{"id":2420,"date":"2018-11-08T01:55:54","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T01:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=2420"},"modified":"2018-11-08T01:55:54","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T01:55:54","slug":"trump-will-make-first-major-south-america-trip-despite-repeatedly-criticising-immigration-and-drug-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2018\/11\/08\/trump-will-make-first-major-south-america-trip-despite-repeatedly-criticising-immigration-and-drug-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump will make first major South America trip despite repeatedly criticising immigration and drug policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0will take his first major trip to South America later this week to advocate for stronger economic ties in the region. However,\u00a0the\u00a0leaders he meets are are likely to just \u201csmile and nod\u201d with the massively unpopular US leader and achieve little in the way of new policies.<\/p>\n

The president will attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima,\u00a0Peru<\/a>, on 13 and 14 April where he will face some of the countries he has derided repeatedly over immigration and drug policies.\u00a0The president is \u201cprofoundly unpopular<\/a>\u201d, making it difficult for other leaders to work with him, said Mark Feierstein, who worked on hemispheric issues for President\u00a0Barack Obama\u2019<\/a>s White House. However, as one diplomat said,\u00a0\u201cno leaders are losing sleep over\u201d Mr Trump, adding: \u201cWe all know how to smile and nod along, so we\u2019re not too worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has made clear that President Trump sees the trip as one aimed at unity.\u00a0\u201cThis travel demonstrates the president\u2019s resolve to deepen our historical ties with our partners in the region and to strengthen our joint commitment to improve security and prosperity for the people of the Americas\u201d. But there may be some tough talk from Mr Trump. The White House\u00a0statement stressed \u201cthat the promise of a safe and prosperous future rests in strong democracies\u201d, alluding to the crisis in\u00a0Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Governments around the world have criticised Venezuela’s President\u00a0Nicolas Maduro<\/a>\u00a0for not allowing a democratic transition to a new administration amid a crumbling economy that has led to skyrocketing inflation and shortages of food and medicine.\u00a0There have been some economic measures from the EU and neighbouring countries, but they have done little\u00a0to force Mr Maduro\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

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The US has also threatened to\u00a0sanction or ban\u00a0<\/a>Venezuelan<\/a>\u00a0oil imports<\/a>, possibly further crippling the country\u2019s economy.\u00a0The US is currently imposing\u00a0harsh sanctions on Venezuela \u2013 the third-largest oil supplier to the US \u2013 \u00a0including its state-owned oil company PDVSA.<\/p>\n

Beyond economic sanctions, there will also likely be a push to condemn Mr Maduro, who has been disinvited from the summit, for calling an election in May that the US and his opposition consider a sham. There will also de discussion about what can be done to help Venezuela’s citizens, with hundreds of thousands having fled across the border to Colombia<\/p>\n

Having mused about the possibility of a “military option” to push for change in Venezuela, Mr Trump had been described as\u00a0\u201cinsane\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by several Latin American leaders at a dinner on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last year, according to Politico.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBy the time the dinner was over, the leaders were in shock, and not just over the idle talk of armed conflict. No matter how prepared they were, eight months into an American presidency like no other, this was somehow not what they expected,\u201d\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

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While the administration appears to want the focus of the summit to be on the crisis in Venezuela, the leaders at the Summit of the Americas\u00a0are also expected to talk about the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta<\/a>) after the US called for reworking the more than $1 trillion trade deal. Mr Trump has repeatedly called Nafta a \u201chorrible deal\u201d but experts do not expect any real progress to be made on the negotiations during this particular summit.<\/p>\n

Canadian Prime Minister\u00a0Justin Trudeau<\/a>\u00a0had said he expected a \u201cwin-win-win\u201d renegotiation and it was expected a new deal will be announced at the summit \u201cin principle\u201d. Mr Trump had said during a speech in West Virginia last week that though some expected a new Nafta deal to be done by the summit he did not want to rush the process \u2013 \u201ctake it nice and easy, there\u2019s no rush, we get it done right or we\u2019ll terminate it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has openly criticised\u00a0Mexico<\/a>\u00a0for taking jobs away from the US as a result of Nafta, while also continuing to push for the roughly 2,000-mile\u00a0border wall<\/a>, for which he still insists publicly to his supporters that the government of President\u00a0Enrique Pena Nieto<\/a>\u00a0will provide funding.<\/p>\n

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A turbulent year in Venezuela<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr Trump has already said he will look to\u00a0send up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the border to stem what he sees as a possible influx of migrants and refugees from Central America through Mexico.\u00a0Mr Trump has said Latin American and African countries are \u201cnot putting their good ones\u201d forward for migrating to the US, echoing his old campaign rhetoric and further stoking xenophobic rhetoric among some of his supporters.<\/p>\n

He has also hit out at Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras\u00a0and El Salvador about migrants from those countries entering the US illegally as they flee\u00a0gang violence and drug cartels. He had also threatened to cut off aid to Colombia and Peru over drug trade issues. If Mr Trump is as confrontational during the summit, he will likely run into issues.<\/p>\n

Adding to the tensions of the multilateral meeting,\u00a0Luis\u00a0Almagro, the Organisation of American States secretary general and one of the summit\u2019s organisers, told the\u00a0Miami Herald<\/em>\u00a0that a meeting between Mr Trump and\u00a0Cuban<\/a>leader\u00a0Raul Castro<\/a>\u00a0is \u201cinevitable<\/a>\u201d. The pair will be in the same room multiple times during the summit of 34 countries but, a senior US official told McClatchy newspapers that the US president has been advised to avoid shaking hands with Mr Castro.<\/p>\n

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Three years ago, Mr Obama took a picture with Mr Castro and it dominated headlines of the summit. However, Mr Trump has sought to cool\u00a0relations with Cuba, with Mr Obama having made a big push for a thaw.<\/p>\n

Travel restrictions were lifted and opportunities to do business also opened up \u2013 much of it done through executive orders signed by Mr Obama that avoided the need for Congressional approval. However, Congress voted not to lift the US economic embargo. Despite a fiery speech to Cuban-Americans in south Florida last year about cutting ties, Mr Trump has not officially downgraded relations or halted flights between the two countries.<\/p>\n

After the two-day summit, President Trump\u00a0is scheduled to meet with Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and then head to Colombia to meet with President Juan Manuel Santos.<\/p>\n

Source: France24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0will take his first major trip to South America later this week to advocate for stronger economic ties in the region. However,\u00a0the\u00a0leaders he meets are are likely to just \u201csmile and nod\u201d with the massively unpopular US leader and achieve little in the way of new policies. The president will attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima,\u00a0Peru,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2421,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions\/2421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}