it is consolidated.
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