COMMENTARY In Guyana, the Trump administration finally offered hemispheric partnership instead of extortion — and rattled China. President Trump just trashed that vibe with a harsh, dubious tariff.
Amid the bizarre bullying President Trump 2.0 has inflicted on our neighbors — backstabbing tariffs against Canada and Mexico, sophomoric threats to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal — the one thing his administration looks to have done right in this hemisphere got scant notice last week.
On his Caribbean tour, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stopped in Guyana and did photo ops that for a change left America’s chief rival for influence in the Americas — China — rattled instead of rejoicing.
And now — gosh, what a surprise! — Trump has utterly trashed that vibe by hammering Guyana with a harsh and suspect tariff.
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But let’s first recall how positive things felt up until late Wednesday afternoon.
Small, developing Guyana has a large, developing treasure of oil, potentially billions of barrels. Guyana’s next-door neighbor, Venezuela, claims it’s the rightful owner of that crude because it insists a 19th-century border treaty swindled it out of territory that now belongs to Guyana.
The issue is being heard in the U.N.’s International Court of Justice. But Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro keeps rattling sabers. Last month a Venezuelan warship steamed into Guyanese waters and harassed an oil vessel. Maduro’s trying to hold an election inside the disputed territory that would establish a Venezuelan governor there.
So in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, Rubio and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali struck an agreement: in exchange for giving the U.S. “preferential treatment” to participate in Guyanese oil production and exportation, the U.S. will defend Guyana against any Venezuelan threats.
Rubio said it would be “a very bad day” for Maduro should he invade Guyana.
That alliance has communist China unusually unnerved. It fired off a defensive, “what-about-us?” statement asserting that “China has participated fully in the biggest economic and social transformation in the history of Guyana,” citing all the infrastructure projects it’s financed there.
During Rubio's Caribbean tour, we finally saw the Trump administration aim its diplomatic gun at something besides its own foot. Now it's pointed there again.
Anyone who’s watched China leverage its massive Belt and Road Initiative largesse into massive PR for its totalitarian agenda around the world — especially in Latin America and the Caribbean — had to smile at seeing Beijing caught flat-footed in this hemisphere.
That’s especially true because, since Trump took office again in January, he’s given this hemisphere nothing but reasons to embrace Beijing.
There’s no better example than his predatory pledge to take the Panama Canal from Panama — ironically, because he says China has too much presence there.
Beijing hissy fit
But in Guyana last week, we finally saw the Trump administration aim its diplomatic guns at something other than its own foot.
Instead of waving American military protection as a form of extortion, à la Ukraine — “Gee, President Ali, it’d be a shame if Venezuelan soldiers stormed your border because you didn’t gift ownership of a lot of that oil to Uncle Sam” — Rubio offered it as part of a geopolitical partnership.
And one would hope, after seeing China’s hissy fit, that the Trump administration now realizes, for example, that more U.S. involvement in projects like the ports, roads and bridges that Belt and Road has been building incessantly in this hemisphere is the way to go.
Former Guyanese diplomat Wesley Kirton, who today heads the Guyanese-American Chamber of Commerce in Miami, told me earlier this week he hoped Rubio’s “kinder and gentler” Caribbean outing signaled a Trump trend in that direction.
But he also warned that Trump is “very unpredictable and transactional,” as have other Guyanese voices.
That wariness has unfortunately been brutishly borne out.
Trump on Wednesday slapped onerous tariffs on the whole world because he thinks the whole world is out to “screw” America.
And no one got slammed in this hemisphere harder than, you guessed it, Guyana.
Trump insists Guyana charges the U.S. an average 76% tariff on goods, so he imposed half that, 38%, on Guyana.
Problem is, the Guyanese government says it doesn’t understand how Trump came to that 76% figure — and fears Guyana's being punished for simply selling the U.S. more oil. It says it will negotiate to resolve the matter.
Which is just the trap Trump hoped to set. What Guyana will have to negotiate now will likely look a lot uglier for that country than the amiable pact Rubio and Ali shook hands on last week.
It may instead be a “very bad day” for Guyana.
This commentary was updated from an earlier version published at 7 a.m. to reflect the actions taken by President Trump since it was originally written.
