Donald Trump’s first days in office have proved that his earlier isolationist rhetoric was always a facade. Statements about conquering Greenland, “retaking” the Panama Canal, and invading Mexico have made headlines; it seems that the administration has done away with the formalities of “diet” imperialism and fully embraced Trump’s supersized version. But like all gluttons, he may have bitten off more than he can chew.
On Sunday, Trump entered into a duel of words with Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, who refused to accept a US military plane of shackled Colombian immigrants. As the contents of the social media posts of both Trump and Petro have made the rounds in the US media, much of it has claimed Trump as the victor and quickly moved on to the next scandal. Yet had the media chosen to pay attention a little bit longer, it would have seen that Petro’s public challenging of Trump worked; the Trump administration agreed to allow the immigrants to return home in a dignified way and decided not to enforce any of the sanctions that Trump threatened. The next day, the same Colombians who were previously shackled reached Bogotá uncuffed on the Colombian presidential plane.
Reporters rushed to interview the migrants as soon as they descended the stairs onto the runway. The stories they told were a testament to the cruelty of the Trump administration and the dehumanization of migrants that has characterized US politics over the past year. While many ran past the cameras, a woman with a child in her arms stopped to tell her story. She said that she had crossed the Sonoran Desert with her child when she was robbed by coyotes and forced to endure hunger, only to be apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and forced into detention. She ended by saying that people are being held in custody and there are people desaparecida — a phrase that hearkens back to some of the darkest days in Latin American…
Auteur: Cruz Bonlarron Martínez
