Western HemispherePresident Trump’s Foreign Policy Triumph in Guyana and South America
President Donald Trump’s capable handling of the recent election crisis in Guyana has received little attention in the U.S. press; it deserves more. Not only has the President protected U.S. strategic interests in the region, he has saved democracy in Guyana, enhanced US influence in the Caribbean and northeastern corner of South America, and is keeping up the pressure on the rogue dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba.
President Donald Trump’s capable handling of the recent election crisis in Guyana has received little attention in the U.S. press; it deserves more. Not only has the President protected U.S. strategic interests in the region, he has saved democracy in Guyana, enhanced US influence in the Caribbean and northeastern corner of South America, and is keeping up the pressure on the rogue dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba.
Some background — on the northeast coast of South America, the so-called Guiana Shield, lie two countries -Guyana and Suriname. Both countries began 2020 under the threat of dictatorship. But thanks to President Trump, and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, democracy prevailed. Both countries now have duly-elected governments
Guyana is a small, multi-ethnic country of 750,000, which has suffered years of political oppression and poverty at the hands of an anti-Indian dictatorship (Guyana’s population is 43% Indian origin). The instability, corruption, and violence in Guyana, led many Indo-Guyanese and over half of the population to migrate to the United States beginning in the 1960s. Many now live in New York and Florida. President Trump’s home county of Queens, in New York City, is now 10% Guyanese- American.
But the world changed for Guyana, as huge oil reserves were discovered offshore, and oil started pumping early in 2020. Guyana now has the second largest oil reserves per capita in the world, after Kuwait. That oil rush prompted the government of President David Granger, a former military official of the dictatorship that ruled Guyana from 1966 to 1992, to try to cheat and seize power.
The March 2, 2020 elections were heavily monitored by the Trump administration. When it became clear that the mostly Indo-Guyanese Peoples Progressive Party (“PPP”) had fairly won the election, Granger tried to cheat. His agents forged fake results, sometimes right in front of US observers. International observers were harassed. When Granger scheduled a “swearing-in” to seize power, the Trump administration told him to back-off, and accept the election results.
