Making the Americas Great Again: The Trump Effect Takes Hold of Latin America

2025 was a banner year for right-wing populism in the Americas. The prospect of a better, more prosperous life where cultural traditionalism can be celebrated has envigored Latinos throughout the region, and leftist demagogues are getting booted from power regularly as a result.

In Honduras, conservative National Party candidate Nasry Asfura won a narrow presidential election after a last-minute endorsement by President Donald Trump put him over the top. Chile elected right-wing stalwart José Antonio Kast to be their next president, trouncing his Communist Party challenger with 58 percent of the vote. Earlier in the year, Daniel Nobog won election for a full term as President in Ecuador on a strict law and order platform, representing a massive departure from leftist government that had dominated the country for decades.

And during Argentina’s midterm elections, libertarian President Javier Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), scored a decisive legislative victory that reshaped the composition of Congress. Voters gave LLA more than 40 percent of the national vote, significantly increasing their representation in both the Argentinian Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. This firmed Milei’s mandate to institute his radical vision against the government throughout the country.

The underlying basis for this Latin American renaissance is hope. After living in abject destitution for generations and being victims of learned hopelessness pushed by socialists to keep power, there have been sparks throughout the region that have shown Latinos that they do not need handouts from corrupt bureaucrats for their countries to thrive. One of these sparks was the election of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has emerged as perhaps the world’s most forward-thinking leader at a time when a new vision was desperately needed.

Bukele inherited El Salvador as a country plagued by gang violence with violent MS-13 members running the streets, having capitalized from the aftermath of a brutal civil war to seize power. Bukele took drastic measures to clean up the streets. He suspended the constitution and made mass arrests of gang members. He built the largest, state-of-the-art prison facility in CECOT to house the many criminals who needed to be removed from society. Bukele overcame the threats from the gangs to proceed boldly on behalf of his people.

As a result, El Salvador has gone from a crime haven to being the safest nation in the hemisphere. Bukele was called undemocratic and a dictator by liberal Western NGOs for doing what it took to clean up crime in his country. Even though the globalists wagged their finger at Bukele, the people of Latin America took notice. They did not care about the bourgeois notion of democracy promoted by ivory tower outsiders. They wanted peace in their streets and the ability to keep their families safe, all else be damned.

Bukele’s policies regarding the adoption of Bitcoin have also made him stand out among world leaders. He was the first worldwide leader to put his country on a Bitcoin standard of sorts, creating a national Bitcoin reserve. El Salvador’s goal to gain one more Bitcoin per day on a national basis has been extremely successful as their investment has skyrocketed since adopting the policy. President Trump has since called for a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the United States similar to what El Salvador has pioneered.

As a result of his immense successes, Bukele-ism has spread throughout the continent. The aforementioned Milei has added to the right-wing momentum. However, Milei is starkly different from Bukele. Milei was elected as a radical libertarian vowing to take a chainsaw to taxes, spending and regulations. Milei has fulfilled his mandate, and although it has been a rocky road at times, he was able to secure the full support of President Trump, getting a $40 billion injection of capital at an opportune time, and dominate the most recent elections.

But the man who deserves the most credit of all for the Latin American renaissance is President Donald Trump. It was the rise of Trump that showed the people of the world that they did not have to settle for the trash shoveled to them from establishment political parties each election cycle. The people wanted someone who would fight for them. They are now willing to settle for nothing less. President Trump has also shown more interest in Latin America than previous Presidents, understanding that strong conservative governments in Latin America will mean less drugs and fewer migrants crossing the border. The stars are aligning to Make the Americas Great Again, and together, no foreign coalition of nations will be able to stop our collective economic, cultural and social dominance.