With U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in January, Latin American environmentalists and policy experts are bracing for the expected fallout, particularly a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Because his campaign platform was short on detail, they also are concerned about unknowns, especially broader geopolitical issues.

But the world has changed since Trump’s first term, giving environmentalists leverage on some of the president-elect’s most draconian policies, like his pledge to start mass deportations of immigrants who are in the United States illegally, observers say. Though climate denialism may become official U.S. policy, that won’t stem the rising temperatures fueling extreme weather events whose impacts, such as drought-driven crop failures, are increasingly seen as causes of illegal migration.

“There is an opportunity [for environmentalists] to discuss migration within the context of these greater climate trends,” says Anders Beal, senior associate in the Latin America program at the Wilson Center, a think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. Displacement of people within countries and toward the U.S. borders is likely to increase, “not just because of crime or security or economic reasoning—it’s just the pure physical trends of climate science.”

A U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which Trump has promised, is likely to occur more quickly than it did during his first administration because he will have Congress behind him. The impact, however, could be buffered by changes already underway.

During Trump’s first term, state and local governments, even in Republican-controlled states, continued to boost renewable energy. The trend has been even greater in Latin America and the Caribbean, which has become “the greenest region on the planet,” says Alfonso Blanco, director of the Energy Transition & Climate Program at the Inter-American Dialogue and former executive director of the Latin American Energy Organization (Olade).

More than 60% of the region’s energy comes from renewable sources, with countries like Uruguay, Costa Rica and Panama at or near 100%. The catch is that a large percentage is hydroelectricity, which is vulnerable to drought. (See "Drought drives down region’s hydropower production" —EcoAméricas, October 2024.) South American countries could take greater advantage of wind energy from Patagonia or solar energy in the region where Chile, Peru and Bolivia converge, Blanco says.

Those areas are far from urban centers of electricity demand, however, making power-grid improvements—and cross-border connection of grids—more urgent. Renewable energy projects also increasingly face pushback from local communities and Indigenous peoples who see them as another form of resource extraction that can cause environmental harm while generating scant local economic benefit.

Impacts of protectionism

One unknown is how a U.S. shift toward economic protectionism and isolationism might play out, says Enrique Ortiz, a Peruvian tropical ecologist and senior program director at the Washington D.C.-based Andes Amazon Fund. It could embolden right-wing leaders hostile to environmental protections such as Argentina’s Javier Milei and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose Liberal Party ran strongly this October in municipal elections, a development Ortiz views with dismay.

Ortiz worries Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could have a dampening effect on the 2025 world climate conference in Belém, Brazil, especially on countries’ compliance with progress reporting. Climate finance—a key issue in this year’s talks—is also likely to suffer under Trump, though private-sector funding could rise as it did during his first term.

Ortiz sees Trump’s promise of economic protectionism as part of a wave that includes an effort by right-wing parties in the European Parliament to gut a measure aimed at reducing tropical deforestation by policing agricultural supply chains. The EU Deforestation Regulation would prohibit the export to Europe of certain commodities whose production is causing forest loss. The bid to kill it failed, but the Dec. 30 deadline for compliance was postponed a year for commodity traders and large companies and 18 months for small-scale producers.

Supporters of the delay say producers, especially small-scale farmers, need more time to comply, while critics assert the postponement will encourage continued deforestation. Ortiz notes that Brazil has brought deforestation rates down dramatically from the runaway rates under Bolsonaro. (See related article in Around the Region—this issue.)

China-policy effects

Latin America could be affected by any one of a number of Trump’s moves—among them his policy toward China, analysts say. If U.S. supply chains are moved away from China and closer to the United States, that could lead to more manufacturing in Latin America, Blanco says. The region’s high percentage of renewable energy could reduce emissions from manufacturing, and job creation could help stem northward migration.

China’s growing investment in Latin America, including a new megaport in Peru (see Around the Region—this issue), could prompt the United States to avoid taking an isolationist stance toward the region, Beal says.

“The Trump administration may seek to further limit Chinese dominance in critical minerals and continue a strong posture based on tariffs and other trade policies,” he says. “It remains very clear that South America’s lithium triangle will play an increasingly strategic role, where greater U.S. diplomacy could offer ‘carrots’ based on investment, technology and innovation, support for joint R&D projects, and improving academic exchanges.”

Faced with those unknowns and other critical issues, such as the expansion of illegal gold mining in the Amazon backed by organized crime, Ortiz says he is focusing on areas in which his group’s land-protection and land-rights expertise can make the greatest difference. A key one, he says, will be shoring up safeguards for protected areas and Indigenous territories as new U.S. policies take hold.

“What is clear [from] the previous Trump administration is that he actually worked on his promises,” he says. “It wasn’t just lip service, so it remains to be seen what’s going to happen.”