A Dangerous 'Focus' on Latin America

If personnel is policy, it is a bad sign for the region that Trump has put hardliners in key positions.

Ryan Berg argues that the Trump administration will be more focused on Latin America than its predecessors:

One of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s most lasting slogans of governance is that “personnel is policy.” Judged using Reagan’s mantra, it appears as though the incoming Trump team could be rightly described as the United States’ first Latin America-focused administration in at least a century—and perhaps ever.

It could be that the Trump administration will focus its attention on Latin America, but if the early signs are any indication of what we can expect that is very bad news for the U.S. and Latin America. Trump’s new Latin America envoy, Mauricio Claver-Carone, was a hardliner responsible for pushing some of Trump’s worst policies in the region during the first term. Among other things, Claver-Carone was one of the chief supporters of Trump’s failed regime change policy in Venezuela. If personnel is policy, it is a bad sign for the region that Trump has put hardliners in key positions.