US shift from soft to hard power towards allies such as Colombia may backfire
President Donald Trump threatened tariffs so many times against so many nations before his re-election that some wondered whether he was serious. In the event, his first target was Colombia, a South American oil and coffee exporter. Its harsh treatment last Sunday holds lessons for other nations weighing the consequences of the president’s America First policies.
As a leftwing former guerrilla, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro was never going to be a Trump fan. But he incurred the US president’s particular wrath after publicly vowing to turn back American military flights deporting migrants, complaining that his compatriots were being treated like criminals.
For a few hours, Bogotá’s status flipped from traditional Washington ally to rogue state. Trump announced immediate 25 per cent tariffs on Colombian imports, rising to 50 per cent in a week, banking sanctions and a US travel ban for Colombian government officials and their allies. Petro initially vowed retaliatory tariffs but quickly folded. He had little choice. For Colombia, a trade war with its biggest trading partner would have been devastating.
Denmark and Panama will have been watching closely. Both are small nations in Trump’s sights because they possess valuable territorial assets he covets. In Denmark’s case, it is the strategic Arctic territory of Greenland and in Panama’s, the shipping canal built by America over a century ago.
Mexico and Canada, US neighbours and big trading partners, are waiting to discover whether Trump will fulfil a threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs as soon as Saturday, tearing up three decades of North American free trade.
Republicans may be celebrating Trump’s quick win over a comparatively weak South American president, who had apparently not thought through his impulsive decision. (Colombia had been accepting US military flights deporting its nationals since well before Trump’s inauguration). But the long-term consequences of punishing and publicly humiliating an erstwhile ally are unlikely to favour the US.
Washington has long portrayed itself as a reliable trade and security partner because it can be trusted to stick to international agreements and follow rules. In the Trump era, this no longer appears to be a given. While America has a right to detain and deport migrants who enter illegally — and Trump has an electoral mandate for that — anti-US sentiment around the world is likely to be stoked by a return to the bullying tactics of a bygone era.
There is a potential opening here for the EU to provide an alternative to America First, by stepping up its own investment in the region and ratifying a long-stalled trade pact with South American nations. But China and Russia will be looking for opportunities.
Beijing has touted itself to developing nations as a trusted long-term partner interested in trade and investment rather than playing politics. The experience of some African and Latin American nations has sometimes shown otherwise, but compared with Trump’s unpredictable tactics, Beijing may start to look more attractive.
By choosing in his first week to make threats against Colombia, Panama and Mexico, some of the closest US allies in the Americas, Trump has signalled a shift away from the soft power approach the US has favoured in recent decades to a harder form of power. While that may — as it did with Colombia — deliver short-term results, in the longer term it is just as likely to drive countries away from America. Since Beijing has already demonstrated its willingness to invest heavily in the region, the big winner from Trump’s policies may ultimately not be the US, but China.
