The current president made only one visit, also in the framework of the G-20, compared to the six that Bush and Obama made in their first four years.

International travel does not tell the whole story about a president's foreign policy, but it does give some clues. As president, Donald Trump has only traveled once to Latin America, and then only because the G-20 summit he was attending was being held in Argentina. It is not that Trump has not taken care of the region -of course, the policy towards Venezuela has been very present in his management-, but not having made the effort to travel to other countries of the continent reflects well the more unilateral character of his policy, little focused on gaining sympathy among his peers.

▲ signature in Mexico in 2018 of the free trade agreement between the three North American countries [department of State, USA].

article / Miguel García-Miguel

With only one visit visit to the region, the U.S. president is the one who has made the fewest official visits since Clinton's first legislature, who also visited the region only once. In contrast, Bush and Obama paid more attention to the neighboring territory, both with six visits in their first legislature. Trump focused his diplomatic campaign on Asia and Europe and reserved Latin American affairs for visits by the region's presidents to the White House or to his Mar-a-Lago resort.

In fact, the Trump Administration spent time on Latin American issues, taking positions more quickly than the Obama Administration, as the worsening Venezuelan problem required defining actions. At the same time, Trump has discussed regional issues with Latin American presidents during their visits to the United States. There has not been, however, an effort of multilateralism or empathy, going out to their meeting in their home countries to deal with their problems there.

Clinton: Haiti

The Democratic president made only one visit to the region during his first term in office, visit . refund After the Uphold Democracy operation to bring Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, on March 31, 1995, Bill Clinton traveled to Haiti for the transition ceremony organized by the United Nations. The operation had consisted of a military intervention by the United States, Poland and Argentina, with UN approval, to overthrow the military board that had forcibly deposed Aristide, who had been democratically elected. During his second term, Clinton paid more attention to regional affairs, with thirteen visits.

Bush: free trade agreements

Bush made his first presidential trip to neighboring Mexico, where he met with then President Fox to discuss a variety of issues. Mexico paid attention to the U.S. government's attention to Mexican immigrants, but the two presidents also discussed the operation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into force in 1994, and joint efforts in the fight against drug trafficking. The U.S. President had the opportunity to visit Mexico three more times during his first term in order to attend to multilateral meetings. Specifically, in March 2002, he attended the lecture International Meeting on Financing for the development, organized by the United Nations and which resulted in the Monterrey Consensus; Bush also took the opportunity to meet again with the Mexican president. In October of the same year he attended the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit, which that year was held in the Mexican enclave of Los Cabos. Finally, he set foot on Mexican soil once again to attend the Special Summit of the Americas held in Monterrey in 2004.

During his first term in office, Bush promoted the negotiation of new free trade agreements with several American countries, which was the hallmark of his Administration's policy in relation to the Western Hemisphere. In the framework of this policy, he traveled to Peru and El Salvador on March 23 and 24, 2002. In Peru, he met with the President of that country and with the Presidents of Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador, in order to reach an agreement with agreement to renew the ATPA (Andean Trade Promotion Act), by which the US granted tariff freedom on a wide range of exports from those countries. Finally, the matter was resolved with the enactment in October of the same year of the ATPDEA (Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act), which maintained tariff freedoms in compensation for the fight against drug trafficking, in an attempt to economically develop the region to create alternatives to cocaine production. Finally, in the case of El Salvador, he met with the Central American presidents to discuss the possibility of a Free Trade Agreement with the region (known in English as CAFTA) in exchange for a reinforcement of security in the areas of the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism. The treaty was ratified three years later by the U.S. congress . Bush revisited Latin America up to eleven times during his second term.

Chart 1. Own elaboration with data from Office of the Historian.

Obama: two Summits of the Americas

Obama began his tour of diplomatic visits to Latin America with attendance to the V Summit of the Americas, held in Port-au-Prince, Trinidad and Tobago. The Summit brought together all the leaders of the sovereign countries of the Americas with the exception of Cuba and was aimed at coordinating efforts to recover from the recent crisis of 2008 with mentions of the importance of environmental and energy sustainability. Obama returned to attend in 2012 to the VI Summit of the Americas held this time in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia). This Summit was not attended by any representative of Ecuador or Nicaragua in protest at the exclusion to date of Cuba. Neither the President of Haiti nor the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez attended, alleging medical reasons. The summit discussed again issues of Economics and security, with special relevance to the war against drugs and organized crime, as well as the development of environmental policies. In addition, he took advantage of this visit to announce together with Juan Manuel Santos, the entrance in effect of the Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and the US, negotiated by the Bush Administration and ratified after some delay by the US congress . The Democratic President also had the opportunity to visit the region on the occasion of the G-20 meeting meeting in Mexico, but this time the main focus of topic was on solutions to stop the European debt crisis.

In terms of bilateral meetings, Obama made a diplomatic tour between March 19 and 23, 2010 to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, meeting with their respective presidents. He used the occasion to reestablish relations with the Brazilian left that had governed the country since 2002, to reiterate his economic and political alliance with Chile and to announce a US$200 million fund to strengthen security in Central America. During his second term he made up to seven visits, including the resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba, which had been paused since the triumph of the Revolution.

Trump: T-MEC

Donald Trump only visited Latin America on one occasion for attend to the meeting of the G-20, a convocation that was not even regional, held in Buenos Aires in December 2018. Among the various agreements reached, the reform of the World Trade Organization and the commitment of the attendees to implement the measures adopted at the agreement in Paris stand out, with the exception of the US, since the president had already reiterated his determination to leave the agreement. Taking advantage of the visit, he signed the T-MEC (Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada, new name for the renewed NAFTA, whose renegotiation had been a Trump demand) and met with the Chinese president in the context of the trade war. Trump, on the other hand, did not attend the VIII Summit of the Americas held in Peru in April 2018; the trip, which was also supposed to take him to Colombia, was canceled at the last minute because the US president preferred to remain in Washington in the face of a possible escalation of the Syrian crisis.

The reason for the few visits to the region has been that Trump has directed his diplomatic campaign towards Europe, Asia and to a lesser extent the Middle East, in the context of the trade war with China and the loss of power in the US international landscape.

Chart 2. Own elaboration with data from Office of the Historian.

Only one trip, but monitoring of the region

Although he has hardly traveled to the rest of the continent, the Republican candidate has paid attention to the region's affairs, but without leaving Washington, as there have been seven Latin American presidents who have passed through the White House. The main focus of the meetings has been the economic development and the reinforcement of security, as usual. Depending on the reality of each country, the meetings revolved more around the possibility of future trade agreements, the fight against drugs and organized crime, preventing the flow of illegal immigration to the United States or the search to strengthen political alliances. Although the U.S. government website does not list it as an official visit , Donald Trump also met at the White House in February 2020 with Juan Guaidó, recognized as president in charge of Venezuela.

Precisely, if there has been a common topic to all these meetings, it has been the status economic and political crisis in Venezuela. Trump has sought allies in the region to encircle and pressure the Maduro government, which is not only an example of continuous human rights violations, but also destabilizes the region. The fierce civil service examination to the regime served Donald Trump as propaganda to gain popularity and try to save the Latino vote in the November 3 elections, and that had its award at least in the state of Florida.

Chart 3. Own elaboration with data from Office of the Historian.