Yankees come home

Exactly 20 years ago next month, Argentina hosted the fourth Summit of the Americas in the seaside city of Mar del Plata. There, a troika of Néstor Kirchner, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chávez resisted a push from then-US president George W. Bush to introduce a free-trade area in the Americas, known as the FTAA or ALCA in its Spanish acronym. In defeat, Washington silently retreated from the region. Now it’s coming back, in full swing.

Donald Trump 2.0 is showing US involvement like the region had not seen in decades. It begins closer to home, with an anti-gang stance that has designated criminal organisations in countries like Mexico and Venezuela and deployed sizeable air and naval forces to the Caribbean. It includes slapping massive tariffs on Brazil as part of a feud with the region’s top leader, Lula, now back in office. And it lands most in Trump’s chaotic but forceful support for Argentina’s President Javier Milei, epitomised by the US Treasury’s unprecedented decision to directly sell dollars in the Argentine foreign exchange market to save the government from a crippling devaluation, just days before midterm elections.

This revived Monroe Doctrine of the 21st century has one main target: China. Since the FTAA failure two decades ago, Beijing has occupied much of the vacant space. It is difficult to imagine Washington managing to scrap the region’s relations with China altogether, but it will push as hard as it can.

This is what Milei got in Washington this week. During the bizarre lunch meeting/press conference at the White House, Trump told him it’s OK to trade a bit with China, that the currency swap can hold, but don’t you dare let the Chinese put their nose in nuclear, military, maritime or space issues.

The mention was not coincidental. Those are exactly the sectors where the Chinese have been advancing their interests in Argentina in recent years. In 2018, China opened a space observation facility in Neuquén, the home of Vaca Muerta. In 2022, the two countries agreed to jointly build Argentina’s fourth nuclear energy facility. China was also eyeing major investments in ports near the strategic Strait of Magellan in southern Argentina. Trump said Tuesday he would be “very upset” if he hears such things are happening in Argentina – and Milei does not want to upset Trump.

The best thing Milei can do now is to resort back to his campaign language that the Chinese are Communist crooks you don’t want to do business with. Never mind the intermission when he had to get the Communists to renew an active tranche of the currency swap the Central Bank has with Beijing, during which the President said China was “an interesting partner” because it “did not ask for anything” in return for their help. That’s not what the new US Ambassador to Buenos Aires, Peter Lamelas, is thinking either: in his view, the Chinese are bribing provincial governors to walk away with juicy energy and mining permits, something he personally promised to stop as soon as he lands in the capital in early November.

This coldish war happening in Argentina is, however, trivial compared to that seen at other parts of the continent. For weeks it has seemed that something is about to break in Venezuela, an impression emboldened by the Nobel Peace Prize awarded last week to opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is in hiding. The US military might now surround the Maduro regime – particularly the cruise missile-carrying destroyers and submarines, combined with Marine special operations elements – but does not match with a narrow and targeted mission to sink a few rubber dinghies reportedly carrying bags of drugs every now and then. This week, it was reported Trump had authorised the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela.

A potential strike on Venezuela might make sense from a geopolitical point of view after China and Russia, President Nicolás Maduro’s top allies, failed to react convincingly after Trump launched Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran earlier this year. But it would cause a stir in the region, as such action has not been seen since US troops deposed Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989. It would be too dramatic an end to the 20-year US retreat from its backyard.

In this context, Milei seems to have lost the opportunity to become a player with clout and influence in a region that will likely shift to the right over the next months (Bolivia tomorrow, Chile in November/December, Colombia in May/June 2026). Keeping an unsustainable economic programme under a respirator of borrowed US dollars forces him to be not much more than a Trump (top) cheerleader.