By William Camacaro

New York

One of the casualties of Washington’s get-tough immigration policy is the plight of children separated by U.S. authorities from their parents. The political party of “family values” has caused needless trauma for these migrant children and round the clock anxiety for parents desperately waiting to be reunited with their loved ones. 

The Venezuelan government, which has a longstanding policy–vuelta a la patria–of assisting the repatriation of their citizens– has reported that at least 66 children have been illegally held  in the United States since their parents were deported to Venezuela. At this writing the author has been unable to obtain information as to their circumstances or whereabouts. 

The most well-known case of a Venezuelan child held in the U.S. after her mother was deported is that of a two-year-old girl, Maikelys Espinoza. After an international campaign brought her plight to light, the United States repatriated Maikelys to Caracas on May 14, 2025 returning her to her mother’s embrace. Today, families’ pleas for the return of their children recall her story and have stirred the sympathy of the Venezuelan public.

This situation recalls the case of Cuban citizen Elián González, who, as a child, was known as “the raft boy,” and found himself at the center of a major international incident in 2000. He was found adrift on an inner tube after the boat carrying him, his mother, and other migrants en route from Cuba to the United States capsized. The child’s custody became the subject of a dispute between his father in Cuba (who was offered money by the U.S. to come and live here) and his relatives in Miami. The case caused an international uproar, filled with legal and media battles between Cuban and North American authorities. He was finally reunited with his father on June 28, 2000. Today Elián is a leading voice for resistance to more than a half a century of economic warfare waged by Washington against the Caribbean island.

The present case is also fraught with political complications. Given Washington’s antipathy toward the Bolivarian revolution, President Maduro’s administration has been under relentless attack since 2013, having to endure threats of direct military intervention, fanciful accusations of drug trafficking, and a previously unheard-of bounty of $50 million for the arrest of  Venezuela’s president. Despite these threats, Caracas has remained steadfast in defending Venezuelan migrants and seeking the return of all of the children who are being held in the United States against the will of their families.

So far, 21 children have been repatriated to Venezuela. This is in addition to the 252 Venezuelan migrants who were deported by the United States to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador and released on July 18 after a humanitarian exchange. According to government official Camilla Fabri Saab, Deputy Minister of International Communication of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry and leader of the campaign to bring the children home, more than 10,631 Venezuelan migrants have been repatriated so far this year.

Each day that these children are separated from their families robs them of parental love during their formative years. For both the minors and their families time is of the essence. Accordingly, Caracas persists in demanding that they be reunited with their families, calling demonstrations and orchestrating a broad media campaign across official outlets.

A group of parents has issued the following open letter addressed to the First Lady, Melania Trump

Open Letter Page 1

Open Letter Page 2

Open Letter Page 3

William Camacaro is a  Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He is a co-founder of  the Venezuela solidarity network and holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York. He has published in the Monthly Review, Counterpunch, COHA, the Afro-America Magazine, Ecology, Orinoco Tribune and other venues. He has organized delegations to Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

Banner Photo: Credit – María Isabel Batista/Ultimas Noticias

Photo: Elián González, Reunited with his father in Cuba. Credit – Granma

By William Camacaro

New York

The Bolivian political landscape is currently characterized by a deep, self-inflicted crisis within the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) which has culminated in a devastating electoral defeat yesterday. As the country approached the crucial presidential elections of August 17, 2025, the party’s leaders—specifically former President Evo Morales and President Luis Arce Catacora—engaged in a series of personal attacks and internal conflicts that paved the way for their own defeat. This political irresponsibility, driven by ambitions and factionalism, has enabled the return to power of the very right-wing forces that the MAS struggled for years to overcome.

This right-wing victory poses a significant threat to progressive governance, both in Bolivia and regionally. The presidential race featured prominent opposition figures such as Samuel Doria Medina, a billionaire businessman and member of the Socialist International. He immediately conceded defeat in the first round and endorsed Rodrigo Paz Pereira, a Social-Christian senator and son of former Bolivian President Jaime Paz Zamora. The senator has since mentioned the possibility of reforming the Plurinational Constitution, which has been a bedrock of the long process of decolonization. Another candidate, Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who finished second, has vowed to continue to the second round on October 19 in his quest to become president. He is a neoliberal ally of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, as well as an associate of prominent right-wing figures in the region, including María Corina Machado of Venezuela, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, Dina Boluarte of Peru, and Javier Milei of Argentina, forming a broad front against the Latin American left.

The left’s defeat was self-inflicted. On one side was Andrónico Rodríguez, an indigenous leader of the Chapare coca growers’ movement. Despite being a protégé of Evo Morales, he was branded a “traitor” by some Morales supporters for launching his own presidential candidacy with his fledgling political party, Popular Unity, following Morales’s controversial disqualification of his candidacy. The other leftist candidate was Eduardo del Castillo, the official candidate of the MAS, a former minister favored by the Arce government. The nomination of Del Castillo, a white man, in a country with an indigenous majority was a political mistake that made him an unviable candidate for the party’s core demographic.

The political consequences of this electoral loss are likely to be dire. Candidate Samuel Doria Medina has already stated, when endorsing the first-round winner, that political prisoners must be released. This paves the way for the resurgence of figures like Jeanine Áñez, whom Bolivian prosecutors charged with  command responsibility, during her interim presidency, for the murder of dozens of  indigenous people during protests in defense of democracy, and Luis Fernando Camacho, who was the architect of the coup d’état and responsible for the brutal repression of indigenous people during their resistance against the Áñez dictatorship in 2019.

A central factor in this crushing defeat is the dramatic division within the MAS itself. Just five years ago, the party secured 55% of the votes; today, divided, its two main candidates obtained a combined 11.3% of the electoral vote. This leaves indigenous communities facing three far-right parties, all of which are more or less neoliberal. All of them seek to reform the constitution and privatize state-owned enterprises, and indigenous people are very likely to lose the social gains they have achieved in recent years. Candidate Quiroga has already stated that “land is not communal; land always has one owner,” and some leaders of the opposition have announced the possible political persecution and imprisonment of some MAS leaders. Rodrigo Paz and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga will be running in the second round. The right-wing victory in Bolivia is not simply a change of government; it heralds a return to colonial hierarchies of domination.

This internal conflict is especially tragic given the historical importance of the MAS. The party’s rise to power under the leadership of Evo Morales represented a revolutionary “process of change” that, for the first time in Bolivian history, allowed indigenous people to access the highest levels of government. Before this change, indigenous people suffered systemic discrimination, including being prohibited from entering official state buildings, such as Congress, while wearing their traditional clothing or speaking their native languages. The MAS was more than just a political party; it was an instrument of political and social liberation for a long-marginalized population, founded on a progressive agenda and led by indigenous peoples.

As Evo Morales was disqualified from running for office and expelled from the MAS, the infighting among party  leaders managed to undermine the party’s prospects of remaining in power. Evo Morales’s former vice president, Álvaro García Linera, stated to the BBC that the parties were “looking for ways to gain advantage in their battle against the other. Luis Arce is fighting to prevent Evo Morales from being a candidate. Evo Morales seeks to weaken Luis Arce to enable his candidacy.” 

In addition to the mutual accusations between Evo and President Arce, the leaders of the MAS in the Plurinational Congress, worked to torpedo the economic management of the president’s government. And of course, Evo Morales’ call to his followers to vote null was politically suicidal. It must be made clear that this is not a defeat for socialism; it is a defeat caused by divisions within the revolutionary ranks and instigated by the Bolivian mainstream media and elements of the corporate sector in Santa Cruz and the United States.

It is likely that Washington took advantage of  the divisions within MÁS leading up to this electoral disaster. The U.S. had backed the coup against Evo Morales in 2019. In 2024, a leaked audio recording of the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. embassy in La Paz confirmed the existence of a U.S. plan to intervene in Bolivia’s political affairs to undermine the process of change (proceso de cambio). Minister Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in La Paz,  Debra Hevia said: 

“We have been working for a long time to achieve change in Bolivia. Time is of the essence for us, but for it to be a real change, Evo and Arce have to leave power and close that chapter. From now on, we are going to get more involved with our embassy to strengthen our allies, organizations, and collaborators. For example, our government has always offered scholarships in Bolivia, and now we are going to offer even more because young people are our agents of change and are very, very important.” 

Despite foreign meddling, it was internal divisions within the MAS that led to the alienation of the base and the resulting electoral outcome. María Soledad, a sociologist and activist from Cochabamba, affirms that what happened is a real tragedy:  

“Evo Morales and Luis Arce Catacora dedicated themselves to squandering and exhausting in three years all the strength accumulated over decades of political work by thousands of Bolivians. Now, a very long period of reconstruction will begin in a country where indigenous people are despised for their condition. The only positive thing is that this is not a start from scratch, because this country will never return to what it was before the process of change.”

The only way for the Bolivian left to recuperate the path of decolonization and the democratic participation of indigenous peoples is to re-establish the unity among the progressive grassroot movements. 

On December 8, 2012, in his last live televised speech, President Hugo Chávez spoke to the Venezuelan people. Shortly after this event, Chávez traveled to Cuba for medical treatment and passed away on March 5, 2013. In that speech, President Chávez said:

“Patriots of Venezuela, men and women, with a knee to the ground – Unity, Unity, Unity of the patriots. There is no scarcity of those who want to take advantage of difficult junctures to continue their efforts to restore neoliberal capitalism and to destroy the homeland. They won’t be able to succeed. No matter how great the difficulties that face us, no matter how serious, the responsibility of all patriots, revolutionaries, those who feel the homeland to the core . . .  is unity, struggle, battle, and victory!”

Banner Photo Credit: Radio Kawsachun Coca

William Camacaro is a  Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He is a co-founder of  the Venezuela solidarity network and holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York. He has published in the Monthly Review, Counterpunch, COHA, the Afro-America Magazine, Ecology, Orinoco Tribune and other venues. He has organized delegations to Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

By William Camacaro

New York

Since the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998 Washington has waged a relentless war against the Bolivarian revolution. The Trump administration continues to deploy political, economic and military measures aimed at the overthrow of Venezuela’s government and the reversal of advances in regional independence and integration: the two pillars of the Bolivarian cause. At the present juncture, it is critically important to make no mistake about Washington’s duplicitous policy towards the Maduro administration of simultaneous negotiation and intensifying aggression. This aggression is not a mere show to placate the Trump administration’s hard line anti-Chavista allies in Miami; it is an imminent threat to Venezuela’s national security and part of a strategy to recuperate U.S. domination of the Americas. 

On June 12, 2024, newspapers astonishingly published Donald Trump’s incredibly candid opinion: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken all the oil.” This is why it comes as no surprise when Miami-based Venezuelan opposition journalist Carla Angola comments that Donald Trump is interested in having absolute control of Venezuela’s oil reserves. She adds that the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado is promising the United States government absolute control of these natural resources, not because this radical sector of the Venezuelan opposition is interested in managing them, but rather in privatizing them.

Orchestrating Regime Change in Venezuela

The threat to Venezuelan security is no exaggeration. Last week Venezuelan intelligence discovered three kilograms of TNT planted in Caracas’s Plaza de la Victoria, a location of significant public importance. Officials said the bomb, which was found near gas pipelines,could have caused catastrophic destruction and an incalculable loss of life. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced that a coordinated investigation with several security agencies successfully dismantled this plot, revealing a sinister connection between far-right opposition elements and their international allies.

This terrorist plot cannot be written off as an isolated incident. Washington is pulling out all the stops to prepare public opinion for new acts of aggression by portraying President Nicolas Maduro, through U.S. corporate media, as a narcotrafficker with a price on his head. 

The most recent and series of  attacks against the Bolivarian Revolution began with a press release by  the U.S. Treasury Department on July 25 of this year. Titled “Treasury Sanctions Venezuelan Cartel Headed by Maduro,” the release designated the so-called “Cartel of the Suns” as a terrorist entity and named President Maduro as its head. It further pointed to his alleged relationships with both the Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, and accused them of being “violent narco-terrorists.” A few days later President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to prepare options for the possible use of U.S. military force against drug cartels designated as terrorist organizations  authorizing military intervention in countries with drug trafficking. This came weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being the head of the “Cartel of the Suns.” In a further escalation, Rubio stated that the recent designation of the “Cartel of the Suns” as a “terrorist organization” now provides a pretext for Washington to use military and intelligence tools against Maduro and his allies. 

All of these accusations sound very ominous, but there is no evidence for them. This narco-mythology is viewed by some political analysts as political cover for eventual attacks on not only Venezuela but also its regional allies like Nicaragua, Cuba, and Bolivia. For this reason Venezuelan security forces have issued strong statements of loyalty and defiance in the face of threats from the North.The Trump administration is doubling a reward to $50 million for the arrest of President Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest drug traffickers and working with cartels to flood the U.S. with fentanyl-laced cocaine. Historically, rewards of this magnitude for political leaders are rare. The first similar historical case was the reward for the apprehension of Pancho Villa after his raid on Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916. The reward for Pancho Villa was $5,000, while a smaller reward of $1,000 was offered for his lieutenants. More recently, the State Department formalized its “Rewards for Justice” program in 1984. Its first high-profile case was Manuel Noriega of Panama in 1989, accused of drug trafficking. The reward for Saddam Hussein in 2003 was $25 million.

Drug trafficking ruse for U.S. intervention

Washington demonstrates its contempt for the people of the Global South by treating their presidents as pawns, making accusations without any evidence, and imposing unilateral and illegal sanctions against those who resist imperial domination. This latest bizarre accusation should remind us of the allegations of the existence of weapons of mass destruction that served as an excuse to destroy Iraq, murder a million people, displace thousands from their homes, and deprive the nation of control over their natural resources.

The hypocrisy of the narco-mythology could not be more blatant. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has publicly supported former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, particularly in the context of Uribe’s recent conviction for witness tampering and bribery. Rubio’s statements have drawn criticism from some who view it as interference in Colombia’s judicial system. Rubio’s defense of the former Colombian president is nonetheless troubling given that the same entity he leads designated Alvaro Uribe in 1991 as a major drug trafficker, a member of the cartel of Medellin and a personal friend of Pablo Escobar. .

Colombian President Gustavo Petro affirmed that his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, has backed the fight against drug trafficking on the border and that this “support has been forceful and must continue.” Petro warned last Sunday that a military operation against Venezuela without the approval of “brother countries” would be an act of aggression against Latin America and the Caribbean. 

There have also been a series of strong pronouncements from Tegucigalpa, Havana, Managua, La Paz and the Caribbean countries against this designation that seeks to stigmatize the Bolivarian Revolution. After the US attorney general accused the Venezuelan president of working with the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded, “Mexico has no investigation under way and no proof that Maduro is linked to the Sinaloa Cartel.” 

The statements by Secretary of State Rubio and Attorney General Pamela Bondi are extremely ridiculous, especially considering that the U.S. has been engaged in a “war on drugs” in Colombia for over 50 years.  Since the 1990s, this war has resulted in over 450,000 deaths. Far from diminishing drug production, this war has seen Colombia become the world’s largest drug producer.

It is notable that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its most comprehensive annual report on the subject, the 2023 World Drug Report, states that Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are the main cocaine producers. The same report identifies Australia, New Zealand, US, and Spain as the largest cocaine consumers worldwide. Curiously, Venezuela is not mentioned in any of these reports, neither as a producer nor as a major consumer.

At a press conference on August 9, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello reported that a foiled plot was sponsored by “narco-gangs” of the far-right Venezuelan opposition, in direct coordination with the US government. The plot involved a criminal group from the Zulia region, led by Francisco Javier Linol, and a representative from Colombia’s Guajira Cartel. The authorities arrested José Daniel García, who confessed to being offered $20,000 to carry out the attack. This confession led to the capture of 13 other individuals in Venezuela and an additional suspect in Colombia. 

Cabello’s said “This proves the ties between narco-paramilitarism, the fascist far-right, and the U.S. government… It confirms the script we’ve long warned about.” This underscores the Venezuelan government’s perspective that these are not isolated incidents but part of a larger, orchestrated plan. Two days later, in Monagas state, Cabello displayed a new, massive cache of explosives, including various types of explosives and electric detonators, found in boxes inside a warehouse.

History of US attacks on the Bolivarian Revolution

These actions are paralleled by diplomatic attacks. On August 6th of this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS), an organization from which Venezuela withdrew, launched a virulent attack on Venezuelan democracy. The Rapporteur on the Rights of Afro-Descendants, Gloria Monique de Mees, accused the government of a systematic violation of human rights and the imprisonment of more than 900 political prisoners. This accusation, coming a day before the foiled attack and Rubio’s militaristic rhetoric, adds another layer of coordinated pressure and raises questions about the political motivations behind such reports.

Since its inception in 1998, the Bolivarian Revolution has endured a large number of attacks. The first major blow was the 2002 coup d’état against the elected leader Hugo Chávez. This coup, which was widely celebrated by the corporate media, was ultimately reversed thanks to the massive public support that saw people take to the streets, risking their lives to defend the constitution and demand Chávez’s return to power. This was an unprecedented situation in Latin American history. The celebratory tone of the US media at the time is revealing. For example,the New York Times initially welcomed his removal before being forced to retract its triumphant narrative just a day later when Chávez was reinstated. Shortly after, at the end of that year and beginning of 2003, a brutal oil strike occurred, causing losses of billions of dollars.

After President Nicolás Maduro assumed the presidency, the attacks evolved into multiple hybrid forms, including assassination attempts. One of the most audacious was a drone attack on August 4, 2018, during a live-streamed military event in Caracas. Two drones loaded with explosives were detonated near the platform where Maduro was speaking. This event set a grim precedent as the first assassination attempt using commercial drones against a head of state.

In 2019, a virtually unknown congressman named Juan Guaidó swore himself in as interim president of Venezuela with the immediate support of the U.S. and the European community. This was followed in 2020 by another attack on Venezuelan democracy through a mercenary invasion known as “Operation Gideon.” 

Following the 2024 presidential elections, rioters ( comanditos ), some with firearms, took to the streets to demand foreign intervention, leading to small skirmishes in Caracas. The attacks against the Bolivarian Revolution are innumerable, and what has been truly amazing is its capacity to resist and reinvent itself in the face of every challenge.

Current threat

Despite this history of attacks, there is a belief among some supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution that relations with the U.S. are improving. They point to dialogue and the continued operation of Chevron in Venezuela as evidence of an evolving more cooperative relationship. The reality is that it is in Washington’s interest to maintain a foothold in the Venezuelan oil business. 

The Trump administration, however, has so far carried out only symbolic actions at détente. Concrete actions would involve dismantling the sanctions and eliminating the bounty on the president and members of his cabinet. They are not going to eliminate them. They do not want Venezuela to stand on its own two feet. The talks underway between Washington and Caracas do not preclude an attack on the constitutional government of Venezuela..

The proximity and interconnectedness of these events—the terrorist plots in Caracas and Maturín, the alleged links to Colombian paramilitary forces and the Venezuelan far-right, and the explicit threats from the United States—serve as a grave warning. 

For Venezuela and its supporters, these incidents are not coincidental; they represent a coordinated effort to destabilize the nation through a combination of domestic terrorism, international political pressure, and the looming threat of military intervention. The government’s successful dismantling of these plots has, for now, averted major disasters, but it also confirms the ongoing and complex nature of the threats facing the country.

The Bolivarian Revolution is a project of Latin American integration that represents the search for social justice; it is a project of liberation. Washington commits a huge injustice by deploying more than a thousand unilateral and coercive measures against Venezuela, as these only bring hardship and death to the nation’s most humble citizens.  

It is essential to reflect on the fate of Augusto Sandino, who, after leading a 21-year guerrilla war against the U.S. military occupation of Nicaragua, successfully expelled foreign forces from his homeland. A revered revolutionary and emblem of anti-imperialist resistance, Sandino was tragically assassinated by the Somoza regime shortly after initiating a dialogue with representatives of the North American government, following a dinner at the national palace—a dinner with the enemy.

Photo Credit: VTV

William Camacaro is a  Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He is a co-founder of the Bolivarian Circle of New York “Alberto Lovera” a holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York. He has published in the Monthly Review, Counterpunch, COHA, the Afro-America Magazine, Ecology, Orinoco Tribune and other venues. He has organized delegations to Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

By John Perry and Roger D. Harris

By escalating deportations, ending humanitarian protections, and cutting remittances, Trump’s immigration policy threatens to destabilize Latin American economies and exacerbate humanitarian crises. Ironically, this might trigger a new wave of migration.

The economic importance of Latinos living and working in the US is enormous: if they were in a separate country, it would be the world’s fifth largest economy, bigger than even India. President Trump is recklessly attacking Latino migrants, inflicting calculated cruelty and disregarding the consequences for their home countries.

Disastrously, US immigration policy affects the very victims of Washington’s destabilization campaigns in Latin America and Caribbean, which drive people to leave their homelands in the first place. In effect, by exporting hardship, the hegemon paradoxically ends up importing immigrants. First Washington sanctions states based in part on allegations that they violate human rights. Then, the US contradicts itself by claiming those very sanctioned countries are deemed safe enough for deportation. 

Further, implementation is selective, privileging right-wing allies and punishing progressive states. The economic fallout from reduced remittances and mass deportations is not only politically opportunistic but has grave humanitarian consequences.  

Take the case of Haiti, which Human Rights Watch says is on the “edge of collapse.” Armed gangs control most of the capital, over a million Haitians have been displaced and there is acute food insecurity. The State Department’s travel advisory puts Haiti at its highest level of risk (level 4): avoid traveling there because gun crime is “common” and kidnapping is “widespread.” 

Yet, over at Homeland Security, Haiti is declared “safe” for people to return. Secretary Kristi Noem wants to force 348,000 Haitians who have temporary protected status (TPS) and another 211,000 who have humanitarian parole to leave for what Black Agenda Radio describes as “a country in turmoil.” 

Migrants – a threat worse than communism to nativist America

Under President Biden, Washington’s ideology-driven immigration policy led to the “humanitarian parole” program. Citizens of the targeted countries – Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela – were said to be “fleeing communism” and warranted preferential treatment. Trump has ended the parole scheme for those countries and the TPS protection for Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (Cubans never had TPS protection), yet their revolutionary governments now suffer even tougher US coercive economic measures than those imposed during the Biden administration.

Come Trump’s second term, US immigration policy sharply limits the pathways for Cubans to enter the US legally. Over a half a million Cubans in the US lost their status and work permission with the termination of humanitarian parole. Visa restrictions limit family, student, and visitor entry. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now allowed to deport Cubans and other migrants to countries other than their own, with as little as six hours’ notice. Meanwhile US-Cuba bilateral immigration talks are indefinitely suspended. 

Trump’s malice against Cuba – a nation already teetering under the six-decade illegal US blockade – is causing a mounting humanitarian crisis. Tightening the economic embargo followed further restrictions on foreign investment and expanded sanctions. Biden’s earlier attempts to strangle the Cuban economy cut remittances sent by migrants from about $800 million in 2019 to just $35 million by May 2024. Trump’s new measures could sever the lifeline completely. Cuba is, of course, now looking to the BRICS countries, and specifically China, as alternative sources of investment and support.

Meanwhile Nicaragua, which has 93,000 in the parole scheme and about 4,000 under TPS, is deemed “safe enough” for its citizens to return home, according to US Homeland Security: 

“Nicaragua has become a worldwide tourist destination, while also promoting sustainability and revitalizing local communities. Technological innovation is empowering local farmers and fishers, making the agriculture industry more competitive and profitable… Nicaragua continues to show stable macroeconomic fundamentals, including a record-high $5 billion in foreign reserves, a sustainable debt load, and a well-capitalized banking sector.”

No one seems to have told Kristi Noem that her cabinet colleague Marco Rubio regards Nicaragua as an “enemy of humanity.” His officials briefed the New York Times that the country was “perilous for tourists.” 

Last month, President Daniel Ortega reassured Nicaraguans that the country’s “doors are open,” urging them to leave the “terror” of the US. Nicaraguan Eddy García, who along with 77 others arrived on a deportation flight in February, said that they were welcomed by officials, given refreshments and then offered transport home: “I’m extremely happy to be back because now no one is going to throw me out.” 

Opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government have, until Trump’s shift in policy, argued that an “unprecedented wave” of migrants fled the country as a result of government “repression” following the failed coup attempt in 2018. Opposition figures are struggling to explain why, if this were the case, so few Nicaraguans are being sent back. In the six months until June, they accounted for less than one percent of the 239,000 migrants deported. 

Another political shift has been the marked hostility to Venezuelan migrants. By the end of Biden’s term, over half a million Venezuelans had been accepted under TPS and 117,000 given “humanitarian parole.” Under Trump, these Venezuelans are denounced for “invading” the US. Some are even accused of being affiliated to the violent Tren de Aragua gang, a dubious claim which, Trump baselessly asserted, is directed by Nicolas Maduro’s government. 

Meanwhile, US-Venezuela talks on migration continue. The Venezuelan government, for its part, has welcomed returning migrants under its “Return to the Homeland Plan.” The US deported over 200 Venezuelans, dubiously linked to gangs, to El Salvador where they were incarcerated and tortured in the infamous CECOT prison. They have recently been freed thanks to a prisoner exchange agreement between Washington and Caracas. Caracas’s other priority is to reunite children, thrust into foster care in the US, back with their deported Venezuelan parents. 

Driven out by ICE

Apart from the prospect of being dispatched to one of El Salvador’s notorious prisons or  being abandoned to an unknown fate in a remote country like South Sudan, thousands of Latino migrants are leaving the US on their own in the face of escalating threats from ICE.

Wilfredo, from the city of Masaya, Nicaragua, had voluntarily flown back from Miami with two others. Many more Nicaraguans were on the same flight anxious to leave, he told us, before ICE officials kidnapped them, took all their belongings and put them, handcuffed, on deportation flights. “The ‘American Dream’ has become a nightmare,” he said.

Even long-time naturalized citizens in the US are terrorized. In liberal Marin County, CA, Venezuelan-born Claudia now takes her passport with her whenever she leaves the house for fear of being seized. It’s happened already to other naturalized citizens. 

Costa Rica and Panama were persuaded by Trump to accept around 500 deported asylum seekers from third countries as diverse as Iran, Cameroon and Vietnam. These migrants are now in limbo, receive little assistance and – in most cases – are unable to speak Spanish. They have been pressured to accept repatriation flights to their home countries but many face persecution if they do so. 

Duplicitous immigration policy

The treatment of migrants from most Latin American countries contrasts sharply with Washington’s approach towards El Salvador. It has 174,000 citizens living in the US with TPS and – like Haiti – this protection was offered after the country suffered severe earthquake damage. However, El Salvador has been conveniently judged as “unable” to accept the return of so many of its citizens; their TPS continues. 

Despite the supposedly unsafe conditions used to justify TPS, the State Department downgraded the risk of travel to El Salvador to its lowest level, ranking it as one of the safest countries in Latin America. “Just got the US State Department’s travel gold star: Level 1: safest it gets,” Bukele boasted.

Remittances from the country’s estimated 1.4 million migrants in the US provided El Salvador with a vital 23.5% of its national income in 2022. Bukele’s White House visits, hosting Marco Rubio at his home and, above all, incarcerating migrants on behalf of the US – along with groveling before Trump – paid off. But it has also evoked the indignation of human rights defenders both in the US and throughout the region.

In a further attack on migrants, Trump is hitting them with new taxes on the remittances they send, which provide 23% of Central America’s GDP. Migrants struggling for survival are taxed in this way while the wealthy can move money abroad – through bank wires, investment accounts, shell companies, and real estate purchases – without similar penalties.

Many Latin American economies will be further strained by a combination of falling remittances, returning migrants who initially lack jobs, and, in some cases, harsher economic sanctions. Meanwhile, their exports to the US are being hit by new tariffs. Trump appears to be exacerbating the economic conditions that drove many migrants north under his predecessor’s administration.

Banner Photo: Credit VTV (https://www.vtv.gob.ve/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/MIGRA.png)

Nicaragua-based John Perry is with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and writes for the Grayzone, London Review of Books, FAIR, and CovertAction. Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas, the US Peace Council, and the Venezuela Solidarity Network.

By Roger D. Harris and John Perry

With the Trump imperium passing the half-year mark, the posture of the US empire is ever clearer. Whether animated by “America First” or globalism, the objective remains “full spectrum dominance.” And now with the neocon capture of the Democrats, there are no guardrails from the so-called opposition party.

Call it the “new cold war,” the “beginning of World War III,” or – in Trump’s words – “endless war”– this is the era that the world has entered. The US/Zionist war against Iran has paused, but no one has any illusions that it is over. And it won’t likely be resolved until one side decisively and totally prevails. Ditto for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Likely the same with Palestine, where Israel is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, since Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” the empire is building up for war with China.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the empire’s drive for world hegemony assumes a hybrid form. The carnage is less apparent because the weapons take the form of “soft power” – sanctions, tariffs, and deportations. These can have the same lethal consequences as bombs, only less overt. 

Making the world unsafe for socialism

Some Western leftists vilify the defensive measures that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua must take to protect themselves from the empire’s regime-change schemes. In contrast, Washington clearly understands that these countries pose “threats of a good example” to the empire. Each subsequent US president, from Obama on, has certified them as “extraordinary threats to US national security.” Accordingly, they are targeted with the harshest coercive measures. 

In this war of attrition, historian Isaac Saney uses the example of Cuba to show how any misstep by the revolutionary government or deficiency within society is exaggerated and weaponized. The empire’s siege, he explains, is not merely an attempt to destabilize the economy but is a deliberate strategy of suffocation. The empire’s aim is to incite internal discontent, distort people’s image of the government, and ultimately dismantle social gains. 

While Cuba is affected worst by the hybrid war, both Venezuela and Nicaragua have also been damaged. All three countries have seen “humanitarian parole” for their migrants in the US ended. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was also withdrawn for Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. The strain of returning migrants along with cuts in the remittances they had been sending (amounting to a quarter of Nicaragua’s GDP) further impact their respective economies. 

Higher-than-average tariffs are threatened on Venezuelan and Nicaraguan exports to the US, together with severe restrictions on Caracas’s oil exports. Meanwhile, the screws have been tightened on the six-decade US blockade of Cuba with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

However, all three countries are fighting back. They are forming new trade alliances with China and elsewhere. Providing relief to Cuba, Mexico has supplied oil and China is installing solar panel farms to address the now daily losses of electrical power. High levels of food security in Venezuela and Nicaragua have strengthened their ability to resist US sanctions, while Caracas successfully dealt a blow to one of Washington’s harshest migration measures by securing the release of 252 of its citizens who had been incarcerated in El Salvador’s torturous CECOT prison.

Venezuela’s US-backed far-right opposition is in disarray. The first Trump administration had recognized the “interim presidency” of Juan Guaidó, followed by the Biden administration declaring Edmundo González winner of Venezuela’s last presidential election. But the current Trump administration has yet to back González, de facto recognizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. 

Nicaragua’s right-wing opposition is also reeling from a side-effect of Trump’s harsh treatment of migrants – many are returning voluntarily to a country claimed by the opposition to be “unsafe,” while US Homeland Security has even extolled their home country’s recent achievements. And some of Trump’s prominent Cuban-American supporters are now questioning his “maximum pressure” campaign for going too far.

Troubled waters for the Pink Tide

The current progressive wave, the so-called Pink Tide, was initiated by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in 2018. His MORENA Party successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won by an even greater margin in 2024. Mexico’s first woman president has proven to be perhaps the world’s most dignified and capable sparring partner with a U.S. president  who has threatened tariffs, deportations, military interventions and more on his southern neighbor. 

Left-leaning presidents Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia are limited to single terms. Both have faced opposition-aligned legislatures and deep-rooted reactionary power blocs. Chilean Communist Party candidate Jeanette Jara is favored to make it through their first-round presidential election in November 2025, but will face a challenging final round if the right unifies, as is likely, around an extremist candidate. 

As the first non-rightist in Colombia’s history, Petro has had a tumultuous presidential tenure. He credibly accuses his former foreign minister of colluding with the US to overthrow him. However, the presidency could well revert to the right in the May 2026 elections.

Boric, Petro, Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met in July as the region’s center-left presidents, with an agenda of dealing with Trump, promoting multilateralism and keeping their distance from the region’s more left-wing governments. 

With shaky popularity ratings, Lula will likely run for reelection in October 2026. As head of the region’s largest economy, Lula plays a world leadership role, chairing three global summits in a year. Yet with less than majority legislative backing, Lula has triangulated between Washington and the Global South, often capitulating to US interests (as in his veto of BRICS membership for Nicaragua and Venezuela). Regardless, Trump is threatening Brazil with a crippling 50% export tariff and is blatantly interfering in the trial of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, accused of insurrection. So far, Trump’s actions have backfired, arousing anger among Brazilians. Lula commented that Trump was “not elected to be emperor of the world.”

In 2022, Honduran President Xiomara Castro assumed office after being elected in November 2021, inheriting what many observers have described as a narcostate subservient to Washington; she has tried to push the envelope to the left. Being constitutionally restricted to one term, Castro hands the Libre Party candidacy in November’s election to former defense minister Rixi Moncada who faces a tough contest with persistent US interference. 

Bolivia’s ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) Party is locked in a self-destructive internecine clash between former President Evo Morales and his ex-protégé and current President Luis Arce. The energized Bolivian rightwing is spoiling for the August 17th presidential election. 

Israeli infiltration accompanies US military penetration

Analyst Joe Emersberger notes: “Today, all geopolitics relates back to Gaza where the imperial order has been unmasked like never before.” Defying Washington, the Hague Group met in Colombia for an emergency summit on Gaza to “take collective action grounded in international law.” On July 16, regional states – Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – endorsed the pledge to take measures in support of Palestine, with other states likely to follow. Brazil will join South Africa’s ICJ complaint against Israel.

At the other end of the political spectrum are self-described “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and confederates Javier Milei of Argentina and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador. As well as cozying up to Trump, they devotedly support Israel, which has been instrumental in enabling the most brutal reactionaries in the region. Noboa duly tells Israel’s Netanyahu that they “share the same enemies.”

In February, the US Southern Command warned: “Time is not on our side.” The perceived danger is “methodical incursion” into our “neighborhood” by both Russia and China. Indeed, China has become the region’s second largest trading partner after the US, and even right-wing governments are reluctant to jeopardize their relations with Beijing. The empire’s solution is to “redouble our efforts to nest military engagement,” using humanitarian assistance as “an essential soft power tool.” 

Picking up where Biden left off, Trump has furthered US military penetration, notably in Ecuador, Guyana, Brazil, Panama, and Argentina. The pandemic of narcotics trafficking, itself a product of US-induced demand, has been a Trojan Horse for militarist US intervention in Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, and threatened in Mexico. 

In Panama, President José Mulino’s obeisance to Trump’s ambitions to control the Panama Canal and reduce China’s influence provoked massive protests. Trump’s collaboration in the genocide of Palestinians motivated Petro to declare that Colombia must leave the NATO alliance and keep its distance from “militaries that drop bombs on children.” Colombia had been collaborating with NATO since 2013 and became the only Latin American global partner in 2017. 

Despite Trump’s bluster – what the Financial Times calls “imperial incontinence” – his administration has produced mixed results. While rightist political movements have basked in Trump’s fitful praise, his escalating coercion provokes resentment against Yankee influence. Resistance is growing, with new alliances bypassing Washington. As the empire’s grip tightens, so too does the resolve of those determined to break free from it.

Credit Main Photo: Teri Mattson, Workers’ Summit, Tijuana, at the U.S. Border Wall

Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas, the US Peace Council, and the Venezuela Solidarity Network. Nicaragua-based John Perry is with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and writes for MR Online, the London Review of Books, FAIR and CovertAction, among others.

COHA

On June 29, Radio Negro Primero, a community-based station in Venezuela, and affiliates, will examine the jailing and prosecution of Peru’s constitutional president, Pedro Castillo. The program, Battle of Ideas, hosted by William Camacaro (Senior Analyst for COHA) and Mary Dugarte (Venezuelan Journalist), will feature distinguished panelists: Roger Waters (renowned musician and human rights defender), Lilia Paredes de Castillo (wife of President Castillo), and Walter Ayala (constitutional lawyer and former Minister of Defense for President Pedro Castillo).

Pedro Castillo’s 2021 presidential victory marked a historic shift: a rural schoolteacher and union leader, propelled by Peru’s rural poor, Indigenous communities, and working-class voters, defeated Keiko Fujimori by just over 44,000 votes. Although he won by a narrow margin, his win nevertheless signaled a rupture with Lima’s political elite and a call for reform.

From the outset, his administration was besieged. A right-wing Congress, dominated by Fujimoristas, obstructed his agenda and launched three impeachment attempts in 18 months. Cabinet instability—dozens of ministerial changes in his first year—reflected both internal tensions and external obstructionism.

On December 7, 2022, facing imminent removal, Castillo announced the dissolution of Congress and called for new elections. Lacking institutional support, he was swiftly arrested and charged with rebellion, conspiracy, and abuse of authority. The stakes are high. Prosecutors are seeking a 34-year sentence. After his ouster, Dina Boluarte took office with right-wing backing, unleashing state violence against protesters—predominantly Indigenous and rural—that human rights groups have condemned as serious violations.

Critics argue Castillo’s case exemplifies the weaponization of legal tools to neutralize progressive leadership. For example, the vague constitutional clause of ‘moral incapacity’ was invoked during the impeachment process in lieu of a legitimate legal rationale. Moreover, his legal defenders maintain that his trial, now underway in a highly politicized climate, is marred by procedural irregularities and prolonged detention.

Castillo’s removal reveals the fragility of Peru’s democratic institutions when faced with demands for structural change. This episode also reflects a broader pattern in Latin America: the criminalization of leftist leaders who challenge entrenched power. Castillo’s plight is not just legal—it’s part of an ongoing struggle against oligarchic resistance to a politics of liberation.

Zoon Link: https://mailchi.mp/7dd44aa5e764/peru-pedro-castillo-a-kidnapped-president

By Fred Mills and Evelyn Gonzalez Mills

Silver Spring, MD

Joaquín Domínguez Parada, a renowned Salvadoran attorney and tireless advocate for refugees of war and persecution, passed away on Thursday, June 26, 2025, four days after his 77th birthday in El Salvador, leaving a legacy of love, integrity, and moral courage.  He lived a relatively short period of time in the United States, about ten years, but left an indelible mark on our lives and communities.  

In the 1980’s, at a time when tens of thousands of Central American refugees were being denied asylum and deported back to the violence of civil war, Joaquín stood as a steadfast advocate. Through his tireless efforts, a generation of migrants found not only dignity, protection, and legal defense, but also a voice to fight for their human rights, to end the repression in El Salvador, and to challenge  U.S. intervention in the region.

For those of us in the solidarity movement, Joaquín set a lasting example. He was a guiding light, comrade and friend, advisor and mentor, and a talented artist. He made clear that it was time to assume co-responsibility for the safety of Central American refugees, and to oppose U.S. support for the oligarchic forces in El Salvador responsible for massive human rights violations and the forced displacement of tens of thousands of Salvadorans.

We remember Joaquín not only for his courageous work, but for the moral clarity with which he carried it out. Despite the relentless pressure of adversity and what appeared to be insurmountable odds, he retained a sense of humor and unwavering commitment that inspired others to fight on.

In 1980, Domínguez Parada was among the thousands of Salvadoran refugees who fled the escalating civil violence, settling in Washington DC. In 1981, he joined forces with attorney Patrice Perillie, who had recently graduated from the American University Washington College of Law, to form the non-profit Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN). As co-director, Domínguez Parada provided pro bono legal services to thousands of Central American refugees as part of an intense struggle to stem the tide of deportations perpetrated by the Reagan administration.

As CARECEN launched its legal fight for justice and dignity for refugees, a broad-based solidarity movement—including labor, faith, student, and human rights advocates—mobilized to oppose U.S.-backed wars in Central America. CARECEN not only defended asylum seekers but also pushed for broader immigration reform and an end to U.S. intervention in El Salvador’s civil war, contributing to outcomes like Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans. Recognizing the  need to expand its urgent mission, CARECEN offices were established in other major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Houston.

In 1982, on the second anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero, he participated in a hunger strike in Lafayette Park, alongside other prominent human rights activists, to draw attention to the atrocities being committed both at home and abroad because of U.S. intervention in El Salvador.

Domínguez Parada was a tireless leader in the community. As CARECEN carried forward its vital work on a limited budget, it helped lay the foundation for other essential grassroots initiatives. Among these were the founding of the Central American Refugee Committee (CRECEN)—with Evelyn Gonzalez elected as its first Coordinator—and, in partnership with Plenty International, La Clínica del Pueblo in 1983, where both of us, along with many others, served as volunteers. This free health clinic, established to serve Central American refugees and staffed by volunteer doctors, nurses, and community members, provided a safe and dignified space for medical care. Guided by the classic training manual Donde No Hay Doctor, La Clínica expanded its corps of community health promoters, who became the heart of its mission. To this day, La Clínica remains a beacon of community-based health services.

After the civil war in El Salvador, Domínguez Parada returned home to help rebuild the country’s legal institutions. In 1994 his doctoral thesis titled La ley Simpson-Rodino, consecuencias jurídicas y sociales para los salvadoreños en Estados Unidos (The Simpson-Rodino Law: Legal and Social Consequences for Salvadorans in the United States) was published by the University of El Salvador. He served as a municipal judge in San Salvador, helped implement the city’s first ordinance on minor infractions, and later led the Police Appeals Tribunal, promoting accountability within the post-war Civil National Police. In keeping with his commitment to community, he was a strong advocate for the preservation of the historic Shangri La neighborhood where he used to live.

In March 2025, we had the privilege of visiting Joaquín in San Salvador, sharing moments of reflection on a life devoted to social justice—especially during those harrowing years when so many of our Central American brothers and sisters faced persecution and exile. He expressed a deep serenity in knowing he had given his all to the struggle for human dignity. Joaquin expressed gratitude to his first wife Marta Castrillo, her sister, Carolina, and their mother, Maria Pineda, for their unconditional support and love upon his return to El Salvador.  He reminisced about his late beloved son, Camilo; remembered with much affection his mother, Alicia Ulloa de Dominguez, an elementary school teacher who worked hard to raise her three children after losing her husband; and he evoked his life with Patrice Perillie, his second wife and companion in the struggle for refugee rights. He expressed a heartfelt desire to visit the United States—to learn about CARECEN’s continuing successes, reconnect with old friends, meet the new stewards of its legacy, and once more walk the familiar streets of Columbia Road and Mount Pleasant in Washington, DC.

With Joaquín’s passing, El Salvador and its diaspora has lost one of their most steadfast champions. We ask his family and friends to accept our deepest condolences. We take his legacy to heart as we navigate today’s perilous crossroads. Joaquín’s moral courage in confronting state violence and repression continues to guide our path, especially now, as we witness, in the United States, a campaign of state-sanctioned terror, where masked agents—unidentified and unaccountable—storm homes and workplaces, even court houses, sweeping up immigrants en masse and vanishing them into the machinery of deportation.  In honoring Joaquín Domínguez Parada, we renew our commitment to the world he struggled to bring forth—a world where no human being is illegal, and every sacred life holds the weight and wonder of a universe.

Photo of Joaquín Domínguez Parada: Credit Corolina Castrillo

Photo of Joaquín Domínguez Parada with first wife Marta Castrillo, Maria Pineda, and Carolina Castrillo: Courtesy of  Carolina Castrillo

Banner Photo of Joaquín Domínguez Parada and Patrice Perillie ca. 1981: From Carlos E. Vela Facebook.

Fred Mills is professor of philosophy at Bowie State University and English Language Editor for COHA.

Evelyn Gonzalez Mills is academic counselor at Montgomery College.  She met Joaquín Domínguez Parada and Patrice Perillie in 1981 and became a volunteer receptionist for CARECEN when it first opened. She later served as a board member of CARECEN.

By Tamanisha J. John

Toronto, Canada

Introduction

The Caribbean region is an important geostrategic location for the United States, not only due to regional proximity, but also due to the continued importance of securing sea routes for trade and military purposes. It is the geostrategic location of the Caribbean that has historically made the region a target for domineering empires and states. As both geopolitical site and geostrategic location, U.S. foreign policy articulations of Caribbean people and the region have been effectively contradictory, but the contradiction has allowed the U.S. to maintain its hegemonic position: Caribbean peoples in U.S. foreign policy are rendered backwards, unstable, and dangerous or targets of xenophobic harassment; while the physical region is rendered as a place where U.S. foreign policy must maintain one-sided power relations, lest these sites come under the influence of other states that the U.S. views as impinging upon its sphere of influence. One can most readily look to Haiti to see these contradictory dynamics at play. Haiti has not had democratic elections for two decades and instead has been under United Nations (UN) sanctioned “tutelage” or occupation via the CORE group, of which the U.S. is a part.^[i] Over the past two decades, Haiti has been subject to a massive influx of U.S. manufactured weapons that fuel gun violence and murder in the country.^[ii] Meanwhile those Haitians fleeing this violence to the U.S. have been met with whips at the U.S.-Mexico border, deportation flights from the U.S., and dehumanizing mythological hysteria accusing Hatians of  “eating pets.”^[iii]

Given the domineering impact of the U.S. and its allies in Canada and Europe in the Caribbean region, states in the region remain deeply dependent on foreign investment and tourism from these powers. ‘Foreignization’ of Caribbean economies makes it hard for the peoples of the region to make a living. Many Caribbean governments, neoliberal in orientation, willingly support this dependent development scheme by promoting migration for remittances, service industries for tourism, and temporary foreign worker schemes abroad due to lack of worthwhile opportunities at home. A large part of what maintains this dependent relationship—that many would find to be demeaning in most circumstances—is the securitization of the Caribbean region by the U.S. and its allies, as well as the invocation of “shared cultures,” rooted in colonial histories which continue to impose multiple hierarchies of domination on Caribbean peoples.

Washington’s aim of permanent hegemony in the region is being challenged by an increasingly multipolar world, and this accounts for the US attempt to limit China’s influence in the Caribbean. For example, U.S. tariff assaults on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) stems from U.S. insecurities about China’s economic growth alongside its manufacturing and technological developments.^[iv] China’s extension of infrastructural, technological, and other tangible material developments to states lower down on the global value chain, and at smaller costs to them is referred to by the U.S. and other western policy makers as “China’s growing influence.” This includes states in the Caribbean, which have not only become consumers of products from China but have also increased their exports to China since the 2010s. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. fears that China is gaining too much influence in the Caribbean given its developmental hand there. Although the U.S. is not directly competing with China on development initiatives, Washington’s reluctance to support meaningful progress in the Caribbean—where U.S. corporations continue to profit from structural underdevelopment—has led it to pursue strong-arm diplomacy as a symbolic stand against China instead.

China’s alternative to dependent development challenges Western Hegemony in the Caribbean

Western capitalist modernity, as an ideological, political, and socioeconomic project, is threatened by improvements to the global value chain. The issue at hand is that the U.S. and the Western-led capitalist system have long relegated states of the ‘Global South’ to lower positions on the global value chain. This has rendered development elusive for many states, to the sole benefit of Western corporations and their allies. Lack of development in places like the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Latin America actually benefits capitalist enterprises headquartered in the ‘Global North’ which extract surplus value by exploiting cheap natural resources, labor, and land in these regions. China’s accelerated advancement within the global value chain—alongside the rise of other partner states positioned lower on that chain—has not depended on economic or political subordination to the west. This trajectory is actively interpreted as eroding Western hegemonic dominance—even as the improved developments of states like China within the global value chain, have expanded global capitalism. Since 2018, the U.S. tariff assault on China, which has intensified under the second Trump administration, is a direct response to China’s economic growth propelled by China’s added value to the global value chain. In essence, the fear is China’s rise, while not reliant on the west, has made the West more reliant on importing cheap products and manufactured goods from China.

After the global 2007/8 financial crisis, China’s expressed strategy was to diversify its exports and import markets through helping other states improve their own conditions in the global trade value system. This of course, was due to the negative impacts felt by China in its export markets from the 2008 global financial crisis. Since then, China has increased the internal demand within China for Chinese goods, which also saw the purchasing power of Chinese citizens rise. This helped the growth of a middle class in China, and also allowed the Communist Party of China (CPC) to think more broadly about its continued growth strategy. By the early 2010s China sought to develop a wider external market that was not dependent on the U.S. and the other Western states. As China began formulating a broader development strategy, the growing purchasing power of Chinese citizens made the U.S. and other Western countries increase demands on China to have unfettered access to China’s internal market. The 2010s thus became rife with false accusations by Western commentators of China manipulating its currency to amass reserve wealth, and maintain competitive exports^[v] – which helped to spark Trump’s trade assault on China in 2018, and again during the second Trump administration in 2025.

While conversations in the West hinged on conspiracy, the CPC acknowledged that neither internal consumption nor reliance on the U.S. and Western markets would promote long-term sustainable development and growth of China’s economy. Greater emphasis was placed on increasing and improving relations with other developing states. In essence, helping the development of states lower down on the global value chain would be necessary—in order to make them consumers (thus importers)—of products from China. This became part of China’s long-term strategy to diversify its import and export markets. Thus, after the 2008 global financial crisis and especially after 2010, China’s investment in places like the Caribbean had a marked and noticeable increase. A decade later, this strategy has proven beneficial to China’s growth and development – as well as to growth and development of other developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean with more states engaging in, and pursuing trade and other relations with, China.

The impact of U.S. tariffs and fees on the Caribbean

Despite growing U.S. security concerns over China’s engagement in the Caribbean, the region remains largely dependent on the United States, and Caribbean states consistently run trade deficits in favor of the U.S. These trade deficits usually come at the expense of local Caribbean growers, producers, and artisans. According to Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States: “In 2024, the United States ran a $5.8 billion trade surplus with CARICOM as a whole. For a tangible illustration, Antigua and Barbuda’s imports from the U.S. exceeded $570 million, while its exports in return were a mere fraction of that total.”^[vi] Given Caribbean regional economic dependence on the U.S., Canada and Europe, many Caribbean people seeking employment and/or asylum opportunities typically see the U.S. as a destination of choice, contributing to the large Caribbean diasporic communities in North America and Europe. These Caribbean diasporic communities not only send remittances and goods back to their home countries to support family, friends, and communities – but also facilitate Caribbean state’s exports into the U.S. It is important to underscore these dynamics, as the longstanding U.S.-Caribbean relationship—rooted in dependency—remains firmly entrenched, despite growing investments in the region from China.

The U.S. tariff assault on China extended into a wider tariff assault by the U.S. against multiple countries, including states in the Caribbean. By April 3, 2025 the U.S. had imposed tariffs on 24 Caribbean countries: a 10% tariff on 23 of them,^[vii] and a 38% tariff on Guyana^[viii]—a Caribbean nation with extensive relations with China^[ix]—excluding its exports of oil (dominated by U.S. and other foreign corporations), gold, and bauxite. The U.S. tariffs on Caribbean states—levied amid fragile post-pandemic recovery and lingering hurricane damage—underscores a troubling, though not surprising indifference to the region’s economic vulnerability and ongoing efforts toward stabilization and renewal.^[x] During this time, the U.S. introduced a series of tariff increases on China, peaking at a 145% tariff after April 10, 2025, before settling on a 10% rate through an agreement reached on May 13, 2025.^[xi] In addition to the tariffs that Washington placed on China, the U.S. also announced that it would issue port fees on Chinese built ships entering U.S. ports. In all, these tariffs and fees being imposed by the U.S. meant that there would likely be negative impacts borne by Caribbean states that import U.S. goods, and Caribbean states that export goods to China. The overall impact of the tariffs and fees would be two-fold: First, U.S. consumers of goods imported from the Caribbean would have to pay more to access those goods. Second, increased costs accrued to Caribbean state’s importing U.S. goods due to port fees, would make it more cost effective for those Caribbean states to import more goods directly from China. However, in the immediate term, Sino-Caribbean trade, lacking established relationships on a wide range of import products, has the potential to lead to import shortages – particularly of food and other essential imports from the U.S.—in the Caribbean. Given global backlash from the shipping industry, the U.S. revised and changed its decision regarding port fees a week later,^[xii] and three weeks later, on April 28, it reduced the tariff on Guyana to 10%.

Political commentators recognize, contrary to the denials by the Guyanese government, that the initially high tariffs placed on Guyana were motivated by U.S. tensions with China. According to former Guyanese diplomat, Dr. Shamir Ally,^[xiii] and Guyanese political commentator, Francis Bailey, Guyana “is caught in a geopolitical battle between the US and China. Or more specifically – Washington objects to Beijing’s “very strong foothold” in Guyana.”^[xiv] This was made clear, when prior to the Trump administration’s announcement of the tariff’s on Guyana, Guyanese President, Irfaan Ali, pledged that the U.S. would “have some different and preferential treatment” from Guyana^[xv]— given a shared stance between the two countries in relation to Venezuela.^[xvi] This pledge by Guyana’s president took place within the context of the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to the Caribbean, during which Rubio chastised the construction of infrastructure in Guyana that he deemed subpar, and alleged must have been built by China, even though it was not.^[xvii] These kinds of geopolitical posturing by Washington stoke antagonisms, ignoring the negative impacts of Caribbean dependency, including that of Guyana. Caribbean economic dependency on the U.S. (Europe and Canada) will not be completely ameliorated by China, and neither will China be able to fill the role of the West for Caribbean exporters who, given histories of enslavement, indentureship, and colonialism, rely on diasporic taste and preferences for ‘niche’ exports (e.g., artisan goods, arts, entertainment). Given the high degree of U.S., Canadian, and European ownership in the Caribbean’s industrial and manufacturing sectors, the region’s capacity to produce “finished products” on an exportable scale remains limited. Despite the continued dependency relation of Caribbean states on U.S. markets, however, China can positively impact Caribbean economies by helping to diversify their trading partners, and by increasing local opportunities for people within Caribbean states, based on the kinds of new (or improved) infrastructure typically developed in partnerships with China.

Though on the rise, the trade relationship between China and states in the Caribbean is still quite limited. Caribbean states that are a part of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) saw a notable increase in their exports to China, from less than 1% of their total exports in the 1990s and 2000s, to between 1% and 6 % of exports going to China after the 2010s.^[xviii] The majority of exports from the Caribbean to China from the 2010s forward have been agricultural and mineral in nature. Alongside the growing export potential of CARICOM states to China since the 2010s, there has also been an increase in Caribbean states importing Chinese goods. States such as Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, and Suriname import about 10% of their goods from China. On the other hand, states like the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago import less than 10% of their goods from China. The overall trend, then, is that CARICOM states have added some diversification to their trading partners since the 2010s but continue to remain firmly within the Western trading bloc. Given the structured dependency of Caribbean economies, they tend to import more from their trading partners than they export to them. However, as political analyst Daniel Morales Ruvalcaba points out, as a trading partner, China’s commitment to South-South partnerships has meant that trading disparities between itself and CARICOM states are “offset by investments flowing from China to the Caribbean […] broadly categorized into three key sectors: port infrastructure development, resource extraction, and the tourism industry.”^[xix] This way of tending to the trade disparity has had beneficial impacts—that can also be seen very visibly by those who live and visit states in the Caribbean. Additionally, China’s investments have not been limited to CARICOM states, or to states that recognize China and not Taiwan. For instance, China invests in Belize, Haiti, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines—these are Caribbean states that recognize Taiwan.^[xx]

While China does not play a dominant import-export role in the Caribbean, given the system of dependency into which the Caribbean is already integrated, it also does not pose a security threat to the Caribbean region, despite Washington’s portrayal of China as a “bad actor.” The PRCs commitment to non-interference makes it extremely unlikely that China would use the Caribbean as a springboard for a security confrontation with Washington and its NATO allies. China does, however, have a strategic partnership with Venezuela, largely limited to a defensive posture given its relations with other states in the region, including the Caribbean. Further, with the large security presence of the U.S. and its allies in the Caribbean, China would have nothing to gain from an offensive military posture in the region. Though self-evident, this explains why the U.S has chosen to frame China’s presence in the Caribbean not in economic terms, but as a technological and geopolitical “threat”—going so far, on multiple occasions, as to allege that China is constructing covert surveillance facilities in Cuba to conduct espionage on the U.S.^[xxi]

The China-Caribbean “threat” from the U.S. Perspective

In 2018, Washington signaled its intent to limit Chinese investments in infrastructure, energy, and technology abroad; by 2023, U.S. Southern Command identified the Caribbean as a key region where China’s growing economic footprint should be restrained. In its effort to push China out of the Caribbean tech sector, the U.S. has allowed U.S. and other Western companies to develop 5G networks in Jamaica at virtually no cost in the short term—effectively subsidizing the infrastructure to block Chinese involvement and investments in the sector. This campaign has gone so far as to include veiled threats of sanctions toward Jamaica and other regional nations should they pursue connectivity projects with China.^[xxii] Since the 1940s, the U.S. has viewed government-controlled economies as threats to the Western capitalist order—a label that readily applies to China. In 2025, the trade offensive against China is markedly more severe, driven by Washington’s explicit goal of curbing the spread and stalling the advancement of China’s high-tech industries—an effort aimed at preserving U.S. dominance in the sector, which is increasingly seen as under threat. The trade war, which began openly during Trump’s first term, has only intensified in his second—driven in part by the growing influence of high-tech capitalists closely aligned with his administration. China’s advances in artificial intelligence, seen with the public release of DeepSeek AI, has only accelerated the U.S. assault.

According to  U.S. and other pro-Western security analysts who view China as a “threat” in the Caribbean, this threat manifests in three primary ways. First, they point to China’s development of internet-based infrastructure in Caribbean nations which they claim enables Chinese espionage operations that target the U.S. from within the region. Second, they highlight the fact that most Caribbean states recognize the People’s Republic of China, rather than Taiwan, under the One-China policy—a position they attribute to questionable dealings with Beijing, rather than to the exercise of Caribbean political agency in matters of state recognition. And lastly, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is portrayed as a nefarious development scheme that allows China to assert its influence globally. Notably, these accusations that form the “threat” narrative amongst U.S. and other pro-Western security advocates don’t hold up against the slightest scrutiny.

First, there is no evidence that there are “Chinese spy bases” in Cuba or in any other country in the Caribbean—despite these accusations being levied by both Trump White Houses, and various U.S. Republican politicians in Florida.^[xxiii] Second, the PRC does invest in, and maintain diplomatic relations with, Caribbean states that recognize Taiwan.^[xxiv]  This suggests that the PRC does not force a One-China policy on states in the Caribbean with which it has cooperative relations. Commenting on Sino-Caribbean relations, Caribbean leaders themselves often note that the recognition of China and not Taiwan is due to support for China safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, of which they include national reunification.^[xxv] Ultimately, the alleged “nefarious” nature of the Belt and Road Initiative stems from its core premise: that developing countries receive meaningful support from China to pursue their own development goals. Such efforts inevitably draw scrutiny from the U.S. and the Westbroadly, as genuine development in the ‘Global South’ is often perceived as a challenge to Western capital and hegemony. The BRI also encourages signatory states to build greater regional relationships with their Caribbean neighbors. It reflects a highly agentic approach, in stark contrast to the traditional way U.S. and other Western initiatives are typically implemented.

Ultimately, the BRI is seen as a threat by Western policymakers because they would prefer China not pursue its own global initiatives. Given that the BRI also supports states in developing technological infrastructure and other advancements—with backing from China—these efforts are viewed by the U.S. as a strategic threat, ensuring the initiative will remain a target of sustained opposition. In the Caribbean, the U.S. push to end their tech relations with China comes off as brash, given that U.S. technology investments in the region have declined since the mid-1990s, while China technology investments have increased.^[xxvi] In fact, the U.S. (and its Western allies) seem to only understand China’s investments, including the BRI, as lost market share. In essence, Washington and its Western allies seek to control economic development in the region. Two years ago for COHA, John (2023) argued that the U.S. and its allies were increasing their “diplomatic” presence in the Caribbean to maintain geostrategic influence, given China’s growing economic investments there.^[xxvii] John maintained that the dismal track record of capitalism—led first by the Western European powers and later by the United States—has entrenched Caribbean states in a position of structural dependency within the global capitalist system. Key features of this dependency include persistently high levels of unemployment, underemployment, poverty, and a heavy reliance on labor exportation. This dependence made the region very receptive to Chinese investment.

John (2023) concluded that influence is gained only where it aligns with local interests—and that investments from the PRC stood in stark contrast to Western strategies, which for decades have indebted Caribbean states, privatized their economies in ways that deepened foreign control, and consistently disregarded regional calls for reparations. This track record, it was argued, would only lead to increased militarization in the Caribbean by the U.S. and its Western allies, who have no tangible goal of helping Caribbean states to develop—but want confrontation with China. Two years later and the concluding remarks still stand.

Concluding Remarks: Dependent Development is the price of Western Capitalism in the Caribbean

In the Caribbean, the U.S. and its Western allies have long profited from—and perpetuated—the notion that foreignization is the norm. This extends beyond economic structures to encompass both domestic and foreign policies that effectively surrender the state, and its people, to massive  exploitation by foreigners. Some governments and local elites have been brought on as “shareholders” to maintain this backwards dependent status. That is because imperialism, especially in the Caribbean, has always been intent on establishing what Cheddi Jagan called “a reactionary axis in the Caribbean.”^[xxviii] U.S. ‘influence in the Caribbean region has historically centered around controlling the “backwardness” and “unstableness” of its people, in order to keep U.S. geostrategic and geopolitical interests intact. This is done in conjunction with Caribbean political elites, who subject their own Caribbean populations in perpetual servitude to Western capital. Caribbean neoliberal states have a disregard for the rights of their citizens (and diaspora), favoring almost exclusively (and predominantly) Western foreign corporations and wealthy individuals. Cuba, however, stands out as an exception to this trend, and this is why it has been under relentless attack by Washington for more than 62 years.  It is important to point this out, given that some in the Caribbean political elite classes also share the same regressive rhetoric from the Westabout the “threat of China” to produce reactionary mindsets and views amongst large swaths of Caribbean people— so that their hand in maintaining Caribbean dependency is not critiqued.

Caribbean people struggling to improve their societies for the better are continuously warned by the U.S. and its Western and Caribbean allies that they must maintain themselves in a dependent position. The truth is: So long as the majority of individual Caribbean states are importing finished products and agricultural goods from the U.S., Canada, and Europe—and to a smaller extent now China—the Caribbean will never have trade surpluses with these states. Lack of local businesses and the foreignization of Caribbean economies compound this contradiction that is perpetuated by the entrenched Western-led economic system. Political elites in the Caribbean frequently disregard local protests and locally developed alternatives that could threaten Western foreign corporations and investment. There is a real need for enhanced regional integration for Caribbean people, not only states, to improve their lot within the prevailing system. People will continuously be let down by formations like CARICOM, so long as these associations are dominated by Western development frameworks and have individual member states who care more about aligning their security interests with the West instead of their own region. While neoliberalism in the Caribbean is often attributed to structural constraints and the limited capacity of states to regulate foreign capital, such explanations fail to account for the extent to which Caribbean governments have themselves normalized and actively advanced neoliberal policy frameworks. The promotion of neoliberal policies both prolongs, and makes systemic, foreign dependence and domination.

U.S. fear mongering about China in the Caribbean is propaganda. It only serves to prevent people from questioning why Caribbean states are dependent and why there is rampant foreignization of Caribbean economies. Who owns these corporate entities that make life hard in the Caribbean? The “threats” from the U.S. perspective boil down to the fact that China, in the Caribbean, is taking advantage of Western policies that make the Caribbean exploitable. It is often noted—and indeed observable—that China imports its own labor for development projects in the Caribbean. However, this practice is neither new nor unique; countries such as the United States, Canada, and various European powers have long employed similar strategies. Understandably, this reliance on imported labor has generated frustration among Caribbean populations, particularly given the region’s high levels of unemployment and underemployment. Many local workers are both willing and able to acquire the necessary skills and trades to work on infrastructure and development projects that come to the region. Local Caribbean firms and entrepreneurs would also seize the opportunity to participate in these projects—including local sourcing of materials. But this beneficial type of development is not presently feasible given how Western capitalists have integrated Caribbean states into the global capitalist system.

The efforts of the Trump administration to cast China as a security threat in the Caribbean and to portray doing business with China as a security risk, have largely been unsuccessful. In the Caribbean, China simply takes advantage of Western policies that have made the region highly favorable and open to foreign investment, foreign entrepreneurs, and government dealings—in the form of Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) and Letters of Agreement (LOA)—with other states and corporations. The acceptance of these MOUs and LOAs receive minimal, to no input from Caribbean citizens. Debt traps have been normalized in the Caribbean by the Western capitalist system, making the Caribbean one of the most highly indebted regions in the world. Today, propagandists tend to invoke the myth of the  “Chinese debt-trap” to attribute to China this false label of being engaged in “debt trap diplomacy”—a term popularized in 2018 during the first trade assault against China.^[xxix] In response to this myth, progressive commentators tend to highlight that China forgives a lot of debt, and has even helped Caribbean states to restructure debts owed to various financial institutions.^[xxx] However, the biggest elephant in the room is that even if China ceased to exist in the Caribbean region, the region would still be one of the most indebted within the Western capitalist system. The debt-trap narrative not only deflects attention from the significant role Western powers have played in producing Caribbean indebtedness, but also unjustly shifts the burden onto China to forgive obligations for which Western capital is responsible.^[xxxi] Lack of transparency in investment agreements and investor tax benefits, including profit repatriation, in the Caribbean has been normalized by laws first written by various European empires and later by Western capitalists that crafted structural adjustment policies. Yet, such arrangements, historically established by U.S. and Canadian capital interests, are often rebranded as evidence of corruption within the China–Caribbean relationship. Those concerned with the persistence of Caribbean dependency should critically engage with its structural causes and actively challenge Western propaganda regardless of the source from which it emanates.

Endnotes

[i] Pierre, Jemima. 2020. “Haiti: An Archive of Occupation, 2004-.” Transforming Anthropology 28(1): 3–23. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/traa.12174.

[ii] Kestler-D’Amours, Jillian. “‘A Criminal Economy’: How US Arms Fuel Deadly Gang Violence in Haiti.” Al Jazeera, March 25, 2024. web: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2024/3/25/a-criminal-economy-how-us-arms-fuel-deadly-gang-violence-in-haiti.

[iii] Mack, Willie. Haitians at the Border: The Nativist State and Anti-Blackness. Carr-Ryan Commentary. Harvard Kennedy School, 2025. web: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr-ryan/our-work/carr-ryan-commentary/haitians-border-nativist-state-and-anti-blackness.

[iv] Ziye, Chen, and Bin Li. “Escaping Dependency and Trade War: China and the US.” China Economist 18, no. 1 (2023): 36–44.

[v] Wiseman, Paul. “Fact Check: Does China Manipulate Its Currency?” PBS News, December 29, 2016. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/fact-check-china-manipulate-currency.

[vi] Loop News. “More Caribbean Countries Respond to New US Tariffs,” April 4, 2025, sec. World News. https://www.loopnews.com/content/more-caribbean-countries-respond-to-new-us-tariffs/.

[vii] TEMPO Networks. “Here Are All The Caribbean Countries Hit By Trump’s New Tariffs.” Tempo Networks, April 3, 2025, sec. News. https://www.temponetworks.com/2025/04/03/here-are-all-the-caribbean-countries-hit-by-trumps-new-tariffs/.

[viii] Grannum, Milton. “Oil, Bauxite, Gold Exempt from US Tariff.” Stabroek News, April 4, 2025, sec. Guyana News. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2025/04/04/news/guyana/oil-bauxite-gold-exempt-from-us-tariff/.

[ix] Handy, Gemma. “Was China the Reason Guyana Faced Higher Trump Tariff?” BBC, April 28, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeww5zq88no.

[x] John, Tamanisha J. 2024. “Hurricane Unpreparedness in the Caribbean, Disaster by Imperial Design.” Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). The Caribbean. https://coha.org/hurricane-unpreparedness-in-the-caribbean-disaster-by-imperial-design/.

[xi] Grantham-Philips, Wyatte. “A Timeline of Trump’s Tariff Actions so Far.” PBS News, April 10, 2025, sec. Economy. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/a-timeline-of-trumps-tariff-actions-so-far.

[xii] Saul, Jonathan, Lisa Baertlein, David Lawder, and Andrea Shalal. “United States Eases Port Fees on China-Built Ships after Industry Backlash.” Reuters, April 17, 2025, sec. Markets. https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-shippers-await-word-us-plan-hit-china-linked-vessels-with-port-fees-2025-04-17/.

[xiii] Credible Sources interview on February 26, 2025. Guyana in U.S.-China Crossfire? Ex-Diplomat Weighs In, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtCNBiKdj-0

[xiv] Handy, Gemma. “Was China the reason Guyana faced higher Trump tariff?” BBC, April 28, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeww5zq88no.

[xv] Chabrol, Denis. “Guyana Pledges ‘Preferential’ Treatment to US.” Demerara Waves, March 27, 2025, sec. Business, Defence, Diplomacy. https://demerarawaves.com/2025/03/27/guyana-pledges-preferential-treatment-to-us/.

[xvi] John, Tamanisha J. “Guyana, Beware the Western Proxy-State Trap.” Stabroek News, December 25, 2023, sec. In The Diaspora. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2023/12/25/features/in-the-diaspora/guyana-beware-the-Western-proxy-state-trap/.

[xvii] Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun’s Regular Press Conference on April 3, 2025. Beijing Says That Road in Guyana Criticised by Rubio Is Not Built by China, 2025. https://youtu.be/6gljwDyW1qk?si=2QXhDUythljBsIcJ.

[xviii] Morales Ruvalcaba, Daniel. 2025. “National Power in Sino-Caribbean Relations: CARICOM in the Geopolitics of the Belt and Road Initiative.” Chinese Political Science Review 10: 28–48. doi: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41111-024-00252-4.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Ibid. 

[xxi] Qi, Wang. “Hyping Chinese ‘spy Bases’ in Cuba Slander; Shows US’ Hysteria: Expert.” Global Times, July 3, 2024. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1315376.shtml.

[xxii] Pate, Durrant. “US Warns Jamaica against Chinese 5g.” Jamaica Observer, October 25, 2020. https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2020/10/25/us-warns-jamaica-against-chinese-5g/.

[xxiii] Belly of the Beast. Investigative Report. May 30, 2025. Big Headlines, No Proof: Inside the Hype Over “Chinese Spy Bases”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF87JJp8WIo

[xxiv] Bayona Velásquez, Etna. “Chinese Economic Presence in the Greater Caribbean, 2000-2020.” In Chinese Presence in the Greater Caribbean: Yesterday and Today, 599–661. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Centro de Estudios Caribeños (PUCMM), 2022.

[xxv] Loop news. “T&T, Caribbean countries pledge support for One China policy.” May 6, 2022. https://www.loopnews.com/content/tt-caribbean-countries-pledge-support-for-one-china-policy/

[xxvi] Ricart Jorge, Raquel. “China’s Digital Silk Road in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Real Instituto Elcano, April 21, 2021, sec. Latin America. https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/commentaries/chinas-digital-silk-road-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/.

[xxvii] John, Tamanisha J. 2023. “US Moves to Curtail China’s Economic Investment in the Caribbean.” Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). https://coha.org/us-moves-to-curtail-chinas-economic-investment-in-the-caribbean/.

[xxviii] Jagan, Cheddi. “Alternative Models of Caribbean Economic Development and Industrialisation.” In Caribbean Economic Development and Industrialisation, 3 (1):1–23. Hungary: Development and Peace, 1980. https://jagan.org/CJ%20Articles/In%20Opposition/Images/3014.pdf.

[xxix] Chandran, Rama. “The Chinese “Debt Trap” Is a Myth.” China Focus, August 26, 2022,  http://www.cnfocus.com/the-chinese-debt-trap-is-a-myth/

[xxx] Hancock, Tom. “China renegotiated $50bn in loans to developing countries: Study challenges ‘debt-trap’ narrative surrounding Beijin’s lending.” Financial Times, April 29, 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/0b207552-6977-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d

[xxxi] Kaiwei, Zhang and Xian Jiangnan. “So-called “debt trap” a Western rhetorical trap.” China International Communications Group (CN) , September 14, 2024, https://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0914/c90000-20219659.html

Featured image: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (centre) poses for a group photograph with representatives from the Caribbean countries that share diplomatic relations with China, May 12, 2025, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing
(Source: Chinese State Media)

Tamanisha J. John is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at York University and a member of the US/NATO out of Our Americas Network zoneofpeace.org/ 

Original article: https://cispes.org/article/resistance-mining-grows-environmentalists%E2%80%99-trial-approaches

By John Perry and Roger D. Harris

Migration, Drugs, and Tariffs.

With Donald Trump as the new US president, pundits are speculating about how US policy towards Latin America might change.

In this article, we look at some of the speculation, then address three specific instances of how the US’s policy priorities may be viewed from a progressive, Latin American perspective. This leads us to a wider argument: that the way these issues are dealt with is symptomatic of Washington’s paramount objective of sustaining the US’s hegemonic position. In this overriding preoccupation, its policy towards Latin America is only one element, of course, but always of significance because the US hegemon still treats the region as its “backyard.”

First, some examples of what the pundits are saying. In Foreign Affairs, Brian Winter argues that Trump’s return signals a shift away from Biden’s neglect of the region. “The reason is straightforward,” he says. “Trump’s top domestic priorities of cracking down on unauthorized immigration, stopping the smuggling of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, and reducing the influx of Chinese goods into the United States all depend heavily on policy toward Latin America.”

Ryan Berg, who is with the thinktank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, funded by the US defense industry, is also hopeful. Trump will “focus U.S. policy more intently on the Western Hemisphere,” he argues, “and in so doing, also shore up its own security and prosperity at home.”

According to blogger James Bosworth, Biden’s “benign neglect” could be replaced by an “aggressive Monroe Doctrine – deportations, tariff wars, militaristic security policies, demands of fealty towards the US, and a rejection of China.” However, notwithstanding the attention of Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, Bosworth thinks there is still a good chance of policy lapsing into benign neglect as the new administration focuses elsewhere.

The wrong end of the telescope

What these and similar analyses share is a concern with problems of importance to the US, including domestic ones, and how they might be tackled by shifts in policy towards Latin America. They view the region from the end of a US-mounted telescope.

Trump’s approach may be the more brazen “America first!,” but the basic stance is much the same as these pundits. The different scenarios will be worked out in Washington, with Latin America’s future seen as shaped by how it handles US policy changes over which it has little influence. Analyses by these supposed experts are constrained by their adopting the same one-dimensional perspective as Washington’s, instead of questioning it.

Here’s one example. The word “neglect” is superficial because it hides the immense involvement of the US in Latin America even when it is “neglecting” it: from deep commercial ties to a massive military presence. It is also superficial because, in a real sense, the US constantly neglects the problems that concern most Latin Americans: low wages, inequality, being safe in the streets, the damaging effects of climate change, and many more. “Neglect” would be seen very differently on the streets of a Latin American city than it is inside the Washington beltway.

Who has the “drug problem”?

The vacuum in US thinking is nowhere more apparent than in responses to the drug problem. Trump threatens to declare Mexican drug cartels to be terrorist organizations and to invade Mexico to attack them.

But, as academic Carlos Pérez-Ricart told El Pais: “This is a problem that does not originate in Mexico. The source, the demand, and the vectors are not Mexican. It is them.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also points out that it is consumption in the US that drives drug production and trafficking in Mexico.

Trump could easily make the same mistake as his predecessor Clinton did two decades ago. Back then, billions were poured into “Plan Colombia” but still failed to solve the “drug problem,” while vastly augmenting violence and human rights violations in the target country.

A foretaste of what might happen, if Trump carries out his threat, occurred last July, when Biden’s administration captured Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. That caused an all-out war between cartels in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Sheinbaum rightly turns questions about drug production and consumption back onto the US. Rhetorically, she asks: “Do you believe that fentanyl is not manufactured in the United States?…. Where are the drug cartels in the United States that distribute fentanyl in US cities? Where does the money from the sale of that fentanyl go in the United States?”

If Trump launches a war on cartels, he will not be the first US president to the treat drug consumption as a foreign issue rather than a concomitantly domestic one.

Where does the “migration problem” originate?

Trump is also not the first president to be obsessed by migration. Like drugs, it is seen as a problem to be solved by the countries where the migrants originate, while both the “push” and “pull” factors under US control receive less attention.

Exploitation of migrant labor, complex asylum procedures, and schemes such as “humanitarian parole” to encourage migration are downplayed as reasons. Biden intensified US sanctions on various Latin American countries, which have been shown conclusively to provoke massive emigration. Meanwhile Trump threatens to do the same.

Many Latin American countries have been made unsafe by crime linked to drugs or other problems in which the US is implicated. About 392,000 Mexicans were displaced as a result of conflict in 2023 alone, their problem aggravated by the massive, often illegal, export of firearms from the US to Mexico.

Costa Rica, historically a safe country, had a record 880 homicides in 2023, many of which were related to drug trafficking. In Brazil and other countries, US-trained security forces contribute directly to the violence, rather than reducing it.

Mass deportations from the US, promised by Trump, could worsen these problems, as happened in El Salvador in the late 1990s. They would also affect remittances sent home by migrant workers, exacerbating regional poverty. The threatened use of tariffs on exports to the US could also have serious consequences if Latin America does not stand up to Trump’s threats. Economist Michael Hudson argues that countries will have to jointly retaliate by refusing to pay dollar-based debts to bond holders if export earnings from the US are summarily cut.

China in the US “backyard”

Trump also joins the Washington consensus in its preoccupation with China’s influence in Latin America. Monica de Bolle is with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a thinktank partly funded by Pentagon contractors. She told the BBC: “You have got the backyard of America engaging directly with China. That’s going to be problematic.”

Recently retired US Southern Command general, Laura Richardson, was probably the most senior frequent visitor on Washington’s behalf to Latin American capitals, during the Biden administration. She accused China of “playing the ‘long game’ with its development of dual-use sites and facilities throughout the region, “adding that those sites could serve as “points of future multi-domain access for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and strategic naval chokepoints.”

As Foreign Affairs points out, Latin America’s trade with China has “exploded” from $18 billion in 2002 to $480 billion in 2023. China is also investing in huge infrastructure projects, and seemingly its only political condition is a preference for a country to recognize China diplomatically (not Taiwan). Even here, China is not absolute as with Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay, which still recognize Taiwan. China still has direct investments in those holdouts, though relatively more modest than with regional countries that fully embrace its one-China policy.

Peru, currently a close US ally, has a new, Chinese-funded megaport at Chancay, opened in November by President Xi Jinping himself. Even right-wing Argentinian president Milei said of China, “They do not demand anything [in return].”

What does the US offer instead? While Antony Blinken proudly displayed old railcars that were gifted to Peru, the reality is that most US “aid” to Latin America is either aimed at “promoting democracy” (i.e. Washington’s political agenda) or is conditional or exploitative in other ways.

The BBC cites “seasoned observers” who believe that Washington is paying the price for “years of indifference” towards the region’s needs. Where the US sees a loss of strategic influence to China and to a lesser extent to Russia, Iran, and others, Latin American countries see opportunities for development and economic progress.

Remember the Monroe Doctrine

Those calling for a more “benign” policy are forgetting that, in the two centuries since President James Monroe announced the “doctrine,” later given his name, US policy towards Latin America has been aggressively self-interested.

Its troops have intervened thousands of times in the region and have occupied its countries on numerous occasions. Just since World War II, there have been around 50 significant interventions or coup attempts, beginning with Guatemala in 1954. The US has 76 military bases across the region, while other major powers like China and Russia have none.

The doctrine is very much alive. In Foreign Affairs, Brian Winter warns: “Many Republicans perceive these linkages [with China], and the growing Chinese presence in Latin America more broadly, as unacceptable violations of the Monroe Doctrine, the 201-year-old edict that the Western Hemisphere should be free of interference from outside powers.”

Bosworth adds that Trump wants Latin America to decisively choose a side in the US vs China scrimmage, not merely underplay the role of China in the hemisphere. Any country courting Trump, he suggests, “needs to show some anti-China vibes.”

Will Freeman is with the Council on Foreign Relations, whose major sponsors are also Pentagon contractors. He thinks that a new Monroe Doctrine and what he calls Trump’s “hardball” diplomacy may partially work, but only with northern Latin America countries, which are more dependent on US trade and other links.

Trump has two imperatives: while one is stifling China’s influence (e.g. by taking possession of the Panama Canal), another is gaining control of mineral resources (a reason for his wanting to acquire Greenland). The desire for mineral resources is not new, either. General Richardson gave an interview in 2023 to another defense-industry-funded thinktank in which she strongly insinuated that Latin American minerals rightly belong to the US.

Maintaining hegemonic power against the threat of multipolarity

Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer, writing 20 years ago for yet another thinktank funded by the  defense industry, openly endorsed the US’s status as the dominant hegemonic power and decried multilateralism, at least when not in US interests. “Multipolarity, yes, when there is no alternative,” he said. “But not when there is. Not when we have the unique imbalance of power that we enjoy today.”

Norwegian commentator Glen Diesen, writing in 2024, contends that the US is still fighting a battle – although perhaps now a losing one – against multipolarity and to retain its predominant status. Trump’s “America first!” is merely a more blatant expression of sentiments held by his other presidential predecessors for clinging on to Washington’s contested hegemony.

The irony of Biden’s presidency was that his pursuit of the Ukraine war has led to warmer relations between his two rivals, Russia and China. In this context, the growth of BRICS has been fostered – an explicitly multipolar, non-hegemonic partnership. As Glen Diesen says, “The war intensified the global decoupling from the West.”

Other steps to maintain US hegemony – its support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the regime-change operation in Syria and the breakdown of order in Haiti – suggest that, in Washington’s view, according to Diesen, “chaos is the only alternative to US global dominance.” Time and again, Yankee “beneficence” has meant ruination, not development.

These have further strengthened desires in the global south for alternatives to US dominance, not least in Latin America. Many of its countries (especially those vulnerable to tightening US sanctions) now want to follow the alternative of BRICS.

Unsurprisingly, Trump has been highly critical of this perceived erosion of hegemonic power on Biden’s watch. Thomas Fazi argues in UnHerd that this is realism on Trump’s part; he knows the Ukraine war cannot be conclusively won, and that China’s power is difficult to contain. Accordingly, this is leading to a “recalibrating of US priorities toward a more manageable ‘continental’ strategy — a new Monroe Doctrine — aimed at reasserting full hegemony over what it deems to be its natural sphere of influence, the Americas and the northern Atlantic,” stretching from Greenland and the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica.

The pundits may not agree on quite what Trump’s approach towards Latin America will be, but they concur with Winter’s judgment that the region “is about to become a priority for US foreign policy.” His appointment of Marco Rubio is a signal of this. The new secretary of state is a hawk, just like Blinken, but one with a dangerous focus on Latin America.

However, the mere fact that such pundits hark back to the Monroe Doctrine indicates that this is only, so to speak, old wine in new bottles. Even in the recent past, an aggressive application of the 201-year-old Monroe Doctrine has never seen a hiatus.

Recall US-backed coups that deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (2009) and Bolivian Evo Morales (2019), plus the failed coup against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (2018), along with the parliamentary coup that ousted Paraguayan Fernando Lugo (2012). To these, US-backed regime change by “lawfare” included Dilma Rousseff in Brazil (2016) and Pedro Castillo in Peru (2023). Currently presidential elections have simply been suspended in Haiti and Peru with US backing.

Even if Trump is more blatant than his predecessors in making clear that his policymaking is based entirely on what he perceives to be US interests, rather than those of Latin Americans, this is not new.

As commentator Caitlin Johnstone points out, the main difference between Trump and his predecessors is that he “makes the US empire much more transparent and unhidden.” From the other end of the political spectrum, a former John McCain adviser echoes the same assessment: “there will likely be far more continuity between the two administrations than meets the eye.”

Regardless, Latin America will continue to struggle to set its own destiny, patchily and with setbacks, and this will likely draw it away from the hegemon, whatever the US does.

Nicaragua-based John Perry is with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and writes for the London Review of Books, FAIR, and CovertAction.

Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas, the US Peace Council, and the Venezuela Solidarity Network

Featured image courtesy of Cornell University/Wikimedia Commons

First published by Popular Resistance: https://popularresistance.org/whether-biden-or-trump-us-latin-american-policy-will-still-be-contemptible/

By Maximiliano Véjares

Washington DC

Chile’s recent local elections, in which moderate, traditional parties staged a comeback, offer a promising sign of political stability. Following five years of uncertainty marked by a social uprising in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic, and two unsuccessful attempts to rewrite the Pinochet-era constitution, the country appears to be approaching a turning point.

Historically recognized as a model of democratic transition and economic progress, Chile’s recent challenges have cast significant doubt on its democratic resilience. However, the recent election outcome suggests that the period of uncertainty may be drawing to a close.

The center-right Chile Vamos coalition demonstrated its strength by surpassing the far-right Republicanos in their competition for dominance in that sector. Simultaneously, the center-left Socialismo Democratico coalition increased its vote share vis-à-vis the more left-leaning Communist Party and Frente Amplio. Mayors, municipal and regional (states) councilmembers, and governors, are much more evenly distributed across the ideological spectrum than before the elections.

Chilean Democracy Undergoes Dramatic Shifts Since 2019

Since 2019, the country’s democracy has undergone dramatic shifts. That year, a widespread social uprising triggered the election of a constitutional assembly reflecting deep-seated demands for systemic change. In September 2022, however, the population decisively rejected a progressive constitutional draft, with 63% voting against it. Undeterred, political elites attempted a do-over, now with a reformed electoral system, hoping to elect a more balanced constitutional assembly. Despite these efforts, the strategy backfired. Republicanos secured a plurality of votes and the chance to veto decisions in the new assembly, resulting in a conservative draft. Ultimately, the latest proposal met the same fate as its predecessor, with 55% of Chileans rejecting the new constitutional project.

Given these rapid political transformations, last November’s local election results offer a promising sign of renewed stability for Chile. Voters appear to have moved beyond the climate of uncertainty, shifting away from supporting outsider candidates who promised sweeping economic and social restructuring and instead gravitating towards more moderate, centrist political alternatives.

Despite hurting citizens’ aspirations to rewrite the Pinochet-era constitution, the instability caused by years of institutional uncertainty is most likely over. Every significant coalition has agreed not to attempt new constitutional changes in the near future. The new political landscape indicates an emergent recalibration of Chile’s party system.

Despite the good news, some fundamental challenges remain. Political parties and Congress continue to suffer from extremely low public trust, with recent polling indicating that only 8% and 4% trust these institutions, respectively. Moreover, an electoral reform implemented in 2015 that replaced the archaic Pinochet-era binomial system incentivizes politicians to act as individual political entrepreneurs rather than committed party-builders.

The increasing personalization of politics has consequently made legislation and governance increasingly tricky. Recognizing this fragmentation, a cross-party group of senators has proposed a bill to raise the vote threshold required for an electoral list to enter Congress, with the explicit goal of reducing the number of parties in Congress. Improving the institutional design could help political elites enhance policymaking to face the country’s most pressing challenges: rising public safety concerns and a stagnating economy

Chile’s political stability is critical not only for its citizens but also for the global energy landscape. As a significant contributor to the energy transition, the country commands an extensive share of the world’s lithium and copper reserves and production. With the United States and China seeking to develop resilient supply chains and invest in renewable energy infrastructure, Chile is positioned to play a pivotal role in the emerging geopolitical dynamics of critical mineral production and clean energy development.

The Presidential Race Heats Up

Together with more centrist incumbents at the local level, two issues will lurk behind the presidential and legislative elections of November 2025: economic stagnation and escalating public safety concerns. Evelyn Matthei, a right-wing moderate and the daughter of Fernando Matthei—a former military junta member—is the clear frontrunner. A recent poll shows that 22% of citizens would support her if the election were held this week, positioning her ahead of all left-leaning presidential hopefuls. The poll also indicates that Matthei would defeat every contender in a potential runoff, including the far-right Kast. On the contrary, the poll suggests every left-leaning candidate would lose against Matthei in a runoff. In the case Kast made it to a second round, he could be defeated by left leaning former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, should she have a change of heart and decide to run.

Matthei faces two far-right challengers: José Antonio Kast and Johannes Kaiser. In the 2021 election, Kast beat Chile Vamos but was ultimately defeated by Gabriel Boric in the runoff. Kaiser, a polarizing far-right politician, left the Republicanos party in 2023. Current polling indicates Kaiser’s candidacy is gaining traction, with 8% of voters expressing potential support—a trajectory that suggests growing political momentum.

It is unclear who the contenders on the left will be. Gabriel Boric’s government (2021-2025) is relatively unpopular, with an average approval rating of 30%. Such context makes it hard for many left-leaning political figures to dissociate from the government. Thus far, former president Michelle Bachelet is the only competitive candidate, although at this time she still loses against Matthei in the polls mentioned above. Recently, former President Bachelet indicated that she will not run for a third time.

Lately, the coalitional dynamics within Chile’s left have shifted rapidly. The once-powerful Socialismo Democrático has lost support after endorsing the 2019 wave of demonstrations which, according to research conducted in 2024 by CADEM, are now viewed with disapproval by a majority of respondents. Meanwhile, the more progressive Frente Amplio has emerged as the dominant force among left-leaning parties.

Looking ahead to the June 2025 primaries, two distinct scenarios could emerge if left-wing candidates gain momentum. Under Socialismo Democratico leadership, we would likely see a more market-oriented approach, leveraging their extensive governmental experience and networks of skilled technocrats. On the other hand, if a candidate from Frente Amplio or the communist party prevails, the presidential race would likely center on increasing state control over natural resources and expanding wealth redistribution programs.

Although primary elections are not mandatory, it has become common for large coalitions to nominate their presidential candidates through this mechanism.

Whatever happens next year, the institutional uncertainty stemming from the constitutional discussion has mostly dissipated. If political elites create a more balanced electoral system and find a way to jumpstart the economy, Chile may be back on track on the road to economic progress and democratic stability.

Photo Credit: Universidad de Chile.

Maximiliano Véjares holds a PhD. from Johns Hopkins and an MA from the University of Chicago. He is a senior research associate at Johns Hopkins University’s Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab and a nonresident fellow at American University in Washington, DC. His academic interests are the origins of political development, including democracy, state capacity, and the rule of law. Beyond His scholarly work, Maximiliano has broad professional experience in government and international organizations.

St. Lucia during and post Hurricane Beryl

by Tamanisha J. John

Toronto, Ontario

Whenever a hurricane hits in the Caribbean, people rush to point out that it is an indicator of “disaster capitalism” and/or that “disaster capitalism” will surely come. While I agree that non-governmental organizations (NGO) and other organizations profit from disasters in the Caribbean region, and have a long history of doing so, I am less inclined to believe that “disaster capitalism” exists there unless one takes an ahistorical view. Disaster capitalism in the Caribbean can only exist in those states whose revolutions have been defeated and/or undermined, but overall, there has been no massive structural changes in these states. The region is already, and historically has been, ultra-accommodating to capitalism. Disaster capitalism refers to “the use of the shock of disastrous situations to dismantle state participation in the economy and to implant structural changes in the form of laissez-faire capitalism” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 311). To claim that disaster capitalism will come to the Caribbean region would thus indicate a marked period of state participation in the Caribbean that provided for the peoples living there.

Instead, all states’ independence was marked by US interventions given the ideological and economic struggle of the Cold War and the neoliberal turn, which attacked state input and intervention in the market. Caribbean states’ independence was marked by debt and lack of access to capital. It occurred alongside financial institutions’ proliferation of structural adjustment policies whose implementation was necessitated for states in the region to acquire access to loaned capital (John, 2023). Though struggles for nationalizations did occur – in industries like mining, banking, insurance, and others – harsh retaliations from the US and Canada made them unsustainable (John, 2023, p. 134) – with no real reductions in foreign ownership “despite the changes in legal forms of ownership” (Thomas, 1984, p. 168-9). Thus, large foreign ownership of resource extractive industries and financial institutions remained a feature of Caribbean societies when they became independent – just as it also marked the colonial landscape in these spaces. The foreign players that controlled corporations, land, and industries in these countries did change somewhat, but this was also typical with imperial rivalries (Caribbean states themselves having been subject to multiple phases of European colonization throughout their histories).

It was Walter Rodney, who in his 1972 text How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, put forward a critique of the thesis that capitalism had to develop prior to ushering in socialism – which was Marx’s estimation – given that this thesis went against the trajectory of capitalist development in both the Caribbean and in Africa, where the capitalist logics of extraction with disregard for these societies left them in almost permanent states of underdevelopment, that only physical and ideological anti-imperialism could rectify. One of the consequences of this underdevelopment, I argue, is the lack of hurricane preparedness. The logic of “getting people back to work” and “security” in these colonized spaces have always trumped wellbeing for the people and environment – precisely because the people in them have always been categorized as disposable, while the natural resources have been reduced to instruments for the generation of profit. This ideology was true under European empires, and now true under US hegemony in the region – where foreign imposing actors continue to have more say on preparedness, wealth distribution, land ownership, security, economic development, and entrepreneurship (innovation).

In a Region Prone to Hurricanes, Unpreparedness is an Ideological Policy Choice

“Hurricanes are not random phenomena. Atmospheric conditions and physics limit their movement” (Schwartz, 2015, p. xvi). In the Caribbean, the Yucatán Peninsula, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South-Eastern United States, we have come to expect a lack of preparedness whenever hurricanes strike. Though Hurricane Beryl’s strength and early formation in June was unprecedented for the Caribbean’s hurricane season, what is precedent is the lack of regional preparedness for hurricanes in a region prone to have them – no matter when these hurricanes form. Forming around June 25th it was clear that Beryl would break the record for earliest formed Category 5 hurricane by the time that it made way into the Caribbean. This was due to the unusually warm temperatures registered in both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea as early as March, various heatwave advisories and warnings were placed on the region acknowledging that the summer 2024 would be “hotter than usual” (Loop News 2024). When news of Beryl’s formation first spread, people expected the worst given unusually hot increases in temperatures (+4°c) for the region so early in the year.

Making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in one of the smaller islands of Grenada, Carriacou, on July 1st Beryl would destroy 95% of the infrastructure there before strengthening to a Category 5 hurricane. It would bring even worse devastation to a smaller island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Mayreu, where reports proclaim that island to have nearly been “erased from the map” (AP News 2024). In its Caribbean path, Beryl brought devastation as a Category 5 and 4 storm to Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Tobago and northern Venezuela, Barbados, and the southern portion of Jamaica. In its North American path, Beryl brought devastation as a Category 2 and 1 storm to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, before making landfall in Texas and Louisiana. Thereafter the storm was experienced elsewhere in the form of a tropical cyclone and massive downpours of rain. Beryl eventually tapered off in Canada on July 11th where it left heavy rain that caused massive flooding (due to Canada’s neglected flood systems). Beryl’s death toll currently stands at 33, with the storm causing 6 deaths “in Venezuela, 1 in Grenada, 2 in Carriacou, 6 in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 4 in Jamaica […] at least 11 in the Greater Houston area, 1 in Louisiana, and 2 in Vermont.” (TT Weather Center 2024)”

Now that the storm has passed, people in impacted areas must contend with the loss of life, destruction of physical infrastructure – including homes and businesses, the lack of food and other basic products, as well as the lack of power and electricity. While contending with loss, victims of this severe weather will start to question the inability of their governments – rich or poor – to adequately address the post hurricane scenarios that they find themselves in repeatedly. This discontent with unpreparedness is now prevalent even before the hurricane season itself has ended.

A Note on Cuba’s Hurricane Preparedness, The Importance of Ideology

One of the most infuriating elements of hurricanes in this region is the “disaster” narratives that come after them, which falsely assert the “naturalness” of unpreparedness given the chaos of the disaster itself – when unpreparedness is, in fact, an ideological policy choice. Poorer states in this region are shackled by an unwillingness of the state to drastically deviate from “larger institutional constraints from which the logic of colonial administration derived its central purpose” and are inherited (Pérez Jr., 2001, p. 133-4).  On the other hand, richer states are shackled by their individualist ideologies which offer “vigorous critiques of government expenditure” which leave preparedness up to “market-driven, neoliberal economic policies,” that turn state and local responsibilities over “to charitable institutions, to churches, or to the victims themselves and their communities” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 300).

When looking at states in the Western Hemisphere which frequently experience hurricanes, Cuba stands out as a state which tends to fare better in the post hurricane environment given that state’s policies of shared responsibility towards its people. This even as Cuba has been subjected to a draining embargo and sanctions which places a burden on economic growth there. Yet still, Washington maintains that Cuba’s successful hurricane response and disaster mitigation strategies amount to “the exchange of liberty for effectiveness” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 293-4). Though couched in this language of ‘liberty,’ mitigating the loss of life ensures one’s longtime enjoyment of liberty – as opposed to dying for ‘liberty’s’ sake during a hurricane (or other disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic). For example, Cuba’s hurricane preparedness in relation to the US stands out. Cuba’s disaster response compares a bit more favorably to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA “oversaw 15 times more deaths from hurricanes than Cuba from 2005 — the year that Katrina struck New Orleans — to 2015” (Wolfe, 2021).

This is because Cuba’s disaster preparedness is proactive, prioritizing human life and well-being given the ideological foundations of its revolution that transformed political, social, economic, and environmental relations in the country. US disaster preparedness on the other hand prioritizes profit at the expense of people – it is reactionary and reactive, often blaming victims of hurricane disasters for the lack of state preparedness.

The Caribbean Hurricane as Natural Phenomena, the Disaster as Colonial Inheritance

Hurricanes are not experienced equally amongst states in the Western Hemisphere. People living on Caribbean islands tend to experience the worst effects of hurricanes when they do strike, and it is also people on these same islands which tend to have less resources to recover from the impacts of a hurricane. Though Cuba’s hurricane preparedness is commendable, infrastructure and livelihoods there are still devastated by hurricanes. Many of the Caribbean islands are geographically located “in the Atlantic Hurricane Alley, [and] the region is sensitive to large-scale fluctuation of ocean patterns that are disrupted by warming seas” (Zodgekar, et. al 2023, p. 321). Additionally, populations and infrastructure on these islands tend to be concentrated on the coast – a colonial holdover – given that European “settlements were established directly in the path of oncoming hurricanes (Pérez Jr., 2001, p. 8). Initially due to lack of knowledge, this trend remained unchanged amongst Europeans given the need to export what was being extracted from these islands using the ports developed on the coasts.

Historically, environmental disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, and droughts) throughout the 1600s-1900s would consolidate land amongst the wealthiest European settlers on different islands and would foil settler attempts to diversify agriculture on islands. This was because wealthy settlers could more easily recover and rebuild what was lost in the aftermath of a hurricane, due to their ability to access credit from Europe and resort to using their own fortunes (wealth and networks). On the other hand, smaller settlers unable to rebuild and recover from hurricane losses had a harder time accessing credit – and creditors within Europe viewed loaning to smaller settlers as a financial burden. If these smaller settlers were already in debt, the passing of a hurricane meant that they would either have to work off debt by giving all that they had to a creditor in Europe, or one on the island, by entering into a credit arrangement with a wealthier plantation owner (Mulcahy, 2006, p. 86-8). These losses were quite frequent, as it is known that these phenomena made it so that some European creditors in Europe would amass plantation wealth, even if they themselves had never visited a Caribbean island or formally engaged in plantation life (Mulcahy, 2006, p. 87-8).

These dynamics, in part, explain the predominance of the cultivation of sugar (and rice in what would become the South-Eastern United States) within the region, and even then, “plantership […] necessitated deep pockets (or strong credit) to survive its constant and rapid fluctuations” (Mulcahy, 2006, p. 66). “Without access to credit, smaller farmers were forced to sell their lands to wealthier and more secure planters, who thereby expanded their landholdings and production capabilities” (Mulcahy, 2006, p. 86). This consolidation of larger and wealthier plantations also made other concerns arise, namely the depopulation of settlers from the islands, as debtors opted to leave in the aftermath of storms, and later the transfers of estates to owners outside of the colonies (Mulcahy, 2006, p. 86-7). In essence, settlers’ decision to flee in the wake of, or after, a hurricane shaped population dynamics and demographics in colonies. They also shaped the lack of hurricane preparedness in colonies. Wealthier planters on the islands, and Europeans in Europe, who could suffer from hurricane losses (hurricanes themselves not being guaranteed every season), rebuild afterwards, and recover previous losses given the profit from plantation trade goods – had less incentives to plan ahead if they were not as risk of losing everything they had amassed in their life after a hurricane.

In smaller island states’, where plantation systems were heavily disrupted or stunted in growth due to geography of the land (especially in the Lesser Antilles), even fewer attempts were made to develop any infrastructure which could protect against storms (Mulcahy, 2006). To be clear, this does not mean that these landscapes were spared from destruction which made the impacts of hurricanes worse: deforestation, overgrazing, and over-cultivation of Caribbean islands during centuries of European colonialism that included dispossession of indigenous groups and the enslavement of Africans, also impacted how hurricanes came to be experienced. While planter consolidation, rebuilding, and profits have so far been underscored here – the elephant in the room is that all of this occurred alongside the massive death toll of enslaved Africans who suffered the most both during and after the passage of a hurricane. Outside of the high death tolls for enslaved Africans on the islands, once a hurricane passed, the ultimate goal in the colonies became the reestablishment of ‘law-and-order’ given fears of slave revolt in the wake of destruction (Mulcahy, 2006; Schwartz, 2015). Although slave-revolts post hurricane remained a consistent fear of settlers, slave revolts did not occur after a hurricane due to its disproportionate toll on enslaved populations who were “often the most debilitated by the shortage of food and the diseases that followed the hurricane” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 49).

Caribbean Indigenous Peoples Blamed European Imperial Settlement for Increased Hurricane Devastation

From historical accounts, we know that the Spaniards were the first Europeans to experience a hurricane within the Western Hemisphere during Columbus’s second voyage in 1494/5 (Pérez Jr., 2001; Mulcahy, 2006; Schwartz, 2015). The hurricane experience was unlike anything that Europeans had observed in Europe, and it was from this experience that they sought out intel from the indigenous peoples in the Caribbean. For Caribbean indigenous peoples, “the great storms were part of the annual cycle of life. They respected their power and often deified it, but they also sought practical ways to adjust their lives to the storms. Examples were many: The Calusas of southwest Florida planted rows of trees to serve as windbreaks to protect their villages from hurricanes. On the islands of the Greater Antilles—Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico—the Taino people preferred root crops like yucca, malanga, and yautia because of their resistance to windstorm damage. The Maya of Yucatan generally avoided building their cities on the coast because they understood that such locations were vulnerable to the winds and to ocean surges that accompanied the storms” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 5). Further, Indigenous representations of hurricanes were overall accurate and are similar to modern meteorological mapping of these storms. Europeans also learned from Caribbean Indigenous groups that you could “track” when a hurricane would strike. These developments meant that Indigenous Caribbean knowledge of the hurricane was not only limited to the occurrence of storm, but also meant that Indigenous Caribbean societies factored in preparedness for hurricanes within their worldviews.

Given Caribbean Indigenous knowledge of hurricanes, it is these same people who also recognized that the changes to the landscape by European colonialism contributed to the increased devastation caused by hurricanes between the 1600s-1900s. As such, English colonists who would also come to experience the hurricanes report that “several elderly Caribs stated that hurricanes had become more frequent in recent years, which they viewed as a punishment for their interactions with Europeans” and the main “alteration that our people attribute the more frequent happenings of Hurricanes” (Mulcahy, 2006, p. 35). What these settler accounts reveal about Indigenous Caribbean peoples is what Schwartz notes in his 2015 book, Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina, that although “hurricanes were a natural phenomenon; what made them disasters was the patterns of settlement, economic activity, and other human action” (p. 74). Nonetheless, colonial ecological and environmental destruction in the Caribbean – which increased the felt impact of hurricanes – remained worthwhile for Europeans given the high profits to be made from export crops, which kept people there to rebuild after hurricanes. Mulcahy in his 2006 book, Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624 – 1783, writes “European settlers and colonists were engaged in a never-ending struggle against nature in their quest for wealth” (p. 93)

Additionally, the European empire’s responses to hurricanes also influenced decisions to stay. Because colonial societies in the Caribbean were stratified along racial and other social hierarchies – hurricanes presented opportunities for large scale consolidation of plantation property on islands which privileged wealthy plantation owners. Additionally, smaller merchants and plantations which could not recover post hurricane were sometimes forced to transfer ownership to merchants in Europe – who never had to visit these properties while amassing wealth from them thereafter (Mulcahy 2006, p. 88). Disaster relief to the colonies thus came to be historically designed as a way for further economic integration, and “assistance to the colonies in times of disaster would bring wealth and affluence to the empire” (Mulcahy 2006, p. 162). Disaster assistance – while increasing inequalities between all peoples in the colonies – did overall benefit imperial capitalism and patriotism within the empire, amongst loyal subjects, especially amongst elite classes, who received the majority of aid based on their losses.

Banking on Hurricanes and Absolving Empire of Responsibility: Debates in Europe

While debates in Europe raged regarding enriching the already wealthy within the colonies with disaster relief – these debates did not change the post-hurricane reality of which those most needing of aid (Indigenous groups, enslaved Africans, indentured workers, small merchants, and small planters) were the least likely to receive it, which was true across all of the different European colonies (Pérez Jr., 2001; Mulcahy, 2006; Schwartz, 2015). “Vulnerability to the hurricane itself was a function of the material determinants” around which colonial social hierarchies were arranged (Pérez Jr., 2001, p. 111). In Europe, debates focused primarily on creditors, so it was argued that the wealthy were more primed to repay creditors when/if they received disaster relief after a hurricane. On the other hand, the proliferation of print news meant that individuals and organizations (e.g., the Church) could send aid to the colonies after disaster struck. Previously, when disaster struck it would take months for news to reach those in Europe, even as the disruptions in trade were more readily felt. Moreover, it was hard for the public in Europe to understand the scale of destruction caused by hurricanes in the Americas, given that this kind of natural disaster did not occur in Europe.

With the establishment of print media, the destruction caused by hurricanes and the damages that they did to plantation systems – which would require a lot of assistance to recover – was made much more readily available to people who could empathize and assist in recovery efforts. Within the British empire, some newspapers even published who would send what amount and type of post disaster relief to the colonies, which undoubtedly contributed to the charitable giving of some wealthy individuals (Mulcahy 2006; Schwartz 2015). Given that the voyage from Europe to the various colonies was long, there was illegal trading between different colonies to provide relief to one another faster – including with the United States, even after the American Revolution.

It is this colonial history which still shapes the lack of hurricane preparedness in a region prone to have them. Thus, most scholars on hurricanes in the region continue to highlight the colonial and slave legacies which have shaped regional unpreparedness to hurricanes. Though the United States is a wealthier country today with the capabilities to develop hurricane preparedness – even if only within its own borders – it is elite US security interests and ideological leanings which have prevented it from doing so. Additionally, historians like Schwartz (2015) make a compelling argument that “the United States, by its military and political expansion into the Caribbean after 1898, its foreign policy objectives in the Cold War, and through its advocacy of certain forms of capitalism joined with its ability to impose its preferences on international institutions, has also influenced the way in which the whole region has faced hurricanes and other disasters” (Schwartz, 2015, p. xviii-xix). This implies that the United States – like the European empire’s past – also has a stake, or interest, in regional hurricane unpreparedness for both political, economic, and security objectives.

US Imperial Extensions in the Caribbean, Impact on Hurricane Preparedness

From this overview of the history of hurricanes in the Caribbean, the Yucatán Peninsula, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South-Eastern United States a few things become clear: hurricane preparedness has never been a concern for colonial capitalist development. Hurricane disasters came to be recognized as extremely ruinous to those occupying the lowest rungs of colonial societies, aid was given to the wealthy people who were understood as being able to put aid to better usage, and disaster situations consolidated preferred modes of accumulation in otherwise “chaotic” and uncivilized landscapes. Thus, outside of patriotic tales and misremembering of the storm events, historically “hopes of communal solidarity” in the wake and aftermath of hurricanes “were either naïve or disingenuous [… with] social divisions ha[ving] always shaped the responses to hurricanes (Schwartz, 2015, p. 68-9). Given strict colonial hierarchies, the maintenance of order – to dissuade slave revolts and looting – were always preeminent concerns of empires and those with wealth and power. This is important to plainly state, given that little has changed in today’s experience with hurricanes in the region.

Today’s granting of conditioned relief and temporary debt removals still serve to subordinate Caribbean states to the Western capitalist system and the US security apparatus. Those areas hardest hit by storms and less likely to receive aid, continue to be occupied by the poor populations that are largely non-white/Euro peoples. Settlements on islands continue to be concentrated on coasts, where the tourist industry quickly rebuilds its infrastructure post-hurricane and are the first to receive aid. This at once dispels the myths that recovery is impossible, as it happens in the large coastal areas owned and controlled by foreign hotel chains and entities which quickly beckon tourists back to their “lovely beaches” less than a day after a hurricane. Preparedness for hurricanes in the Caribbean islands are “subordinated to political, military, or what today would be called ‘security’ concerns” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 276). I would include economic and ideological concerns as well. These latter concerns are maintained by the wealthiest states in the hemisphere – the United States and Canada.

Hurricane Flora in the 1960s claimed the lives of over 5,000 Haitians under the Duvalier dictatorship – which failed to even warn Haitians about the arrival of the hurricane so that disorder against Duvalier would not take over the country. The lack of preparedness was accepted by both the United States and Canadian governments given their fear of communism in the Caribbean region. Thus “unlike Haiti’s U.S.-backed right-wing president, François Duvalier, Castro’s Communist government ordered residents living in the hurricane’s projected path to evacuate their homes, and if they were unable, to stay and prepare appropriately for the storm.” This preparation and the establishment of Cuba’s defense system in 1966 accounted for significantly less deaths (1,157) in Cuba (Wolfe, 2021). Today, unpreparedness remains a feature in most Caribbean countries that put corporate interests and the interests of the US (and its allies) security objectives above the prioritization of human life and livelihoods in the Caribbean.

As further illustration of this point, even though the 2004 Hurricane Jeanne hit Cuba a lot harder than Haiti – killing 3,000 Haitians – no Cuban lives were lost due to the hurricane (Wolfe, 2021). The historical and present-day case of Haiti is both informative and a cause for worry as we expect future hurricane seasons to be quite bad. Not only is Haiti a fully privatized economy (Wilentz, 2008); but it is also one that has been under the tutelage of the CORE group – a group composed primarily of foreign ambassadors from the US, France, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Germany, and a few representatives from the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), and the Organization of American States (OAS) – for over two decades. The CORE group’s tutelage of Haiti has been exceptionally negative, as these states and their ambassadors secure their own corporate and labor interests in the country at the expense of that state’s democracy and national sovereignty (Edmonds, 2024). Thus, disaster preparedness in Haiti has never been an agenda item – and has only gotten worse as those governing the country continue to benefit from political, economic, and environmental disasters there. Present day armed intervention and occupation in Haiti, further makes it unlikely that Haiti will be able to weather the next hurricane season.

Hurricane Unpreparedness, A Note on Canada

It is important to remind here that although much is said about US imperialism and security concerns trumping human rights and pro-people development in the region – Canada is not exempt from this critique. For instance, although Canada touts that its military base (OSH-LAC) in the Caribbean is a “support hub” – that also seeks to assist states experiencing disasters, of which hurricanes are included – in 2017 when Category 5 Hurricane’s Irma and Maria wreaked havoc on Dominica, OSH-LAC warships monitored the situation but provided no on the ground help to Caribbean peoples there (John, 2024, p. 12-3). The Canadian government also enacted restrictive migration policies towards those fleeing from the hurricane and its damages. This practice would be repeated by Canada again in 2019 during the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas (John, 2024, p. 12-3). Given that I am currently living in Canada, it is important to point out that Canada is a state that frequently touts progressive rhetoric on climate change, resiliency, and disaster preparedness in the Caribbean region. However, Canada’s actions continue to render the Caribbean region unprepared alongside the actions of the US.

In the 2023 Canada-CARICOM summit hosted by Canada, Caribbean prime ministers sought to place climate issues and climate infrastructure at the top of the agenda – however, Canada was mainly concerned with getting support for an armed intervention in Haiti (Thurton, 2023). Haiti remains the most unprepared country in the Caribbean when disasters hit, which made Canada’s insistence on armed intervention and occupation even more tone deaf. Haiti’s unpreparedness is directly tied to US, Canada, France, and CORE group members tutelage and rejection of Haitian democracy ever since that country’s integration into the Western capitalist system via US occupation. These examples illuminate the fact that the wealthier states in the Western Hemisphere, namely the US and Canada, actively disregard the lives of those impacted by hurricanes and other natural disasters to their south – while first and foremost safeguarding their own economic, ideological, and security priorities. In my analysis of ‘south,’ the Caribbean, the Yucatán Peninsula, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South-Eastern United States are included.

Conclusion

Ideologically, the promotion of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism in the Caribbean (of which the South-Eastern United States, the Gulf of Mexico and Yucatán Peninsula is included) continues to pose an obstacle to disaster preparedness in a region prone to hurricanes.  More importantly, the promotion of these harmful ideologies often comes at the expense of human life. Nothing makes this clearer than the fact that it is the revolutionary state – which is also the most heavily economically sanctioned state in the region – Cuba, that continues to be the most prepared state in times of disaster. This stands in stark contrast to other Caribbean states and to wealthier states, like the US, which mandate regional unpreparedness. Today, while we await (but hope that it is not so) a bad hurricane season, the Caribbean region is more militarized than it has been since the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. Militarization is directly due to US security objectives that aim to keep China’s investments (thus competition) out of the region. This policy is backed by Canada, which seeks to advance its own corporate interests in the region.

The US and Canada continue to militarize the Caribbean region, exacerbating climate change and neglecting the urgency of developing resiliency infrastructure. In fact, militarization in the Caribbean region today (and in Africa and Asia) occurs alongside the tightening of both the US and Canadian borders given hostile narratives towards immigrants and immigration within them. This even with the region’s long history (as has been pointed out) of people fleeing the region both during and after a hurricane. All of which indicates that while these states are undoubtedly deepening the climate crisis with their global “security” endeavors, they view the people harmed and negatively impacted by their actions as disposable.

Postscript

Three months after the writing of this document, 5 hurricanes – Debby, Ernesto, Francine, Helene, and Milton – have impacted peoples and infrastructure in the south. The 2024 Atlantic Hurricane season thus far (October 11th, 2024) has taken almost 400 lives – with the actual figure being uncertain, given that the damage from Milton is still being assessed. Each storm is estimated to have cost between $80 – $250 billion (USD) in damages across the region. While governments talk about costs and recovery efforts to get economies “back on track” and provide people with temporary and conditional aid – which is the post disaster norm – we are presented with an uncomfortable, yet undeniable fact: states in the region, whether by colonial inheritance or commitment to capitalism, are banking on unpreparedness continuing well into the future. We must be proactive in defeating this dangerous ideology that places people’s lives, livelihoods and the physical environment at stake; while perpetuating, in its aftermath, conditions that make it so.

References

Clark, John I, and Léon Tabah, eds. 1995. Population and Environment Population – Environment – Development Interactions. Paris, France: Comité International de Coopération dans les Recherches Nationales en Démographie (CICRED). http://www.cicred.org/Eng/Publications/pdf/c-a1.pdf.

Direct Relief. 2024. “Direct Relief Responds as Hurricane Beryl Impacts the Caribbean. The Region, Watchful and Ready, Will Weather the Storm Today.” Direct Relief. https://www.directrelief.org/2024/07/direct-relief-responds-as-hurricane-beryl-impacts-the-caribbean-the-region-watchful-and-ready-will-weather-the-storm-today/.

Edmonds, Kevin. 2024. “CARICOM, Regional Arm of the Core Group, Sells Out Haiti Again.” Black Agenda Report. https://www.blackagendareport.com/caricom-regional-arm-core-group-sells-out-haiti-again.

Forecast Centre. 2024. “Atlantic Canada Next in Line for a Soaking, Flood Risk from Beryl Remnants.” The Weather Network.https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/forecasts/atlantic-canada-next-in-line-for-a-soaking-flood-risk-from-beryl-remnants.

IFRC. 2024. “Humanitarian Needs Ramp up in the Aftermath of ‘unprecedented’ Hurricane Beryl, Signaling New Reality for Caribbean.” The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). https://www.ifrc.org/press-release/humanitarian-needs-ramp-aftermath-unprecedented-hurricane-beryl-signaling-new-reality.

Jobson, Ryan C. 2024. “Hurricane Beryl at the Gates: The Grenadines and Caribbean Autonomy.” Medium. https://medium.com/clash-voices-for-a-caribbean-federation-from-below/hurricane-beryl-at-the-gates-the-grenadines-and-caribbean-autonomy-86834fb43bcd.

John, Tamanisha J. 2023. “Canadian Imperialism in Caribbean Structural Adjustment, 1980-2000.” In Class Power and Capitalism, Brill Publishers, 136–79.

John, Tamanisha J. 2024. “Capitalism, Global Militarism, and Canada’s Investment in the Caribbean.” Class, Race and Corporate Power 12(1): 25.

Loop News. 2024. “Caribbean 2024 Heat Season Could Climb to Near-Record Heat.” Caribbean Loop News. https://caribbean.loopnews.com/content/caribbean-2024-heat-season-could-climb-near-record-heat.

McGrath, Gareth. 2024. “Hurricane Beryl Was the Earliest Category 5 Storm. What Could That Mean for NC?” Star News Online. https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/local/2024/07/11/what-hurricane-beryl-the-earliest-category-5-storm-could-mean-for-nc/74288495007/.

Mulcahy, Matthew. 2006. Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624 – 1783. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

NACLA. 2024. “This Week: Hurricane Beryl Slams the Caribbean, a Victory for Midwives in Mexico, Venezuelan Elections, and More.” https://nacla.salsalabs.org/july_12_24?wvpId=37c1b636-52b7-44b5-af75-9a38617519d5.

NASA. 2024. “Carriacou After Beryl.” NASA Earth Observatory. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153039/carriacou-after-beryl.

Pérez Jr., Louis A. 2001. Winds of Change: Hurricanes & The Transformation of Nineteenth-Century Cuba. Chapel Hill & London: The University of North Carolina Press.

Rodney, Walter. 2018. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Verso Books.

Schwartz, Stuart B. 2015. Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina. Princeton University Press.

Thomas, Clive Y. 1984. Plantations, Peasants and State: A Study of the Mode of Sugar Production in Guyana. Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Afro-American Studies.

Thurton, David. 2023. “Caribbean Looks to Trudeau to Put Quest for Climate Change Funding on the World’s Agenda.” CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/caricom-trudeau-caribbean-1.6999106.

TT Weather Center. 2024. “Hurricane Beryl Death Toll Now At 33.” Trinidad and Tobago Weather Center. https://ttweathercenter.com/2024/07/11/hurricane-beryl-death-toll-now-at-33/.

VOA News. 2024. “Remnants of Beryl Flood Northeast US.” VOA News. https://www.voanews.com/a/remnants-of-beryl-flood-northeast-us/7694063.html#.

Wagner, Bryce, and Cristiana Mesquita. 2024. “In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Beryl Nearly Erased the Smallest Inhabited Island from the Map.” AP News. https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-beryl-mayreau-island-caribbean-bb64fc9b61da76685704b8f42f97736c?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=fffcba4b-3154-47e9-b4ce-e0349f4225db.

Wilentz, Amy. 2008. “Hurricanes and Haiti.” Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/la-oe-wilentz13-2008sep13-story.html.

Wolfe, Mikael. 2021. “When It Comes to Hurricanes, the U.S. Can Learn a Lot from Cuba: Cuba Devised a System That Minimizes Death and Destruction from Hurricanes.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/01/when-it-comes-hurricanes-us-can-learn-lot-cuba/.

Zodgekar, Ketaki, Avery Raines, Fayola Jacobs, and Patrick Bigger. 2023. A Dangerous Debt-Climate Nexus. NACLA Report on the Americas. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2023.2247773.

Photo Credit: InOldNews, by Delia Louis
Description: Depicts St. Lucia during and post Hurricane Beryl
License info: Creative Commons taken from Flickr.

About the author: Tamanisha J. John is an Assistant Professor at York University in the Department of Politics

By Maribel Nolasco and Rubén Sierra

Honolulu, Hawai‘i 

History was made on June 2, 2024. Claudia Sheinbaum became the first woman to be elected President of México and the first democratically-elected woman to lead a country in North America. President-elect Sheinbaum will take the reins from her predecessor and mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on the first of October. Sheinbaum, the left-leaning leader of the National Regeneration Movement known as MORENA, has committed to continuing AMLO’s political agenda which is often referred to as the Fourth Transformation. The Fourth Transformation promotes equitable economic growth, job creation, investments in infrastructure, the expansion of social programs and combating corruption.^[i] These efforts are primarily aimed at realizing popular demands to alleviate poverty, improve public safety, and fortify democratic institutions.

Sheinbaum’s ascendancy to the Mexican presidency represents significant political change in México’s 203 year old history. Many Mexicans hope that this political change will equate to progressive changes within society. But change will not be an easy task. The Sheinbaum administration will be confronted with decades-long issues of poverty, immigration, border security, and the unconscionable violence perpetrated by criminal organizations. Urgent action will be needed from the incoming president to address these systemic issues.

So, how will President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum confront the complex issues affecting México?  How will the historic Mexican president govern in these very uncertain and volatile times?

Who is Claudia Sheinbaum?

President-elect Sheinbaum is a Jewish Mexican whose maternal and paternal grandparents fled Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. They settled in México City in the 1940s. Influenced by the scientists in her family, Sheinbaum earned a PhD in Energy Engineering and completed some of her doctoral work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Upon completion of her PhD, she worked as a faculty member at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM). In 2007, Sheinbaum went on to become a contributing co-author at the United Nations for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report.^[ii]

In 2000, Sheinbaum was appointed as Secretary of the Environment under AMLO’s administration when he served as Head of Government of México City. From 2015 to 2017, Sheinbaum served as Mayor of Tlalpan. In 2018, Sheinbaum became the first woman to be elected as the Head of Government of México City.

Sheinbaum’s Social Platform

As the first woman to represent México, Sheinbaum has made clear her social priorities. She has emphatically expressed her interest in “eradicating classism, racism, machismo and discrimination” which she associates with “right-wing thinking.”^[iii] México has been widely recognized as one of the most dangerous countries for women and girls. Sheinbaum said that her being a woman leader is a sign of an evolving society, “it’s a symbol for México” and “symbol for the world.”^[iv] Sheinbaum added that “México has been called a machista country for many years. But Mexicans are now governed by many women and that’s a change. I see young girls who are excited that a woman is going to be president. And it changes the culture for women and for men.”^[v] Although the specifics of her social policies have not yet been released, Sheinbaum acknowledges that more needs to be done to protect women and girls in México.

At the same time, Sheinbaum intends to continue AMLO’s vision of advancing indigenous rights. Sheinbaum has stated that she will continue to work with indigenous peoples of México to reach agreements to compensate for the historical injustices committed against their communities.^[vi] This priority is consistent with AMLO’s commitment to strengthen institutions which seek to defend indigenous communities and promote their right to self-determination.^[vii] However, this effort will not be without opposition.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), an armed indigenous revolutionary group located in southern México, has opposed several projects that have been promoted by AMLO. These projects include the expansion of the Mexican National Guard and the construction of the Maya Train. The leader of EZLN, referred to as subcommander Galeano, stated, “Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s [request] to build the Maya Train” is “a permit to destroy the indigenous people” because the megaproject will cause deforestation and destroy the biodiversity on indigenous lands.^[viii] Despite these concerns, AMLO has approved the completion of significant portions of the train. Some indigenous Mexicans have also expressed opposition to AMLO’s proposal to expand the National Guard and the building of new military barracks. According to the Guardian, “the national guard has built 165 barracks in México” under AMLO and “the indigenous Tzeltal ejido of San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas is leading the first lawsuit against one of 500 or so barracks planned across the country.”^[ix] Indigenous Mexicans argue that the construction of the barracks, like the Maya Train, will degrade their native lands and represents further militarization against indigenous people.^[x] Opposition from some indigenous groups to these policies will likely confront Sheinbaum’s presidency as she seeks to continue AMLO’s agenda. Overall, the success of Sheinbaum’s social platform will be heavily dependent on her ability to promote economic growth throughout the country.

Sheinbaum’s Plan for the Mexican Economy

Poverty continues to be a systemic issue in México. According to Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, in 2022, over 46 million people lived in poverty and over 9 million people lived in extreme poverty.^[xi] However, there are signs for optimism as nearly 6 million people have been lifted out of poverty as a result of AMLO’s pro-growth economic policies.^[xii] As AMLO has repeated on numerous occasions in his daily press conferences, “no olvidamos que por el bien de todos, primero los pobres” (we do not forget that for the good of all, the poor first). President-elect Sheinbaum has pledged to continue AMLO’s anti-poverty policies; for example, she has proposed to build one million homes which is projected to create two million jobs.^[xiii] Sheinbaum’s economic plan also includes public investments in infrastructure, increasing wages and developing industrial centers that are connected to educational institutions.^[xiv] This will be in conjunction with Sheinbaum’s plan to hasten México’s transition to renewable energy by allowing for more private investments.^[xv] At the same time, Sheinbaum has pledged to uphold AMLO’s promise to keep at least 54% of the country’s energy resources under government control.

Sheinbaum also intends to build on AMLO’s economic record by continuing to create jobs and stimulate regional economic growth through the manufacturing and tourism sectors. The revamped United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which AMLO strongly supports, has already created thousands of new jobs in manufacturing and at Mexican ports. As a result, USA Today recently reported that “more often Mexicans are staying put. They’re finding jobs in the hundreds of assembly plants that send car parts, pacemakers, respirators, computers and Christmas lights to the U.S., or they’re working in the booming tourist ports from Puerto Vallarta to Cancun.”^[xvi] According to AMLO, over three million assembly plant jobs have been created each year and thousands of more jobs created through infrastructure projects.^[xvii] These projects include the modernization of Mexican ports, the construction of Tren Maya, and the expansion of Ferrocarril Transístimo.

Michael Stott and Christine Murray of the Financial Times considers Sheinbaum “as an investor-friendly” politician “who will build on México’s privileged trade access to the U.S,”^[xviii] especially given the trade tensions between the U.S. and China. According to the Wilson Center based in Washington, D.C., “the deepening rift in the U.S.-China commercial ties provide substantial momentum for nearshoring in México, which, as of 2023, overtook Beijing as Washington’s main trading partner.”^[xix] The Wilson Center also added that Sheinbaum has “expressed an ambition… to attract greater U.S. investments” in manufacturing and “flagship projects like her renewable energy initiatives.”^[xx]

Overall, Sheinbaum’s economic priorities are ultimately intended to alleviate poverty and curb migration to the north. However, one significant obstacle to ensuring economic stability is the challenge of improving public safety. There is an urgent need to address and protect civilians from the persistent violence of criminal networks. This violence continues to disrupt economic activity. Therefore, Sheinbaum’s economic priorities will be dependent on her ability to address the historical violence that affects everyday people.

Sheinbaum and Public Safety

Criminal organizations throughout México continue to violently assert their control, especially in northern México. These organizations control strategic trade routes, agricultural commodities, and, of course, illicit drugs. Criminal organizations thrive, in part, because of the U.S.’ high demand for narcotics. In addition to drug trafficking, criminal groups are now competing for control over “legitimate export industries including avocados and limes.”^[xxi] The competition among groups, in some areas, has “caused Mexican families to live under the threat of extreme violence.”^[xxii] This unconscionable violence has resulted in the murder of over 156,000 people since 2018^[xxiii]  and the displacement of numerous families.

President-elect Sheinbaum, like AMLO, does not intend to directly combat criminal networks with stricter policing or the use of force. However, according to Reuters, Sheinbaum intends to “double the number of federal investigators to 8,000, increase the number of National Guard troops to 150,000 from around 120,000” and “decrease impunity through judicial reform.”^[xxiv] In addition, Sheinbaum “has pledged to address the root causes of organized crime via social programs” which “provide young people with economic opportunities to prevent recruitment from criminal groups.” Sheinbaum added, “we are going to rescue young people from the clutches of criminal gangs, and we’re going to give them support.”^[xxv]

Sheinbaum will also seek to address the root causes of what is empowering these criminal networks – guns coming from the United States. Sheinbaum’s administration will inherit a historic lawsuit against six U.S. gun manufacturers. During March of 2024, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has revived México’s $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers, which previously was dismissed by a lower court.”^[xxvi] The defendants include Smith & Wesson, Sturm, Ruger & Co., Beretta USA, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Colt’s Manufacturing Co., and Glock Inc.^[xxvii] México argues that these American gun manufacturers have engaged in “negligent practices that facilitate the trafficking of more than 500,000 guns annually to Mexican drug cartels.”^[xxviii] According to the Arms Control Association’s observation of México’s lawsuit, México alleges that the “actions of American gun manufacturers” have “contributed directly to the violence within its national borders.”^[xxix] All of the companies named in the suit have denied any wrongdoing.

Instead, the gun companies argue that the U.S. Protection of Lawful Commerce Arms Act grants them legal immunity from lawsuits brought against them by foreign governments. However, Alejandro Celorio Alcántara, a legal advisor to the Mexican Foreign Ministry, believes that the lawsuit will shine light on the truth. Alcántara recently stated that “not only will [the Mexican government] have the opportunity to present its evidence, [México] will be able to ask the defendant companies to share their evidence with the court,” and “it could be a gold mine”^[xxx] for justice. In addition to the U.S. gun case, which has the potential to halt the trafficking of guns from the U.S. to México, Sheinbaum will also inherit other legal efforts that seek to curb violence abroad.

México and International Affairs

México, under the Sheinbaum administration, is expected to continue the trend of taking on significant roles in international affairs. Previously, México granted asylum to Evo Morales after the “Lithium Coup” in Bolivia. México had also been a strong advocate of freedom for whistleblower Julian Assange until Assange was finally released from prison in June 2024. México also upheld its sovereignty over the country’s natural resources against foreign control. México has even taken bold legal positions within geopolitical affairs. On January 18, 2024, México and Chile referred the military conflict between Israel and Hamas to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Both countries requested an “investigation into the probable commission of crimes” within ICC’s jurisdiction^[xxxi] “due to the growing concern over the latest escalation of violence, particularly against civilian targets.”^[xxxii] The investigation is intended to identify the specific individuals from Israel and Hamas who should be charged with committing criminal acts.

The unconscionable violence has resulted in the forced displacement of over 2 million people and counting,^[xxxiii] the murder of over 39,000 civilians including more than 13,000 children.^[xxxiv] The war has had a disproportionate and devastating impact on the Palestinian people. President-elect Sheinbaum stated, “no reason justifies the murder of Palestinian civilians […] nothing can justify the murder of a child.” Sheinbaum added, “Because of my Jewish origin, because of my love for México […] I share with millions the desire for justice, equality, fraternity and peace.”^[xxxv]

Moreover, on May 28, 2024, México filed a declaration of intervention with the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.^[xxxvi] México joins a growing number of nations who are accusing Israel of violating the United Nation’s 1948 Genocide Convention. México contends that there is reasonable evidence for “the existence of genocide in the context of armed conflict” between Israel and Hamas.^[xxxvii]

Conclusion

The historic election of Claudia Sheinbaum has generated much optimism for Mexicans. President-elect Sheinbaum is expected to continue AMLO’s economic policies which have already resulted in steady economic growth and significant job creation in the manufacturing and tourism industries. A growing and stable economy has also been effective at lifting millions of people out of poverty, keeping Mexicans at home, and away from gangs. Stable economic growth will be dependent on Sheinbaum’s ability to ensure public safety given the looming threat of gang violence.

Internationally, President-elect Sheinbaum will be leading México during an unprecedented time in which the country is taking prominent leadership roles in the fight for regional integration and independence, as well as international justice. Given all of the complexities, both domestically and internationally, México, under the leadership of President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, is expected to be a strong symbol for peace, justice, and international cooperation.

Maribel Nolasco has over 8 years working with labor unions. She was born and raised in Puebla, México and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Chaminade University of Honolulu.

Ruben Sierra was a 2008 COHA Research Associate. In 2007, he studied Caribbean Literature and Music at the Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba. He has over 10 years of experience working with labor unions and non-profit organizations in California.

[i] AMLO & the Fourth Transformation: One Year After His Historic Election Victory | Wilson Center

[ii] Climate Change Working Group, Chapter 7: Industry – AR4 WGIII, United Nations, Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (accessed on May 30, 2024).

[iii] Lauren Villagran and Omar Ornelas, South of the border, a woman is poised to take power in historic Mexico 

elections, USA Today, June 1, 2024 (accessed on June 2, 2024).

[iv] Will Grant, Meet the women campaigning to become Mexico’s first female president | BBC, British Broadcasting

Corporation, May 30, 2024 (accessed on June 1, 2024).

[v] Ibid.

[vi] María Verza, Mexico’s next president is likely a woman. But in some Indigenous villages, men have all the power, WDIO ABC, May

28, 2024 (accessed on June 2, 2024). 

[vii] Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico’s indigenous peoples enrich the nation: Ebrard | Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores,

Government of México, June 3, 2022 (accessed on June 1, 2024). 

[viii] Peoples Dispatch, Zapatistas vow to continue resistance, oppose president AMLO’s ‘Mayan train’ project : Peoples Dispatch,

January 7, 2019 (accessed on July 23, 2024).

[ix] Peace Brigades International-USA, National Guard barracks, militarization of territory a concern for Indigenous peoples, environmental defenders in Mexico | PBI USA, (accessed on July 23, 2024).

[x] María Inclán, MEXICO: The Zapatistas vs. AMLO | Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Berkeley Center for Latin

American & Caribbean Studies, 2020 (accessed on July 23, 2024).

[xi] BBVA Research, Poverty decreases at its lowest level (36.3%); but, access to health deteriorates, page 1, August 16, 2023,

updated on November 1, 2023 (accessed on May 30, 2024).

[xii] BBVA Research, Mexico | Poverty decreases at its lowest level (36.3%); but, access to health deteriorates, August 16, 2023,

updated on November 1, 2023 (accessed on May 31, 2024).

[xiii] Mariana Allende, Claudia Sheinbaum’s Key Economic Initiatives, June 3, 2024 (accessed on July 23, 2024).

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] Dave Graham, Mexico’s Sheinbaum spurs hope of more private investment in energy after Lopez Obrador | Reuters, December

21,2023 (accessed on July 23, 2024)

[xvi] Lauren Villagran and Omar Ornelas, South of the border, a woman is poised to take power in historic Mexico 

elections, USA Today, June 1, 2024 (accessed on June 2, 2024).

[xvii] México’s President Lopéz Obrador, Encuentro con las industrias maquiladora y manufacturera, desde Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua,

via Mexican President’s YouTube Channel, Encuentro con las industrias maquiladora y manufacturera, desde Ciudad Juárez,

Chihuahua

[xviii] Financial Times, Claudia Sheinbaum, the woman hoping to be Mexico’s first female president (accessed on June 3, 2024).

[xix] Santiago Jose Herdoiza, Election 2024: Continuity and Change in Mexico’s Political and Economic

   Landscape, Wilson Center, May 24, 2024, (accessed on June 3, 2024).

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Lauren Villagran and Omar Ornelas, South of the border, a woman is poised to take power in historic Mexico elections, USA

Today, June 1, 2024 (accessed on June 2, 2024).

[xxii] Lauren Villagran and Omar Ornelas, South of the border, a woman is poised to take power in historic Mexico elections, USA

Today, June 1, 2024 (accessed on June 2, 2024).

[xxiii] Salvador River, AMLO’s presidential term bloodiest in Mexico’s history | FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News, May 26, 2023

(accessed on July 23, 2024).

[xxiv] Diego Oré, Mexico election front-runner Sheinbaum faces tall order to cut cartel violence | Reuters, May 28, 2024 (accessed

on July 21, 2024).

[xxv] Sana Khan, Mexico Presidential Elections: How The 3 Candidates Plan To Combat Organized Crime, Latin Times, May 31, 2024,

(accessed on July 20, 2024).

[xxvi] Chad Lawhorn, Mexican Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Firms to Proceed, Arms Control Association, March 2024 (accessed on June

2, 2024).

[xxvii]  Ibid.

[xxviii] Ibid.

[xxix] Ibid.

[xxx] Chad Lawhorn, Mexican Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Firms to Proceed, Arms Control Association, March 2024 (accessed on June

2, 2024).

[xxxi] Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico and Chile refer situation in Palestine to the International Criminal Court (ICC) |

Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Government of México, January 28, 2024 (accessed on May 30, 2024).

[xxxii] Ibid.

[xxxiii] United Nations Press Release, Humanitarian Situation in Gaza ‘a Moral Stain on Us All’, Secretary-General Tells Security

Council, Stressing International Law Must Be Respected by All | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, July 17, 2024

(accessed on July 23, 2024).

[xxxiv] Palestine New & Information Agency, Gaza death toll surges to 38,919 over 89,622 injured, July 20, 2024 (accessed on

July 20, 2024).

[xxxv] The New Arab Staff, Who is Claudia Sheinbaum and how did she make history in Mexico, June 3, 2024 (accessed on June 3,

2024).  

[xxxvi] International Court of Justice, Mexico files a declaration of intervention in the proceedings under Article 63 of the Statute,

Document Number 192-20240528-PRE-01-00-EN

[xxxvii] Ibid.

Photo Credit: EneasMx, File:Claudia Sheinbaum discurso de la victoria.jpg – Wikimedia Commons

Roger D. Harris

Roger D. Harris is with the human rights organization Task Force on the Americas, founded in 1985. He has been active with the #FreeAlexSaab Campaign.