• Elections
• United States
• South America

February 28, 2025, 6:00 AM View Comments ()

A dozen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean will hold presidential or legislative elections this year. At the same time, a region synonymous with U.S. intervention now faces the most aggressive, partisan, and extreme form of election favoritism since the third wave of democracy swept the hemisphere in the 1970s and ’80s. This time, U.S. intervention will be in service of leaders and movements sharing U.S. President Donald Trump’s outsider populist style and his opposition to the checks and balances of a democratic government. By intervening or even tipping the scale for a candidate, the U.S. president and his advisors could threaten four decades of democratic gains in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Brazil has become a testing ground for Trump’s trademark convergence of personal and political interests. On Feb. 18, the Brazilian Supreme Court received an indictment of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, for, among other charges, attempting to prevent the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Jan. 1, 2023.

Hours later, the Trump Media & Technology Group lodged a lawsuit in a Florida, court against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who had received the indictment and request for Bolsonaro’s arrest.

In an interview several weeks ago, Bolsonaro had urged Trump to help him with his legal predicament. But rather than use diplomatic channels, help came in the form of a lawsuit. In addition to their ideological affinities—Bolsonaro is sometimes called the Trump of the tropics—there is also a family tie. Bolsonaro and two of his sons, Eduardo and Carlos, are among the acolytes of Trump’s sons and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

Moraes previously crossed swords with X CEO and “special government employee” Elon Musk. Musk had reinstated Bolsonaro and his allies’ X accounts in defiance of a judicial ban for spreading misinformation and doubt about the integrity of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election. Eventually, Musk backed down from the reinstatement, but only after engaging in a smear campaign against Moraes, in which he referred to him as Voldemort in social media posts and interviews.

The lawsuit from Trump’s media company alleges that Moraes’s order to suspend a Florida-based Bolsonaro supporter’s social media account on Rumble violates free speech. If that sounds similar to a recent speech that U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance gave in Munich, it’s likely not a coincidence. Vance’s boosterism for Germany’s fascist-adjacent, far-right party will likely pale in comparison to this administration’s involvement in Latin America. In a region which includes several Trump fanboys—including Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Argentine President Javier Milei, and Bolsonaro—the dream of a global Trumpist bloc is within reach.

An axis of Trump-supporting leaders in Latin America promises cooperation on the issues that he considers a priority south of the border: Namely, cooperation on deportation and tough immigration policies, as well as rejecting China’s growing influence in the region. But they also offer a promise of unprecedented international partisan influence. Bannon has spoken of his desire to create a right-wing “supergroup” in Europe, while Donald Trump Jr. has joined an investment firm that names “de-globalization” as one of its key areas of focus.

Meanwhile, long-standing opponents of personalistic, autocratic politicians, such as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone now appear to support leaders with little regard for checks and balances.

Before joining the Trump administration, Rubio praised Bukele’s security policies. Those policies have left more than 70,000 citizens languishing in prison, with many still awaiting trial—and would have, rightly, earned Rubio’s rebuke if it had occurred in Cuba. In his January and February swing through Central America, the Secretary of State praised El Salvador’s agreement to accept deportees and cautiously endorsed an offer by Bukele to rent out prison space to hold U.S. criminals, which is possibly unconstitutional. In Panama, a deal negotiated by Rubio led to the country receiving deported migrants from other places; those migrants are now stuck in a makeshift camp in the Darien region.

Certainly, past presidents—from George W. Bush, to Barack Obama, to Joe Biden—have shown, at times, an uncomfortable commitment to specific parties and leaders. But those were democratic candidates and movements over autocrats, as in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. By contrast, this year’s many elections in Latin America offer a chance for Trump and his administration to consolidate a network of personally aligned allies in the Western Hemisphere.

The first opportunity involves the second round of presidential elections in Ecuador on April 13, with incumbent President Daniel Noboa pitted against Luisa González.

Noboa, the son of a banana magnate, has responded to spiking rates of violence and crime with a state of siege that has brought the Ecuadorian armed forces into the streets to support the outgunned police forces. Not unimportantly, Noboa attended Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20; he hailed Trump’s recent electoral victory as a victory for Latin America, too.

Noboa is competing against González, the stand-in for exiled former President Rafael Correa, a leftist leader who had courted Chinese investment in Ecuador’s energy sector and famously shut the U.S. Manta air base that was established to help the South American country in its battle against narcotics trafficking. (Noboa has voiced the possibility of reestablishing the Manta base.)

In the coming weeks, the question will be whether Trump and Rubio will attempt to tip the electoral scales in favor of Noboa. Noboa only nipped Gonzalez in the election’s first round, with 44.2 percent to her 44 percent. Taking a page from the Trump and Bolsonaro playbook, he nonetheless questioned the elections, though independent election observation groups attested that they were free and fair.

Similarly, other elections in 2025 will offer the Trump administration a chance to both cooperate on priorities like immigration and advance a populist global movement. In Bolivia, two presumptive leaders of the governing party—Evo Morales, its founder, and current President Luis Arce—are competing for the leadership of the Movement for Socialism party, a personal battle that may open up space for more conservative candidates. And Honduras, a major migrant-sending country, will hold presidential elections, with leftist President Xiomara Castro, who has courted Chinese support, constitutionally banned from running.

But perhaps the closest partner for the Trump administration will be Milei. Milei, who was the first foreign leader to visit Trump after his reelection, faces upcoming legislative and local elections. The October election will choose half of Argentina’s Chamber of Deputy seats and one-third of its Senate, which is essential to the consolidation of Milei’s outsider movement and his effort to dramatically downsize the size of the Argentine state. Musk has also met with the Argentine president and praised his chainsaw-like approach to cutting the state. At the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, he even brandished a chainsaw given to him by Milei.

Is the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which pledged U.S. influence in the recently independent states south of the border, really being resurrected? If it is, handwringing won’t suffice as a response. Instead, international multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and others need to be prepared to react and denounce flagrant intervention in elections—or the tilting of electoral-playing fields in favor of specific candidates and movements. The latter category includes acts like a U.S. president offering endorsements of candidates or providing them with uncommon access to the White House and U.S. government officials.

Vance’s comments in Munich condemning mainstream parties’ shunning of Alternative for Germany are not without merit when it comes to Latin America. Electoral exclusion has never worked in the region—for example, Argentina in 1955-1976 and Colombia with its post 1948-1958 civil war pact—and has led to the radicalization of fringe parties. But the White House and Musk will nonetheless need to respect Latin America governments’ right to decide and constrain the participation of antidemocratic movements and leaders.

One of the greatest challenges will be reigning in social media. Balancing freedom of expression with democratic discourse is difficult.. But local rules intended to moderate political speech on social media should be left to the discretion of individual countries. That brings us back to Moraes and his attempts to force social media companies like X to ban users spewing misinformation or inciting rebellion. Moraes’s efforts have been met with vocal opposition—from Musk and via the Trump company’s lawsuit. For now, Moraes has held strong, but public opinion is wavering.

Trump and Musk possess a historically unprecedented power to advance their vision and political and economic interests. Human rights advocates, European and Latin American diplomats, multilateral organizations, and the broader international community dedicated to democracy and democratic elections will need to be prepared to weigh in carefully in defense of local decisions and the delicate topic of what constitutes freedom of expression in deeply polarized societies.

Checking attempts to remake the Latin American political system in the image of one person and those in his orbit will require ongoing vigilance, especially this year.