The Biden administration is set to take a very different approach to Latin America and the Caribbean than the previous administration. Under President Trump, the pact with our Central American neighbors boiled down to U.S. silence about corruption and abuse of power in exchange for collaboration from the governments of the northern triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) with the president’s anti-immigrant platform. Juan González, appointed by the Biden administration as National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere, will be the president’s lead advisor on Latin American policy. In an interview with El Faro, González laid out the administration’s vision for the region.
A central focus of the Biden administration will be to address corruption in the region and respond to the root causes that lead to irregular migration. “We have to return to the initiative that President Biden took in the White House as Vice President, which is to work with the countries in the region to resolve the issues of poverty, inequality, and insecurity, which is what pushes people to leave their homes and attempt the dangerous journey to the United States,” González said. “Many of these issues begin with endemic corruption that we see in the northern triangle, as well as elsewhere in Latin America,” he added. Additionally, he pledged that the Biden administration will approach these issues with “humility and in a spirit of collaboration.” The coronavirus pandemic, he noted, is also an issue that will require cooperation with Latin American allies, the Caribbean, and Canada.
A task force will be formed between the Justice Department and federal prosecutors in Central America to tackle the issue of corruption, and President Biden has committed $4 billion dollars to the region for a four-year term. González explained that the United States will support the prosecutors who have, until now, been working alone in their investigations into organized crime and corruption, giving them “all the tools that the U.S. and international partners have to go after corruption.” He expressed some concern with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele’s administration, but pledged to “dialogue with any government that has been democratically elected” while “[voicing] worries in a respectful and well-meaning manner.” He made clear, however, that the days of turning a blind eye to corruption and abuse of power are over. “A leader unready to go after corruption won’t be a U.S. ally,” he emphasized, while governments who are “ready to take this on in a serious way, …will have an ally in Joe Biden.” As of Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Gónzalez was more forthright in his assessment: “the actions taken by the Ortega administration against their own people, using snipers to target peaceful protesters, possibly constitute crimes against humanity,” he said. He added that, while Nicaragua was forgotten under the previous administration, it will be a focus for Biden’s.
Lastly, González noted that “the allies for the United States aren’t only governments.” Civil society organizations demanding more from their governments, the private sector, and the international community are all allies that the United States will collaborate with. “I can say that we’re going to use all the tools that we have in the fight against corruption, and in support of democratic institutions in the region, which is the base of the consensus that we have in this hemisphere,” he said.