US imperialism’s back yard blues

Written by: (Contributed) on 27 October 2025

A series of diplomatic incidents between the US and countries in Latin America are best assessed in the wider context of present-day Cold War hostilities. The relationship between the northern US and the southern half of the Americas, however, has a long and troubled history. The emergence of China as a competitor to traditional US hegemonic positions, likewise, has also become an additional factor for consideration.

Allegations, by the Trump administration, that the governments of both Colombia and Venezuela were actively involved in drug-running have coincided with the largest US military exercises in the Caribbean in over three decades. (1) The former has provided the Trump administration with a means of deflecting unfavourable attention toward the Epstein scandal and a return to the days of the Reagan administration's War on Drugs; the latter is intended to send a strong diplomatic point toward the southern half of the Americas.

The fact that Reagan's War on Drugs was a convenient cover for widespread US complicity in international drug-running and the fated Iran-Contra scandal is clearly something Trump and his cohorts have forgotten, if they ever really accepted the facts in the first place which is doubtful. (2) The final section of the scandal involved the transportation of cocaine, in huge quantities, from Latin America into the US to fund the Nicaraguan Contra in Central America. (3) No evidence was provided by the Trump administration about recent allegations of drug-trafficking. Nor is it expected.

The fact that the countries of the southern half of the Americas have been moving away from previous US-led tutelage and economic dependence for decades, and forming closer diplomatic links with China remains a major point in question and has provided an explanation about the huge US military build-up in a sensitive area of the southern half of the Americas. Gun-boat diplomacy is the appropriate description of the psychological operations (psyops).

Much of the US history toward the Caribbean, Central and Latin America from the previous Cold War has provided a chilling glimpse of US connivance with regimes imposed to serve 'US interests'. (4) Their role model was General Pinochet who seized power in Chile in September, 1973, and used his position to impose economic rationalism in a test-tube like manner which subsequently became vogue economic thinking for US-led globalisation.

Globalisation was essentially intended to give the US economic domination with a monopoly of highly advanced technologies, control over the world's essential energy and mineral resources, the ability to exploit regions where profits were high and labour was cheap and finally, the right to decide the fate of millions of people.

It failed; in a spectacular manner.

The fact that General Pinochet, furthermore, was a notorious, and well-known drug-trafficker, has been conveniently forgotten by his apologists; he served his purpose. (5)

It was, however, the Bush administrations which sealed the fate of US hegemonic positions in the region; their attempt to foist a so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), stretching from Alaska to Chile met with fierce resistance from the southern half of the Americas who had no wish to cede their sovereignty to Wall Street and finance capital. The resistance also laid the basis of BRICs, which has proved to have far-reaching implications for the US in both the present-day and longer-term.

In recent decades China has entered the markets of the southern half of the Americas in a spectacular manner; at the turn of the century its influence was small, trade by 2008 grew at an average of 31 per cent annually, by 2021 it amounted to $450 billion and last year was $518 billion, reliable estimates cite it will grow to $700 by 2035. (6) China's growing influence in the region has been based primarily on 'soft power' and South-South Co-operation, marked by numerous trade agreements and participation in the One Belt, One Road, together with BRICs. (7)

Reliable studies of China's role in the region have concluded that it has been 'quietly reshaping the foundations of Latin American economic integration'. (8)

The developments have been closely scrutinised by the US, which regard them in a dim light. In fact, it has been noted that 'the US is losing ground to China in its own neighbourhood … and … China's growing presence in Latin America, including Colombia, has changed the economic and political dynamics in the region … and … the US has had to adapt to a new reality in its own backyard'. (9)

Foreign policy toward the region by the Trump administration has recently taken the form of their attempt to foster discord amongst different countries. Favourable diplomacy toward the far-right government in Argentina has been played against an attempt to exclude Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from the forthcoming Summit of the Americas, in the Dominican Republic, scheduled for 4-5 December. It has already created the conditions whereby Mexico and Colombia have already announced they will also not be attending in protest at the exclusion of the three countries. (10) Others are expected to follow suit.

It is, however, the role of Colombia which has set the nerves of the US jangling; until 2022 it was one of the last bastions of US strategic influence in the region

Until 2022 Colombia was an important regional hub for the US to retain some hegemonic presence. Washington and the Pentagon turned a blind eye toward the right-far-right administrations ruling the country on their behalf; they had no qualms about the cocaine trade as the cartels, and their associates, served 'US interests'. Repression, therefore, was the order of the day. The present government in Bogota, however, is headed by President Gustavo Pedro, a former left-wing guerilla surrounded by a centre-left administration. It is typical of the changing balance of forces taking place across the wider region.

A noticeable development with the recent Cold War diplomatic hostilities waged by the Trump administration toward Colombia has been the decision to cut financial aid. Since the 1990s successive US administrations provided Bogota with over $14 billion in anti-drug and counter-insurgency assistance. (11) In practical terms it was historically used by the right-wing administrations to counter the influence of the left-wing forces and what was regarded by the US as subversion; the drug trade was regarded as a different matter. In fact, President Pedro has already stated that 'it was he who had exposed the ties drug traffickers had with the country's political establishment'. (12) The cutting of US aid has therefore been taken as an attempt to prevent the Pedro administration using it against supporters of the previous regimes and their right-wing subversion.

Washington and the Pentagon have been virtually reduced to only Paraguay as the last remaining supporter of traditional US hegemonic positions. It is also not a major player in Latin American politics or diplomacy and places the US at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with the region.

In conclusion, the Trump administration is waging psyops and other warfare techniques toward the southern half of the Americas; it is not particularly difficult to find the main reason.

To date, the combined share of the eleven members of the BRICs organisation in the global economy amounts to forty per cent, the developed countries, including the US and EU, have only 28 per cent. (13) The main organisation is also set to allow further countries to join which 'is widely viewed as an alternative to western-dominated institutions'. (14) The fact it has successfully enabled countries in Latin America to trade with counterparts in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, is evidence in itself, of their skilful diplomacy.

The final straw, however, for the Trump administration was the recent announcement from BRICs that they were intending reforming the World Trade Organisation (WTO) 'to make the multilateral trading system fair and reflective of today's global realities'. (15) The high-level diplomatic plan is likely to be successful; the BRICs members, and those associated with them, have the numbers in influential positions. The US, and their supporters, have been increasingly marginalised; they have passed the point of no return.

And an informed opinion on the matter, noted that BRICs, 'is important economically, but also politically, because it is a counterpoint to the hegemony of the US'. (16)

The countries of the southern half of the Americas, increasingly centred on Brazil, have successfully established the basis for a multi-polar world order, which the present Trump administration have no intention of accepting. In fact, they are being totally disruptive of the whole project; authorisation, by the Trump administration, for example, for the CIA to launch covert operations in Venezuela, leaves little to the imagination. (17)

The recent Cold War diplomatic hostilities by the US toward some governments in Latin America are best viewed in that light. Studies of the previous Cold War and US foreign policy, moreover, have suggested their significance for the present day should not be overlooked and, 'security in the Americas, so dear to the US, does not necessarily give democracy primacy. It would not take much for Operation Condor to rise from the ashes'. (18)

The analysis has provided a further insight and chilling warning about the real nature of the Trump administration. For both Washington and the Pentagon, the stakes remain very high indeed!

1. US threat to cut aid to ally Colombia over drug-running, Australian, 21 October 2025; and, US in huge Caribbean military build-up, Australian, 16 October 2025.
2. See: The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History, Edited, Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne, (New York, 1993).
3. CIA's Drug Confession, The Consortium Magazine, 15 October 1998; and, America's Secret War, Third World Traveller, ref: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/secret_war.html ; and, 1980s, Nicaragua: Reagan's Contra Terrorists; and, 1980s, US / Central America: Contras, Gangs and Crack; and, 1980s, USA: Money laundering for Contras, Mob and CIA., A People's History of the CIA, (Ottawa, 2000), Issue 43, December 2000, pp. 35-38.
4. See: 1976, South America, 'Operation Condor' cross-border killing, A People's History of the CIA, ibid., pp. 31-32.
5. See: Revealed – Pinochet Drug Link, The Observer (London), 10 December 2000.
6. China's growing influence in Latin America, The Council for Foreign Relations, 6 June 2025.
7. Ibid.
8. Chinese investment shapes Latin America's economic integration, UPI., 28 June 2025.
9. Council for Foreign Relations, op.cit., 6 June 2025.
10. See: The president of Mexico refuses to attend the summit, Cibercuba, 14 October 2025; and, Colombia to skip summit, teleSur, 15 October 2015.
11. US threat, Australian, op.cit., 21 October 2025.
12. Ibid.
13. BRICs GDP outperforms global average, BRICs Brazil 2025, 2 May 2025.
14. BRICs meetings inflame Trump, Australian, 24 October 2025.
15. Ibid.
16. BRICs GDP, op.cit., 2 May 2025.
17. Trump threatens airstrikes on Venezuela after B-52 show of force, Australian, 17 October 2025.
18. Operation Condor Explained, Le Monde Diplomatique, August 2001, pp. 12-13.