The “unthinkable” happened, Donald Trump has been elected the next president of the US which has sent shockwaves throughout the world, including some in Washington DC itself, and filling the airwaves with feverish speculation as to what Trump will do once he is inaugurated.

His first appointments thus far show his administration will be populated by right-wing hardliners, many verging on being white supremacists, which does not bode well for existing democratic rights in the US. There is also growing concern about his allies in terms of international policy.

Nonetheless, in the country’s two key areas of economic and foreign policy, Trump has yet to issue any clear, definite statements that would indicate the direction he will be steering in one of the world’s largest economies.

Despite so much superficial media speculation the truth is nobody knows what he will do. We are even more in the dark regarding his plans for Latin America.

Trump’s politics have been labelled a “new nationalism,” the kind that is influenced by xenophobia, intolerance towards immigrants, distrust of ethnic and other minorities.

One example, with relevance to Latin America, is his threat to build a wall to stop the illegal influx of Mexicans and Latinos and to deport around 3 million he now calls “criminals.”

His campaign was inward-looking in terms of addressing US grave economic woes.

If President Trump is consistent with Trump the candidate in this regard, he will reduce US military and political interventionism abroad and withdraw from free trade agreements retrenching into some form of economic protectionism. Note, for example, the announcement that the US will quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) on his first day in office.

In this sense, Trump’s pronouncements could be argued to rationalise the negative effects the US is experiencing from its military adventures and its fixation with neoliberal free trade agreements.

However, he also denounced Venezuela’s elected government and offered his support to hardline right-wing opponents of it. He also condemned President Barack Obama’s overtures towards Cuba.

One specific area where Trump has announced a clear policy is that he will either ditch or substantially review the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

Pulling out of Nafta will be catastrophic for Mexico, which has seen its currency plunge 13 per cent against the dollar. However, these negative developments offer an opportunity for Mexico to realign itself away from the US’s suffocating hold.

Mexico is something of an exception in Latin America — over 80 per cent of its exports and imports are with the US — whereas some other countries in the region have made a shift away from the US in recent years.

These countries have reoriented commercial activities towards China, Japan, South Korea and the EU, with the US becoming only one of many trading partners.

As a result the US’s relative trading position in Latin America has seriously declined over many years.

It would follow that those countries with new right-wing governments Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil as well as Mexico — have embarked on a strong pro-US economic reorientation and are likely to suffer consequences similar to Mexico in its relations with its northern neighbour.

Thus, for example, earlier this year Argentina showed intense interest in being part of TPP and the Mauricio Macri government’s pro-US strategy led him to accept the conditions of vulture fund debt holders that bumped up the country’s external debt to £40.2billion.

If Trump’s policy of “re-industrialising the US” is implemented the Federal Reserve might increase interest rates to attract capital thus seriously messing up the Argentinian economy.

Similarly, Brazil’s currency, the real, fell by nearly 10 per cent after Trump’s election victory and — as with Argentina — any rise in the US interest rate will draw capital towards the US.

Before the coup against president Dilma Rousseff, Brazil could apply countercyclical measures especially through Mercosur — South America’s common market. However, the right-wing governments of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, encouraged by the US, have been busy dismantling Mercosur while seeking to create the conditions for expelling Venezuela from it.

There are some who will hope that Trump’s isolationist vision might lead him to see current interventions in Latin America merely as undesirable “foreign entanglements,” in which case Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro wish “to have the best relations of mutual respect with the US” may be granted.

However, Republican majorities in the Congress and the Senate make it less likely as both have adopted positions against Venezuela in recent years.

Trump is certain to change the Supreme Court’s political composition and, furthermore, he is formally the Republican Party’s leader — these factors, while not allowing him to do whatever he wishes, will give him plenty of room to manoeuvre at the start of his presidency.

The main problem will lie in the intensely conservative nature of his government, as it will come under a lot of pressure from entrenched extreme right-wing elements in the Republican Party, the State Department and its operational organisations (NED, USAidD, etc) to intensify hostility toward Venezuela, undo progress made in dialogue with Cuba and continue the support for existing destabilisation plans for the region.

For those of us standing in solidarity with social progress in Latin America, our vigilance is now needed more than ever.

• Dr Francisco Dominguez is secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.

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