In theory, Trump’s neo-Monroe policy won’t benefit China
This very boring title is another way of saying, “I think Dan Drezner did not spend enough time thinking about the implications of Dan Drezner’s work”
The Trump administration just unleashed massive economic threats against Colombia when President Petro said that he would not accept deportees brought in on American military flights. President Petro quickly backed down and gave the U.S. everything it wanted. This is not how such disputes would have played out under previous administrations, which would not have threated to blow up a free trade agreement with our second-closest ally in the hemisphere.1
James Bosworth (aka, “Boz”) wrote an excellent column at World Politics Review titled “The World Isn’t Ready for Trump’s Expansionist Foreign Policy.” You should read it. The essential point is that Donald Trump should be taken literally and seriously when he says that he is willing to use force to get what he wants, including territorial expansion.
In his substack, Boz added the following about China and Russia:
One of the secondary impacts of yesterday’s dispute was a gleeful response from China and Russia, who took to social media to promote their positive relationship with Colombia. China is watching every one of these disputes and looking for places to gain diplomatic and economic advantages as they occur. I’m sure the Trump team’s response is something along the lines of, “We’re going to place such massive tariffs on China that it won’t matter; any government working with China will regret it.” (that’s a made-up quote, but probably accurate)
Dan Drezner did not agree with Boz:
This episode was a gift to China’s interests in the region. China will love to play the role of “black knight” in Latin America, providing an alternative source of demand and finance to the region. The more the United States acts like a regional bully, the more countries will start hedging ties by sidling up to China.
I think Boz is correct here, but I would like to expand on his logic.
Until January 20, Latin American nations could predict how the United States would react to actions taken against American interests. There were clearly delineated limits to American actions. The last military action was in 1989, taken against a regime that had acted egregiously and was not only undemocratic, it had openly stolen an election that year. The U.S. does currently use sanctions in Latin America of one sort or another quite liberally, but really against only two kinds of actors: openly undemocratic countries (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela) or entities associated with corruption or organized crime.2
Now, however, the U.S. has moved to a policy of open coercion. If a government acts against perceived U.S. interests, or defies the Trump administration, then the U.S. will use all barrels against the defiant government. Nothing is off the table. You have no idea what the U.S. will do.
Consider, for example, the Chancay port in Peru, which has serious dual-use implications if the U.S. winds up at war with China. Under a Harris administration, the Peruvians would know exactly how far the U.S. would be prepared to go. They could therefore calibrate the cost-benefit analysis of currying favor with China. Here are the costs, here are the benefits, make the decision.
Now? Hah! Who knows what the Trump administration will do? Crush the Peruvian economy? Personally sanction the entire Peruvian congress? Bomb Chancay? It’s all on the table! All of it!
In other words, two things have changed. First, inasmuch as you can predict the severity of Trump administration responses, that severity has increased. Second, there has been a general increase in uncertainty. Not just risk; incalculable uncertainty! Both factors raise the cost of “sidling up to China.”
In the long run, Dan Drezner is probably right. But in the medium-run—say, over the next four years—he’s is ignoring the whole “any government working with China will regret it” factor.
In fact, Dan wrote an excellent book about economic sanctions, which concluded that economic sanctions are thus far less likely to be effective between adversaries than between allies. (See also here, for a good review by Dan on the topic.) He noted that sanctions in practice suffered from several interrelated problems:
They were often unconnected to specific demands: i.e., “do this thing and we will remove the sanctions.”
What demands they did have were often maximalist. “Turn yourself in to foreign law enforcement” in the case of individuals, or “disband your entire regime,” in the case of governments. The case of Manuel Noriega proves how ineffectual that sort of sanction generally is, even when absolutely crushing.
Sanctions didn’t hurt regime elites.
Sanction targets often thought that they were in a repeated game with the sanctioning country, and so would be reluctant to concede if they thought the U.S. was just going to return with more demands later.
These don’t apply to democratic Latin American governments.
President Trump’s threats are connected to very specific demands. Those demands are the opposite of maximalist; the Trump administration could not care less about other country’s internal politics or institutions. Elites might not be hurt, but because these are democracies, Trump can mess up their re-election hopes.3 Finally, the disputes are all over specific issues—there is no reason for these governments to think that they are going to get into dispute after dispute with the United States.
So I doubt that countries are going to turn to China. I’m not even sure what “turning to China” would mean in practice. Brazil will continue to sell China soybeans and receive some Chinese investment, regardless of the government. Argentina will continue to sell China soybeans and eschew (most) Chinese investment, regardless of the government. Chile will be Chile. And the rest of the Latin America will likely do what the Trump administration asks it to do.
In the long-run, I think the move to open coercion will be an own-goal for the United States. Other than making Greenland a territory and getting Central American cooperation on migration—which do not require the exercise of outright coercion—the administration’s demands seem counterproductive. Moreover, I do think that soft power is a thing, I have very dear reasons to love American soft power—American forces did not face greater resistance in Panama in 1989 because we had a lot of soft power! Soft power saved lives. And I think we can certainly squander it.
But that’s the long-run, in which we’re all dead or replaced by robots. (Or my kids have fought off the robots in the Butlerian Jihad of 2044!)
In the short run, though, I don’t think governments will sidle up to China. Rather, I think the fear of the U.S. reaction to such sidling will keep them generally on-side. China will find it hard to offer more inducements. Chinese finance—which isn’t such a great deal—will seem even more costly, and China already is offering about as much “demand” as it can. Heck, it tried to buy El Salvador and look how well that went.
In short, I don’t agree with Dan Drezner that the Trump administration is driving Latin American governments into the hands of China. Rather, I think it will make those governments quite nervous about even appearing to sidle up to the other side in Cold War 2. And the reason I think so is because …
… I really admire Dan Drezner’s work and take its implications seriously.
The dominion formally known as “Canada” is number one, of course.
This would include the former president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei. Giammattei’s generally pro-American policy stance got several Republican senators to write a protest letter to the Biden administration.
This could fail if the countries’ publics rally around the flag in the face of a foreign threat. That seems to be happening in Mexico, to a limited extent. And it will likely happen in Panama. But elsewhere, I’m not sure that the public will think that the Trump administration’s demands are such an affront as to be worth the cost.
I think, Noel Maurer has not spent enough time thinking about the implications of Noel Maurer's work.
What you are missing is that unpredictability, essentially, means that no agreements on sharing the rent from cooperation with the US can be worth much: at any point the US government can abrogate it under the slimmest of provocations. Of course, that, in turn, implies that the actual cost of refusing to cooperate has already gone sharply down: we are fucked if we don't, but we are equally screwed if we do. Once that is recognized: and, methinks, it will be recognized pretty soon, given the last few days - nobody has any reason to cooperate. In fact, if an American country attempts to, the newly predatory US may be assumed to be unable to commit to not trying to grab the entire surplus. Given that, the national consolidatoin against the gringo-imposed humiliation becomes not only natural, but also quite costless in effect.
Of course, Noel Maurer would have suggested that, given that the US can no longer commit to no predation, one should try to look for a "third force" that could be paid off with some of the surplus to make predation either unfeasible or, at least, costly. Viewed from that standpoint, China may actually play a positive role in the US relationships with the rest of the hemisphere: or else, US might be able play a positive role in the Chinese relationships with the same. Of course, that would only be a second-best - but the first-best is no longer on offer.