"The good, the bad, and 'the Donald'. For Latin America that was 2017 in a nutshell," wrote Prof JG Castenada. "The highlight of the year was, without question, the historic peace forged in Colombia. After a half-century-long insurgency fueled by drug cartels, Cubans, and money launderers, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) laid down their weapons and entered the political mainstream." Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. There were corruption charges against many Latin American leaders. President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff was impeached and former President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva received a prison sentence. However, the present President Michel Temer managed to get the Congress to vote against being impeached. There are corruption cases against former President of Argentina Cristina Fernandez, against Guatemala President Jimmy Morales for trying to protect his son from prosecution, against Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro for receiving illegal payments, and against several former state governors in Mexico. The election of Donald Trump as President of the US had enormous effect on the continent. His comment about using military force on Venezuela may have helped Maduro to claim foreign interference in the country's internal affairs. After then President Obama reopened the US embassy in Havana in 2015, as a sign full diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Trump administration issued a travel advisory against going to Cuba after US diplomats in Havana were attacked with a mysterious sonic weapon, causing deafness, "brain swelling, severe headaches, loss of balance and 'cognitive disruption'". The travel advisory has just been softened. Trump insists on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada because it caused loss of jobs in the US. A study by Public Citizen found that 1 million jobs in the US were lost due to NAFTA, wages were depressed and Mexican farmers suffered losses due to imports of cheap corn from the US, increasing immigration into the US. Not true say others who point to the increase in trade within NAFTA and insist that the US has made modest gains. "Millions of Venezuelans left the country, ad many more are trying to flee from hunger, disease, and oppression," wrote MC Machado. The economy has collapsed and President Maduro has resorted to increasing oppression and blatantly illegal practices, such as replacing the National Assembly in a fraudulent referendum, to hang on to power, wrote Prof R Hausmann. All Latin American countries should join the US in dislodging Nicolas Maduro from power and bringing him to justice. Their silence means condoning his crimes. Why blame Trump?
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