Not since Ronald Reagan and congressional Democrats battled over aid to the opponents of Nicaragua’s pro-Soviet Sandinista dictatorship has the Western Hemisphere played this large a role in American news or has the region so fixated the American president.
More has happened in hemispheric politics in the past two weeks than sometimes happens in a year. President Trump had hardly reinstalled his Diet Coke button on the Resolute Desk when he doubled down on threats to take back the Panama Canal. After Colombia rejected American deportation flights in military aircraft, what some persist in labeling an “isolationist” threatened harrowing consequences unless the flights were allowed. Bogotá folded.