Stephania Taladrid from the New Yorker reports:
In many ways, Biden’s objectives on everything from immigration reform to restoring Venezuelan democracy will first require reversing his predecessor’s legacy. To bring the wall’s construction to an end, his Administration will have to settle claims brought by land owners and contractors, which could cost billions; in Caracas, Biden faces a political opposition in complete disarray and a regime that only tightened its grip on power despite Trump’s sweeping sanctions. The expectation is that the new President will broaden American engagement in the region and revive the principles which once defined it. Biden supporters contend that his decades of work in the region make him well suited for the staggering task at hand. As Vice-President, he oversaw Obama’s Latin America policy and visited the region sixteen times. One of Biden’s signature achievements was to secure seven hundred and fifty million dollars from Congress to help Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras tackle corruption, violence, and poverty, declaring that Central America’s security and prosperity is “inextricably linked with our own.” In return, leaders in all three countries committed to enact reforms. After Trump took office, he slashed hundreds of millions in aid. Now, Biden is proposing four billion in assistance to the three nations.
In dealings with Venezuela, Biden is expected to look beyond Trump’s sanctions regime and work with regional allies to pressure Maduro; in Brazil, he will likely place climate change—a pillar of his foreign-policy agenda—at the center of the bilateral relationship. Biden’s victory has already discomforted heads of state in Mexico, Brazil, and El Salvador, who either embraced Trump or benefitted from his indifference. When Biden said last year that his multibillion-dollar proposal to protect the Amazon would include economic penalties for those who failed to comply, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro threatened to respond with “gunpowder.” Rivals such as China and Russia will also challenge Biden’s attempt to re-engage in the region. During the pandemic, Beijing has successfully conducted “mask diplomacy” and supplied millions of dollars’ worth of medical supplies and personal protective equipment to the region. In recent months, China and Russia have also emerged as two of the primary suppliers of coronavirus vaccines in Latin America.
With Beijing’s influence in the region now close to rivalling that of Washington, Latin American countries may soon be asked to take sides. “As we look forward, Latin Americans may get caught in China-U.S. hostilities in a way that they haven’t had to choose yet,” Shannon O’Neil, a senior fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said. The rivalry is playing out at a moment when the region is undergoing its largest economic contraction in a century and social tensions are mounting. Latin America accounts for less than ten per cent of the world’s population and more than a quarter of its coronavirus fatalities. Due to the pandemic, the G.D.P. declined more than eight per cent last year—a reversal that could wipe out two decades in poverty reduction. Most workers in the region are employed in the informal sector, and historic economic inequalities are worsening. Opinion polls show that people’s perception of democracy has also been seriously tarnished: fewer than half of Latin Americans currently believe it to be the best form of government. Restrepo, the former Obama aide, said Trump’s coercive style of diplomacy and chaotic tenure could help China showcase its comparative reliability as an ally. “The last four years were deeply cynical, deeply electoral,” he said. “The reliability of the United States as a good faith partner across the region is very much in question.”