The Rise of the Far Right in Latin America and the Role of the United States

Author: Olivia Weninger

August 20, 2026

Colombian President-Elect, Abelardo de la Espriella [Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

On Tuesday, June 23^rd, 2026, Colombia’s President-Elect and political outsider Abelardo de la Espriella officially won the election by the narrowest presidential margin in Colombian history, with only 250,830 votes separating the two candidates (Al Jazeera, 2026). While de la Espriella was barely victorious, the messages and themes in his campaign are only one part of the past decade’s ever-growing influence of far-right political outsiders in Latin America and abroad, including sitting U.S. President Donald Trump. The rise of far-right political outsiders in Latin America, particularly in El Salvador, Argentina, and Colombia, reflects public frustration with political establishments and economic crises but has been significantly amplified by Trump administration support and alignment, raising critical human rights concerns. The histories of Latin America and the United States have never been separate; instead they directly influence and alter the political landscape of one another. De la Espriella’s victory mirrored that of Javier Milei in Argentina, and Nayib Bukele before them in El Salvador. Each of these victories has similar undertones, as well as covert influence from the United States.

Because these victories seem so outlandish and unlikely from many global perspectives, there has been a growing body of research into the international far-right to attest to the rise of these populist, outsider elects. Economic collapse is one factor. Argentina’s poverty rate surged from 27% to 40% between 2018–2023 (Winning, 2024), and Colombia, under their former president, Gustav Petro, has faced a recent flight of investors and the resulting fiscal crisis (The Atlantic Council, 2026). Another factor is gang violence and a feeling of insecurity, as is notable with El Salvador’s infamous and long-standing murder epidemic and internal conflict resurgence seen in Colombia. Additionally, many Latin Americans, much like many U.S. citizens prior to Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2024 victories, were tired of the governmental status quo and establishment parties that did not create truly meaningful reform and felt that an outsider was needed to fix the present political exhaustion. All three candidates—Bukele, Milei, and de la Espriella—positioned themselves as anti-establishment alternatives and promised radical solutions in an unfortunately successful attempt to prey on the real needs and problems of the population to garner power.

Common patterns emerge from these far-right figures and their political campaigning. Populist messaging often arises in the form of different metaphors, including de la Espriella, who calls himself “El Tigre” (the Tiger), and Milei’s “Plan Motosierra” (Chainsaw plan), which utilizes the chainsaw as a symbol of radically cutting the public sector and of reforming f the state and its economy as a whole (Winning, 2024). These bold, masculine icons exude the confidence and aggression only a political outsider could hold, however misplaced both may be. Being “tough on crime” is another theme for much of the far-right populist messaging in Latin America. One of the reasons for Bukele’s popularity and the main reason for his reelection is the promise of reducing the country’s murder rate. De la Espriella promised voters that the renewed internal conflict in Colombia would be a focus of his presidency, taking the mega-prison tactic from Bukele initiated five years earlier (Luciano, 2026).

Additionally, media manipulation is a frequent identifier of far-right populist strategies. Most notably, Bukele has successfully completed an override of democratic checks and balances, including attacks on the media. Bukele’s administration has a history of jailing people who oppose his policies, and the hushed feeling of his constituents is palpable (Mineo, 2025). He is very adept at using social media and has even passed laws reducing the legal ability of media outlets to speak out against him.

Many of these tenets may seem familiar to the average American, as the anti-establishment presidential appeal has shaken the country to its democratic bedrock. Trump, a far-right populist himself, is also known for his fear-mongering and promises to crack down on crime. He uses metaphors to promote his image as a strongman leader or Christian Crusader (Baptist News Global, 2023) and frequently attempts to ruin even the most prominent of news outlets. Therefore, it is no surprise that President Trump finds alliances and friendships among these leading men with similar goals and promises.

One of the most prominent Latin American far-right leaders from whom this movement grew is El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Bukele’s initial appeal came from his position as an outsider and nontraditional politician, as well as promises to crack down on gang violence and reduce murder rates. He has proven to do just that as the country’s security situation has greatly improved during his presidency (Farah, 2025). However, it has been revealed that this win was not in earnest, as Bukele reached this lower homicide level by negotiating a pact with the MS-13 gang and other groups to reduce their committed homicides in exchange for access to government economic resources and other privileges (Farah, 2025). These gangs have also notoriously helped him garner votes for further elections, amassing fear in his constituents as a method for political gain.

While the reduced homicide rate is a win on paper, numerous human rights concerns and violations have diluted the feeling of victory for the country. Since Bukele established a state of emergency and “declared war” on Salvadoran gangs, there have been 75,000 arrests (Meléndez-Sánchez, 2024). Bukele has curtailed civil liberties and due process, leading to more people being sent to overpopulated, unhygienic, and dangerous jails without due process.

Additionally, in his first term, Bukele created the necessary conditions for his reelection and reduced the amount of friction he would encounter while sitting as president. He has repeatedly violated the constitution to consolidate power by packing the judiciary with allies and defying constitutional prohibitions on reelection (Farah, 2025). In the last election, he won 87% of the presidential vote and his party secured at least 54/60 seats in the Legislative Assembly (Meléndez-Sánchez, 2024). He and his allies have entirely reconstructed the electoral system, turning the country’s 262 municipalities into 44 larger districts. El Salvadorians now feel safe to walk around at night but no longer feel safe to vocalize public dissent of the government due to Bukele’s habit of immediately throwing dissenters in jail (Mineo, 2025). Uniformed police forces were heavily visible around voting centers, which critics viewed as a form of intimidation, while gangs whipped up votes in their neighborhoods as civil liberties were eroded to near zero.

Bukele is adept at manipulating publicity as well. Before dedicating himself to politics, he mainly worked at his father’s advertising companies, giving him an inside look into the constituency he would one day serve (Directorio Legislativo, 2024). While in the presidency, he has used state resources to boost propaganda and has distributed packets of food, toilet paper, and other household goods all bearing the presidential seal (Meléndez-Sánchez, 2024). He is adept at utilizing social media and has passed laws that reduce the ability of the media to aptly report on the happenings of the government and creating an informed constituency (Mineo, 2025). To deter opposing parties, his Ministry of Finance withheld more than $24 million in public funding from their campaigns. Overall, Bukele’s first presidency introduced a dangerous precedent that helped pave the way for future populists. While he did increase the overall security of El Salvador, the press and people are no longer truly free. There is overt democratic backsliding, and he has created a government with no accountability and no transparency.

Shortly after Bukele’s first presidency came Argentina’s Javier Milei, inaugurated December 2023 (Winning, 2024). His appeal to the public was less focused on security and more intent on fixing a deeply broken economic system. Milei’s iconography was that of the chainsaw, as he would come to eliminate subsidies, and dramatically cut the public sector, and practice radical austerity (Deutsche Welle, 2023). He vowed to put an end to the country’s economic decline and also won as the anti-establishment outsider, garnering 55.69% of the vote while his competitor trailed with 44.3%. This election was characterized as a vote between lesser evils, with many Argentinians preferring not to vote at all (Deutsche Welle, 2023).

However, Milei’s presidency turned out to reveal a slew of human rights issues both within Milei’s approach to public policy and in the consequences of his actions as a leader. He is a well-noted misogynist, frequently rejects women’s rights, and denies the crimes of the 1976-83 Argentinian dictatorship (Winning, 2024). His government deregulated nearly all tenancy laws, removing necessary protections for renters. He limited the right to be able to strike in certain working sectors and enabled changes that made it easier for bosses to fire their workers. Metrics on racism and attacks on abortion rights have also intensified (Winning, 2024). Lastly, as is common for populist-nationalist rhetoric, immigrants are used as scapegoats for constituents’ financial and social struggles, as the administration cries loudly for their deportation. As a result of these actions, Argentina has seen the highest labor mobilization in years as workers aim to combat deregulation policies. 

This brings us to the most recent far-right populist win, Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella. De la Espriella’s campaign borrowed many themes from Bukele’s playbook, including his pledge to be tough on crime and limit due process rights. As de la Espriella is only president-elect, we don’t have evidence of what his term will look like. But we can imagine from his campaign. De la Espriella proposed building 10 maximum security megaprisons, inspired by Bukele’s El Salvador (Luciano, 2026). Also taking directly from Bukele's playbook, De la Espriella has promised to take a heavy-handed approach to combatting crime, which can reduce homicide rates but leads to massive human rights abuses, too. De la Espriella said he envisions prisoners under his presidency being held nearly “10 stories underground” and being fed on only bread and water. He has taken Bukele’s justification for limiting due process to heart, manipulating the real emotions and experiences of the Colombian people to vote against their best interests by claiming that the left cares more about criminals’ rights than their victims (Luciano, 2026). There is little about the promises of de la Espriella that should lead us to believe that the consequences of his presidency should be much different to those of Bukele.

As is common in the contemporary history of Latin America, the U.S. has played a vocal part in picking presidents and been a driving force of their chosen presidents’ ideologies and actions. Shortly before the election day, President Trump gave de la Espriella his “complete and total endorsement,” warning that the results of the Colombian election would be very important to the future relationship between Colombia and the U.S., which in turn prompted then Colombian president Petro to accuse the U.S. of election interference (Luciano, 2026). De la Espriella also had the full support of Republicans in Congress, who stated that de la Espriella would have U.S. interests in mind. These same members aided in mobilizing Colombians who live abroad—and tend to be more conservative—to vote (The New York Times, 2026). Just days before the election, U.S immigration authorities detained an activist who was urging U.S. residing Colombians not to vote for de la Espriella. According to a memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the activist had been interfering with U.S. foreign policy (The New York Times, 2026). Experts say that the involvement of the Trump administration in Colombia’s election has been notably heavy-handed, even in an age where foreign influence on elections is increasingly common. It comes as no surprise that de la Espriella has pledged to rebuild Colombia’s ties with both the U.S. and Israel, as outgoing President Gustavo Petro had hampered the Colombian relationship with Israel due to their genocidal campaign in Gaza (Al Jazeera, 2026).

During Trump’s second term in office, which has placed an even stronger focus on security concerns and cracking down on crime and migration, came the creation of the “Shield of the Americas.” The mission statement of this group is for countries in the western hemisphere to “work together to advance strategies that stop foreign interference in our hemisphere, criminal and narco-terrorist gangs and cartels, and illegal and mass immigration” (U.S. Department of State, 2026). Notably, Colombia and Mexico resisted joining the shield, until Colombian president-elect de la Espriella excitedly accepted the invitation to get closer to his right-wing allies and will be placing Colombia’s security cooperation under U.S. control (Aleman, 2026). There are economic incentives in the United States’ offer as well. Becoming a member of the coalition comes with the expectation of increased U.S. investment and potential military aid (The Atlantic Council, 2026). At the Shield of the Americas Summit Working Lunch on March 7, 2026, then Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem shouted out both Presidents Bukele and Milei, calling them great examples for the region and future partners in their fight against immigration and towards “economic prosperity” (U.S. Department of State, 2026).

Lastly, Trump’s recent alliance with Bukele and El Salvador is ripe with abuses of office and human rights violations. In April of 2025, Bukele visited the White House to discuss El Salvador’s cooperation in accepting migrants sent from the U.S. to be imprisoned in El Salvador (Mineo, 2025). Bukele embraced Trump’s deportation plans and went on to accept a $6 million deal to house foreign detainees in El Salvador’s notoriously overcrowded and dangerous megaprisons, positioning him as an ally willing to help with Trump’s accelerated deportations (Aleman, 2026). By early 2026, deportations from the U.S. to El Salvador increased by nearly 98%. The Bukele administration’s overt willingness to provide such financial incentives to a leader widely criticized for human rights abuses, constitutional violations, and extrajudicial detention makes the United States a liable and complicit partner in these actions.

Overall, these three case studies reveal a regional pattern of far-right political outsiders exploiting their constituents’ real fears and legitimate economic and security crises by promising radical solutions, only to deliver empty promises, authoritarian sentiments, and democratic backsliding. Rather than emerging organically, the rise  of these presidencies has been explicitly supported, endorsed, and amplified by the Trump administration, which has prioritized geopolitical alignment, including pro-U.S., pro-Israel, anti-China, and cooperative defense policies  over democratic standards. The victorious presidential elections of Milei, de la Espriella, and Bukele’s first term, include some of the thinnest margins seen in Latin American electoral history. When asked about the elections, people from all three countries seemed exhausted by the status quo governments not fixing their problems and wanted someone novel and anti-establishment. The heavy thumb of the U.S. has helped to tip the scales towards Western financial incentives and ideological partnership over the genuine health and well-being of the countries’ constituents. The creation of the “Shield of the Americas” is effectively a coalition of aspiring authoritarians, with the U.S. providing both political cover and material support. Understanding the rise of the far-right in Latin America requires centering America’s active role, not treating it as an incidental factor. Ultimately, safeguarding democratic institutions requires an informed public capable of recognizing the conditions that enable authoritarian movements to gain power and the external forces that can reinforce their rise.

Glossary

• Anti-establishment Politics – Political messaging that portrays traditional political parties and institutions as corrupt, ineffective, or disconnected from ordinary citizens.

• Authoritarianism – A system of government characterized by concentrated political power, weakened democratic institutions, limited political freedoms, and reduced accountability.

• Civil Liberties – Fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of speech, assembly, due process, and freedom of the press.

• Constitutional Violations – Actions taken by governments or leaders that conflict with or disregard constitutional law.

• Democratic Backsliding – The gradual erosion of democratic institutions, checks and balances, civil liberties, and political competition.

• Due Process – The legal principle that governments must respect the rights of individuals by providing fair legal procedures before depriving them of liberty or property.

• Human Rights – The fundamental rights and freedoms that belong to all individuals, including freedom from arbitrary detention, torture, discrimination, and violations of due process.

• MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) – A transnational criminal gang originating in Los Angeles with significant operations in El Salvador and other parts of Central America.

• Political Outsider - A political outsider is a candidate or leader who has no long career in government, is not part of the traditional ruling party system, and runs against the established political elite.

• Populism – A political approach that claims to represent "the people" against a corrupt elite, often relying on charismatic leadership and simplified solutions to complex problems.

• Propaganda – Government-sponsored messaging designed to influence public opinion, often by emphasizing favorable information while suppressing criticism.

• Shield of the Americas – A U.S.-led security coalition established during Donald Trump's second administration to strengthen cooperation against organized crime, migration, and foreign influence in the Western Hemisphere.

• State of Emergency – A temporary expansion of government powers during a perceived crisis, often allowing the suspension of certain civil liberties.

• Working-Class Mobilization – Organized political or labor action by workers in response to economic policies, labor reforms, or government decisions.

  
  

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References

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2. “Experts React: What a President Abelardo de La Espriella Means for Colombia and Beyond.” The Atlantic Council, 22 June 2026, www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/experts-react-what-a-president-abelardo-de-la-espriella-means-for-colombia-and-beyond/.

3. “In Pitch to Evangelicals, Trump Casts Himself as Christian Crusader Who Helped End Roe v. Wade.” Baptist News Global, 28 June 2023, baptistnews.com/article/in-pitch-to-evangelicals-trump-casts-himself-as-christian-crusader-who-helped-end-roe-v-wade/

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7. De La Espriella Pledges to Restore Colombia’s Relations with Israel | Politics News | Al Jazeera, 24 June 2026, www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/24/de-la-espriella-pledges-to-restore-colombias-relations-with-israel.

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9. Luciano, Lilia. “Abelardo de La Espriella, Right-Wing Millionaire Backed by Trump, Declared Winner of Colombia’s Presidential Runoff Election.” CBS News, 24 June 2026, www.cbsnews.com/news/colombia-presidential-election-abelardo-de-la-espriella-winner/.

10. Meléndez-Sánchez, Manuel. How the World’s Most Popular Dictator Wins | Journal of Democracy, Feb. 2024, www.journalofdemocracy.org/elections/how-the-worlds-most-popular-dictator-wins/.

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12. Makoff, Gregory. “Opinion | Trump’s Bad Plan to Make America Argentina Again” The New York Times, 3 Mar. 2025, www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/opinion/trump-milei-musk-argentina.html.

13. Winning, Liam. “Javier Milei, the Far Right and Resistance in Argentina” International Socialism, 11 Apr. 2024, isj.org.uk/javier-milei-and-resistance/.

14. U.S. Department of State. “Shield of the Americas - United States Department of State.” 2026. www.state.gov/policy-issues/shield-of-the-americas.