After Venezuela and Cuba, will the Trump administration turn its spotlight onto Nicaragua? Secretary of State Rubio has just finished a tour of three Latin American countries now allied with Trump – Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – and was asked about US policy towards Cuba and Nicaragua, and what he would do “to finally bring those dictatorships to an end.” Accusing left-wing governments of “destroying” their countries and bringing “misery” to their citizens, and in some cases of posing a security threat to the United States, Rubio said that the problem can now be addressed “in partnership with other presidents and other leaders in this region that feel the same way.”
By John Perry
Back in July, after media claims that Nicaragua’s Sandinista government plans to abolish elections completely, Rubio said that Nicaragua was “thwarting the basic tenets of our democratic hemisphere.” In September he added that its government had “indefinitely deprive[d] Nicaraguans of free and fair elections.” Yet Rubio, of course, said nothing in Ecuador about its president Noboa imposing a complete ban on the main, leftist opposition party, which ran him close in last year’s elections.
Washington’s selective concern for “democracy,” together with the measures now being considered against Nicaragua, suggest that the real target is not simply its political system but the survival of a socialist government that continues to defy US regional dominance.
Rubio has been pushing members of the Organization of American States to take action and stop “business as usual” with Nicaragua’s government. A meeting of OAS foreign ministers to discuss new sanctions was planned for September 15. It has been postponed, but of all OAS members, only Mexico and Brazil failed to support it.
The new OAS secretary, Albert Ramdin, enthusiastically urges its members to back US threats. Asked whether the OAS will break the rules in its own charter of “non-intervention” in the domestic affairs of countries, he was forced to equivocate. He claimed (as the OAS has on many previous occasions) that its plans aren’t interventionist, saying nevertheless that it must “actively respond” to what he calls “a political disaster.”
In a Washington meeting organized by the Nicaraguan government’s opponents, Ramdin called for a “critical mass” of countries to exert pressure because Nicaragua’s actions, he claims, have “repercussions that extend beyond the country’s borders.” He openly admits to “speaking with opposition leaders who are living in Washington DC” as if that were normal behavior for a supposedly independent diplomat.
Naturally, these moves have excited the various Nicaraguan opposition groups, based in the US and Costa Rica. The little-known, Miami-based “Nicaraguan Exiles Unit” demanded US military intervention. The most violent opposition group, the Costa Rica-based Campesino Movement, which in 2018 launched fatal attacks on several Nicaraguan police stations, joined the call for armed intervention. This prompted a formal protest from Nicaragua to the Costa Rican government for permitting groups to act in this way, even using children in a video to incite such violence.
The feasibility of successful military action was examined this month by academic experts writing in War on the Rocks. They conclude that the conditions that allowed the kidnapping of Venezuela’s president do not exist in Nicaragua and it is far from clear that military force would leave the country with a viable administration in place.
By the time he reached Colombia, a note of realism had crept into Rubio’s comments. Asked again what he would do to “end authoritarian governments”, he replied that “The first responsibility to change a system belongs to the people of those countries.” Similarly, OAS Secretary Ramdin, in an interview full of contradictions, also balks at intervening in Nicaragua’s “domestic affairs.”
If both Rubio and Ramdin reject military intervention, what might be on the agenda either in the State Department or when regional foreign ministers eventually convene? Inevitably, there will be lengthy condemnations of Nicaragua linked to calls for “free, credible and accessible elections.” By implication, these would only be “free” if the opposition parties funded by Washington, which (with US assistance) carried out the coup attempt in 2018 in which over 200 Nicaraguans died, were able to stand.
Based on Washington’s previous interventions in Nicaraguan elections, it would release a fresh wave of financial support, media manipulation, social media domination and bribes and threats from Trump, aimed at getting Nicaraguans to vote for Washington’s favored candidate, just as occurred in Honduras in its recent election. It is precisely to avoid this interference that Nicaragua is changing its electoral rules to exclude candidates who receive US money or who directed the 2018 insurrection.
Opposition journalist Wilfredo Miranda believes that countries are divided in their response and that “concrete” steps will emerge from the proposed meeting of foreign ministers only if Rubio himself attends. Even so, the range of measures under discussion look like more of the same, given that Nicaragua is already subject to sanctions on more than 60 individual ministers and other functionaries and two dozen state institutions and businesses, while more than 2,000 individuals are denied US visas. Nicaragua has also been deprived of funding by multilateral bodies such as the IMF and World Bank and is subject to higher tariffs on its exports than apply to its neighbors.
Ramdin is proposing coordinated action by all OAS member countries, not just the US, to “punish” Nicaragua. This might involve diplomatic isolation, targeted sanctions, new visa restrictions, limits on international flights and possibly broader trade restrictions of uncertain severity.
However, reaching consensus on tougher measures will be problematic. Nicaragua’s immediate neighbors – El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica – have close economic ties with it. They depend heavily on transport routes and the inter-regional electricity grid through the country. They were all damaged economically by the 2018 coup attempt, when its protagonists blocked the Panamerican highway and held over 400 international truckers hostage.
Nicaragua’s neighbors must be aware that Rubio’s rhetoric about its citizens living in “misery” has no basis in reality. The country has had the region’s fastest growth in GDP over the past decade, has the largest hospital network and the best roads. Indeed, a prosperous Nicaragua is key to regional stability: it receives 28% of its imports from Central America and contributes 16% of its exports. Nicaragua’s economy “weathers multiple shocks” according to the IMF, including US attacks.
Nicaragua is also a recognized “containment wall” against regional organized crime and drug trafficking. The country is far safer than neighboring Honduras and Costa Rica, which have both seen explosions in violent crime.
Ramdin drew attention to the potential regional impact of a major disaster or deteriorating economic conditions in Nicaragua, but its neighbors know that the Sandinista government has invested heavily in disaster prevention and its economy is buoyant.
While Ramdin focuses on “restoring democracy,” Rubio focuses more on Nicaragua’s socialist government which, in reality, has raised its people from “misery” and successfully challenged the imperialist model. His problem is that while Nicaragua’s opposition leaders are committed to the return of neoliberalism, which Nicaraguans experienced and rejected two decades ago, they only offer vague plans for political transition. In reality, they admit that they are “not yet unified or [have] built the institutional base needed to present a credible alternative.”
The groups also have little currency among Trump’s Florida base, fixated on regime change in Venezuela and Cuba. As Juan Gonzalez, a former Latin America aide to President Biden, told Politico: “The lesson from Nicaragua is: Don’t matter too much, don’t embarrass Washington and don’t become a domestic political issue.”
So the likelihood, if indeed Latin American foreign ministers can agree on anything, and if Rubio fits their meeting into his schedule, is more rhetoric about “democracy” along with additional sanctions. They’ll be deciding whether they should threaten Nicaraguans with the “misery” that Rubio claims they are already suffering.
