Much of Donald Trump’s foreign policy is chaotic and his war against Iran looks set to end in a costly failure. But in Latin America, the region he cares about the most, things are going his way.A boost for Trump in ColombiaThe first round of Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday produced an upset, with the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella topping the poll to enter a runoff with the left-wing senator Iván Cepeda on June 21st. Espriella, a criminal lawyer and millionaire businessman who calls himself “el Tigre", won 44 per cent to Cepeda’s 41 per cent, with centre-right senator Paloma Valencia on 7 per cent.Valencia immediately pledged her support to Espriella, making him the favourite to succeed left-wing president Gustavo Petro, who is constitutionally limited to one term in office. This would make Colombia the latest in a succession of South American states to swing to the far right, following Argentina under Javier Milei, Chile under José Antonio Kast and Ecuador under Daniel Noboa.Espriella is an outspoken admirer of Trump and Milei and he has modelled himself on El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, right down to the carefully tonsured beard and baseball cap. Bukele is the inspiration behind Espriella’s proposal to replace Pedro’s “total peace” approach to dealing with militias and criminal groups with a “mano dura" (iron fist) policy.Recent months have seen a sharp increase in violent attacks, murders and kidnappings, including the fatal shooting of the conservative politician Miguel Uribe Turbay by a breakaway from the Farc guerrilla group. And Petro’s “total peace” strategy foundered on the reluctance of armed groups to stop fighting with one another as well as the state for control of profitable illegal activities.Espriella would pursue a militarised security strategy against the gangs and militias, possibly designating them as terrorist groups to justify lethal action against them. He has promised to build 10 new mega-prisons in an attempt to follow Bukele’s policy of mass incarceration, which has seen 2 per cent of El Salvador’s adult population put behind bars.Espriella would follow Milei’s economic playbook of deregulation, lower taxes and deep cuts in public spending and would reverse Petro’s moratorium on new oil and gas exploration. Cepeda, his rival in the June 21st runoff, wants to continue the policy of transitioning away from fossil fuels to hydropower, biofuels, solar and wind, which already generate two-thirds of Colombia’s electricity.A victory for Espriella would be a boost for Trump as he seeks to extend and deepen United States influence across Latin America and two other elections in the region could see a similar shift. Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is running neck and neck with far-right senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, while Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the late dictator Alberto Fujimori, is in the lead going into next Sunday’s presidential runoff in Peru.After Trump’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela has fallen into line with Washington and the US president appears determined to force a similar change on Cuba, through military intervention or economic coercion. Even Mexico, which has a left-wing president and has for a century asserted its diplomatic independence from Washington through the Estrada doctrine, has bowed to US pressure on extradition and allowed the FBI to carry out an operation on its territory.Last year’s National Security Strategy identified Washington’s top priority as ensuring that US controls the western hemisphere politically, economically, commercially and militarily. So far, the project appears to be going rather well.Please let me know what you think and send your comments, thoughts or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to denis.globalbriefing@irishtimes.com