By Nicola Bilotta

WITH  Donald Trump’s victory in the Presidential election North American foreign policy will experience radical changes.

The US has always influenced South American political history due to its geographical proximity and economic interests.

So how will Latin America be affected by Trump’s foreign policy?

Hilary Clinton was supposed to continue Obama’s political strategy in the continent. But what heritage did Obama leave in Latin  America?

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama delivered a message of cooperation and peace to Latin American governments.

His  victory was celebrated by leftist presidents in the entire continent. Lula, the Brazilian President (2002-2011) said that Obama’s  election was a historical moment for the world, “In the same way that Brazil elected a metalworker (Lula himself), Bolivia an aboriginal (Evo Morales), Venezuela a (Hugo) Chavez and Paraguay a bishop (Fernando Lugo), I believe it will be an extraordinary thing if in the biggest economy in the world a black person is elected president.”

Chavez was optimistic about improving Venezuelan cooperation with the US.

Obama promised to improve North American partnership with Latin America based on multilateralism. But the opportunity to repair the relationship was lost in 2009 when in June the elected President of Honduras Manuel Zaleya was overthrown by a military coup.

The US foreign office considered Zaleya as a dangerous leftist leader. Even though the OAS (Organization of American States) expelled Honduras after their break of constitutional order, Hilary Clinton, secretary state at the time, and Obama pushed for new elections rather than asking for the return of Zaleya, the democratically elected president.

The US government immediately recognized the legitimacy of the new Lobio government and it pressured other Latin countries to do the same. Clinton, talking about Honduras coup, said: “I didn’t like the way it looked or the way they did it, but they had a strong argument that they had followed the constitution and the legal precedents.” However, Hugo Llorens, the US ambassador in Honduras said: “Zelaya may have committed illegalities but there is no doubt that the military, supreme court and National Congress in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the executive branch.”

Soured relationships
Obama’s strategy in Honduras worsened the US relationship with Brazil and with all leftist parties in South America. The same year , the Colombian and US governments signed an agreement on military cooperation in 2009 without consulting any other Latin American countries.

The Colombian economic and military alliance finds its roots in the 1990 “Plan for Colombia when President Bill Clinton approved a massive military and economic aid initiative to fund the struggle against drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups.

The aim was to supply Colombia with military training and technologies to fight violence in the country.

The flow of money from the US to Colombia has not stopped since. “

President G.W. Bush and Obama maintained the Plan.. According to the US Foreign Office, in 2012 the US allocated $644.304.766 in Colombia. Breaking down the aid, $446.552.148 were funds for military and security help.

The tight relationship between the two countries was confirmed by the trade deal signed in 2011.

Obama was a strong sponsor of the peace dialogue between FARC and the Santos government. He even promised to increase American economic aid to Colombia by $450 million.

Even though Obama was not personally involved in the discussion of the peace agreement he started a process of normalization with Cuba.

The US and Cuba has not had diplomatic relations since the 1960s when, after the communist revolution the US imposed a trade embargo. Obama’s plan was to improve Cuban and American relations by reviewing Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and by ending the economic embargo. Congress will be called to vote for the official revocation of the embargo.

The improvement of Cuban and American relations has been the most considerable heritage of Obama’s presidency in Latin America.

Obama has not been able to improve the precarious diplomatic relationship with Venezuela and Ecuador. Even as the largest trading partner of Venezuela, US governments have not sent Ambassadors to the country since 2006. Diplomatic relations are now extremely tense.

Maduro accused US governments of imperialism and of trying to defeat his government in while American diplomacy denounced human rights violations against Maduro’s adversaries. Maduro, declared the  US Ambassador persona non-grata in 2011 in response to the release of secret documents in which US diplomatists accused Ecuadorian President Correa of corruption. In 2015 Ecuador and the US re-established diplomatic relations. But  there is still a considerable tension between them. Guillaume Long, Ecuadorian foreign minister, said that he wanted to cooperate with the US but American governments needed to not interfere with internal political decisions in Latin America.

Brazil tensions
In the Obama  years Brazilian and American relations have been problematic. After the disclosure of NSA secret reports on Brazil, former Brazilian President Dilma cancelled her official state visit in 2014. The NSA was spying on Dilma’s private calls.. It appears, at least, unusual that US secret services were spying on the establishment of a country which is a stable democracy and an American ally for the last 30 years.

Obama’s presidency had tense diplomatic relations also with Argentina and her former President Kirchner. Their conflict was about Argentinian default in 2014. American hedge funds, which bought cheap Argentinian bonds in 2001, were asking for a full pay out that Kirchner refused to provide.

Both, Dilma and Kirchner, found themselves at the center of scandals last year. The former was indirectly involved in the Petrobas investigation, the latter was accused of  covering Iranian responsibility on aterrorist attack which killed 84 people in Buenos Aires in 1994.

With their defeat, Latin America is  at the end of the leftist season.

The new Argentinian President, Mauricio Macri, has already prioritized  mending  relations with investors and big foreign groups.

The new Brazilian President, Michel Temer, has approved liberalization on natural resources exploitation which will attract foreign investors.. The new courses in Brazil and Argentina seem to find US support and Macri and Temer will be aiming to improve economic and diplomatic cooperation with.

Eight years of Obama’s presidency has left light and shadows. On the one hand, he fostered normalization with Cuba and he played an important role in the FARC peace agreement. On the other hand, he was not able to radically change American relations with Latin countries. Obama’s promised to establish multilateral relations with South American countries failed. It cannot be identified a turning point in how US governments interfere in internal political affairs of Latin countries.

Contradictions
Trump has promised to radically change US foreign policy. However, it is unclear how he will do so. During his presidential campaign, he  frequently contradicted himself.

The South American continent does not seem to be a priority in his agenda.  Three main topics on Latin America dominated his electoral campaign:

• According to Pew Hispanic Center, in 2014 there were 11.7 million Mexican immigrants residing in the US, 6.5 million of them illegally. So when he promised that 11 million illegal immigrants would be deported, it was clear to whom he was referring. Trump claimed that he would force the Mexican government to pay for a wall on the US-Mexico border. His economic plan for “making America great again” would bring back manufacturing factories to the US. Trump said he would overtax North American companies which produce in Mexico.
• After having described Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, criminals and rapists, in August 2016 Trump officially met Mexican President Nieto. But there were no significant results from their conversation. While Trump said Nieto agreed to pay for the Mexican President contradicted   the claim.

• Trump is one of the few Republican leaders that support the process of normalizing relations between Cuba and the US. He is said to agree with the “Cuban Thaw”, however, he argues that the US could have made a better deal. Uncertainty about the future of Cuba-US relations is driven by the fact that the majority of the Republican party does not support the normalization of Cuban and US relations .

• Even though Maduro, recently stated his to hope for improving relations with the US during the Trump presidency, a few days ago he called Trump a bandit. During his campaign, Trump said that “Venezuelans are good people, but they have been horribly damaged by the socialists in Venezuela and the next president of the United States must show solidarity with all the oppressed people in the hemisphere”. Even if Trump does not believe in “exporting democracy”, it is unclear how he will work to improve US relations with Venezuela.

 It is not clear what Trump’s presidency will mean for American and Latin countries relations, Trump is still a mystery. Obama’s presidency instead was an unsuccessful hope that the US would have been able to establish multilateral forms of cooperation with Latin American countries.

Nicola Bilotta is a global finance researcher at The Banker (Financial Times)