Tillerson set for trip to step up U.S. relations in Latin America
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson leaves Thursday on his first multi-nation trip to Latin America, a weeklong effort to ease tensions and improve relations across a continent that views the Trump administration with increasing suspicion and doubt.
As he marks his first year in office, Tillerson has defied foreign policy veterans who predicted he would be gone by now, a victim of his attempts to trim the budget and staff at the State Department, and of repeated differences with the White House over problems around the globe.
With his trip to Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Jamaica, Tillerson will try to convince nervous allies that U.S. foreign policy is deeper and more nuanced than the sometimes hostile rhetoric from the White House. It was widely noted in the region, for example, that when President Donald Trump reportedly complained in vulgar terms to several members of Congress about certain countries sending immigrants to the U.S., he included El Salvador, thus putting Latin America in the mix.
Similarly, several Latin American governments have expressed concern over Trump’s push to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has helped raise living standards in Mexico. Senior Mexican officials have hinted they would withdraw support on other issues, such as fighting drug trafficking and slowing the flow of Central American immigrants to the United States, if NAFTA is scuttled.
“There are so many ways that Latin American agendas and (Trump’s) agenda are out of step with one another,” said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American program at the non-partisan Wilson Center think tank in Washington.
What has kept the U.S.Mexico relation from imploding has been a string of lower-profile meetings that Tillerson has held with his Mexican counterpart, Luis Videgaray, and Mexico’s equivalent of the homeland security chief, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.
The State Department is promoting Tillerson’s trip as a chance to improve economic and diplomatic ties to a fast-growing region that has seen a consolidation of democratic reforms and the emergence of business-friendly governments eager to work with Washington.
New polling shows the popularity of the U.S. government, and Trump especially, has plummeted. A recent survey of Trump’s first year in office by the Latinobarometro opinion researching firm, based in Chile, showed his approval rating in Latin America is similar to President George W. Bush’s at the height of the Iraq War.
Not surprisingly, the most precipitous fall occurred in Mexico, which has received the brunt of Trump’s wrath. A new Pew Research Center poll shows favorable opinion of the United States has dropped to about 30 percent. Partly as a result, a leftist populist with strong anti-American views stands a good chance of winning Mexico’s presidential election in July.
According to Latinobarometro, U.S. leaders are losing in popularity to senior officials from China and Europe. China has increased investment in Latin America, stepping into what it sees as a vacuum left by the United States.
Still, the U.S. still clearly has friends — or carries a big stick — in the region. When the United Nations General Assembly voted 128-9 in December to condemn Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel, parts of Latin America stood on the sidelines.
Honduras and Guatemala, which receive large amounts of U.S. aid, backed Washington in the vote. Mexico, Colombia and Argentina abstained.
Tillerson is likely to receive a warm welcome in Argentina, where he will visit Buenos Aires and the mountain resort of Bariloche. President Mauricio Macri had business dealings with Trump dating to the 1980s, and was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Trump after the 2016 election.