Trump seeks sphere of influence through Latin American presidential races

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Nearly 50 percent of Latin America’s population will go through a presidential election this year, and US President Donald Trump is poised to impact every contest in some form, given his record in the region.

Campaigns across Central and South America — voting has started in Costa Rica and continues this weekend in Peru — are already marked not only by security concerns and political volatility but also by Trump’s heightened assertiveness.

In his second term, Trump has sought to expand the White House’s influence on the region. He has pressured some Central American countries to receive deported migrants from other nations, deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, sought to engineer the demise of the Cuban regime in part through an oil blockade and openly threatened countries that don’t elect his preferred candidate.

“Trump is focused on positioning himself as the leader of the entire Western Hemisphere. As part of this, he is not accepting open political or ideological confrontations with his core principles,” said international relations expert Abelardo Rodríguez Sumano, a researcher at the Ibero-American University in Mexico. “He is seeking alignment; he wants total subordination.”

A supporter of presidential candidate Ricardo Belmont touches a photo of him during a closing campaign rally in Lima, Peru, on April 7, 2026. Gerardo Marin/AP

Pedestrians pass campaign signs before the weekend's presidential election, in Cuzco, Peru, on April 8, 2026. Martin Mejia/AP

This dynamic has forced presidential hopefuls to recalibrate their campaigns to avoid antagonizing the White House while pondering how to connect with voters, who themselves are exhausted after decades of drastic political swings.

Trump, the external factor

Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has placed renewed attention on Latin America, going as far as explicitly intervening in elections.

Asked for comment on analysts’ views that Trump seeks to dominate the hemisphere and influence Latin American elections, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly replied: “After years of neglect, President Trump established the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.” She cited “tremendous success” in securing the US southern border, working with Latin American countries to defeat drug cartels and achieving “historic economic cooperation with Venezuela” after removing Maduro from power.

Analysis: What is the 'Donroe Doctrine?' We've entered the era of the "Donroe Doctrine," a term coined to describe President Donald Trump's application of the Monroe Doctrine for the enforcement of US interests in the Western Hemisphere. CNN's Jake Tapper explains. 2:35 • Source: CNN Analysis: What is the 'Donroe Doctrine?' 2:35

“The president has successfully strengthened our relationships in our own backyard to make the entire region safer and more stable,” Kelly told CNN.

In Honduras late last year, Trump warned that if Nasry Asfura didn’t win the presidential race, he would not work with the country’s new leader. In Argentina’s legislative elections, he conditioned Washington’s economic assistance on a victory for President Javier Milei’s party. In both cases, his desired outcome was achieved.

Governments that confront Trump immediately become his enemies, “leading to investigations, threats or visa cancellations,” Rodríguez said.

According to Farid Kahhat, a professor at the Catholic University of Peru, “Trump is basically extorting voters.”

He said that in Honduras, “the extortion was blatant” due to the impact that stricter US immigration policies and a threatened aid suspension could have on remittances, a key component of the country’s economy.

Analysts say it’s highly likely Trump will become explicitly involved in the upcoming elections of Colombia and Brazil, both currently governed by left-leaning leaders.

In countries such as Colombia, Trump’s confrontational style could backfire, said Kahhat, who believes that as part of this calculation, Trump has changed his confrontational attitude toward President Gustavo Petro in an election year.

Election officials hold leftover ballots after polling stations closed in congressional elections and presidential primaries, in Bogota, Colombia, March 8, 2026. Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters

Trump “is beginning to discover” that intervening too forcefully “can push the electorate in the opposite direction,” said Sandra Borda, an associate professor at the University of the Andes in Bogotá.

“It will be interesting to see where (Colombian voters) place their priorities,” Borda added. Elections in both Colombia and Brazil “will be very important in defining the balance in the management of the relationship with the US,” she said.

Brazil’s situation is significantly different from that of most of its neighbors. As the largest economy in Latin America, it has a greater capacity to confront pressure from Washington, in coordination with other powers in the BRICS bloc, which originally included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa but has since expanded.

“Trump has openly supported (former president Jair) Bolsonaro, and I see it as perfectly clear that he will back the candidacy that seeks to oust the Workers’ Party” of left-leaning Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Rodríguez said.

So far, no candidate endorsed by Trump has lost in Latin America, so it is not clear to what extent he might follow through on his threats. But Rodríguez believes Trump is willing to carry them out. “There are many levels he can take: diplomatic, economic, tariffs, military intervention, intelligence operations,” the researcher said. “He has an extraordinary range of options.”

The end of the pendulum swing?

The region is showing signs of fatigue after cycling between left- and right-wing leaders, with a pendulum increasingly distant from the center.

“I would say that what is most common is neither a shift to the right nor a shift to the left, as is sometimes speculated, but rather that the ruling party almost never gets reelected,” said Kahhat, who excludes Venezuela, Nicaragua and El Salvador from his analysis because he does not consider them democracies. He mentions Paraguay and Mexico as exceptions, and he attributes the phenomenon to various factors including the pandemic, recession, inflation and homicide rates.

Then-presidential candidate Laura Fernández addresses supporters after polls closed in San Jose, Costa Rica, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Carlos Borbon/AP

Last year ended with three elections in which the ruling party lost (Bolivia, Chile and Honduras). But this year began with a victory for the ruling party in Costa Rica, a scenario that could be repeated in other countries.

“In the cases of Brazil and Colombia, there is a high probability, though not a certainty, that the left will remain in power. This is an exception to the famous pendulum swing that is so prevalent in Latin America,” Borda said.

Rodríguez, however, sees another variable: “The political pragmatism of both sides in defining the governability and viability of a candidate.”

Strengthening the ‘Bukele model’

The increased activity of organized crime in the region has fueled hard-line proposals from candidates.

With varying degrees of implementation, the tough-on-crime model applied in El Salvador by President Nayib Bukele has become a benchmark for candidates who advocate for greater territorial control and harsher prison conditions.

Even in countries like Chile and Costa Rica, viewed for decades as orderly states with fewer security problems than their neighbors, the issue has been a central focus of campaigns.

“I think the hard-line approach generally benefits the right,” said Kahhat, who cited studies on the effect of proposing harsher penalties for criminals. “The interesting thing is that more severe penalties don’t solve the problem of crime, at least not on their own, but they do help garner electoral support.”

Inmates at the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Center mega-prison, where hundreds of gang members are held, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on January 27, 2025. Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images/File

The four countries holding elections after Costa Rica have more acute security problems.

For Borda, it’s difficult to determine whether voters are basing their support more on economic concerns or fear. She observed that the left’s discourse on the issue of insecurity is not as forceful as the right’s.

Rodríguez pointed out that no matter how many policies governments implement to redistribute wealth, “if that isn’t reflected in people’s pockets, the rise of crime and transnational organized crime will have consequences.” It is in this context that strong leaders emerge, “even those who oppose respect for human rights,” he added.

A weakened system

In Peru and Colombia, a growing rejection of traditional elites has caused fragmentation in political parties.

At one point, Borda noted, 80 citizens expressed their intention to run for president in Colombia to succeed Petro. Outsiders and anti-establishment candidates “will continue to exist as long as the reputation of the political class continues to erode,” she said.

Kahhat observed that in Colombia, the ruling-party candidate, Iván Cepeda, enjoys high levels of support, so he believes that the fragmentation is occurring more between the center and the right. The conservative sector at one point seemed to be consolidating around lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, but polls now show a close race with Paloma Valencia, a senator who won the right-wing inter-party primary.

In Peru, a country of high presidential turnover, the situation is different. Among the record 35 candidates competing in the first round of presidential voting on Sunday, none have reached 20% in the latest polls, which means that any candidate who barely attains 8% in the polls has a high chance of making it to the second round.

Presidential candidate Rafael López Aliaga, of the Popular Renewal party, delivers a speech during a campaign rally in the Manchay neighborhood in Lima, Peru, Saturday, April 4, 2026. Guadalupe Pardo/AP

With the reconfiguration of international relations, Latin America is trying to redefine its place on the political stage while accommodating the new order that the Trump administration seeks to impose.

“There is a process of everything happening at once,” Rodríguez said. “Once the United States defined the continent as its sphere of influence, the governments of Latin America, all of them, are adapting to it.”