As Opposition Lobbies MAGA in Florida, Arévalo Deepens U.S. Military Ties

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The president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, has gone to great lengths to position himself as a Trump ally on trade, deportations, and an array of projects with the U.S. military.

Yet, in conservative Guatemala, a fierce debate is raging over whether Arévalo is truly in Donald Trump’s good graces.

This year, the country is holding high-stakes appointments to the Constitutional Court and a new top prosecutor.

Arévalo adversaries are billing Attorney General Consuelo Porras —sanctioned by the U.S., E.U., and Canada for election meddling and corruption— as a conservative in need of Trump’s protection.

Ahead of the Constitutional Court elections, the U.S. Embassy wrote online that “we will not tolerate contamination from drug traffickers and organized crime.”

But they didn’t say who they were referring to. Both Arévalo and his foes cast this as a coded denunciation of the other side.

Ambassador Tobin Bradley, a career diplomat Biden appointee, left the country weeks ago. Guatemalan elites and a few U.S. Republicans claimed Biden officials tilted into anti-conservative activism.

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Last week, outlet Plaza Pública reported that two lobbies against Arévalo and in favor of Attorney General Porras recently registered in the U.S.

DOJ filings show two lobbying firms representing Guatemalans enrolled in Florida — where Trump’s club Mar-A-Lago is a hub of global influence.

According to Plaza Pública, one of the two firms, Corcoran & Associates, is working with Guatemalan businessman Rodrigo Arenas, publisher of the media outlet República.

In 2024, while Arévalo courted support from U.S. and Guatemalan private sectors, Arenas praised a public-private partnership to renovate the national airport.

Arévalo, he wrote, “is willing to put the country above any interest, collective or individual.”

Now, the cordial tones have faded. Arenas claims Trump is not looking favorably on Arévalo, amid “political tensions and a reordering of regional cooperation.”

Others are less diplomatic. Trump advisor Roger Stone —who pushed to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández— wrote recently, providing no evidence:

“Narco-Controlled Election Fraudster Bernardo Arévalo Emerges as the Maduro of Guatemala.”

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Ana Méndez, of the Washington Office on Latin America, argues Guatemalan “corruption networks have direct contact with some MAGA representatives.”

She attributes Ambassador Bradley’s departure to the lobbying, “despite the good relationship between Guatemala and the United States, and with [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio’s people in particular.”

On Monday, Trump nominated Florida international arbitrage attorney Juan Rodriguez, a Cuban American, as his next ambassador.

República praised Rodriguez as “the only ambassador in recent years to know the country perfectly,” and described him as a “cornerstone” of Trump’s Shield of the Americas strategy.

“Guatemala now has a 100% MAGA team, no more half-measures,” wrote Arenas.

Growing military ties

Last weekend, Arévalo didn’t attend Trump’s drug trafficking-focused Shield of the Americas Summit — unlike the presidents of El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama.

On Monday, the same day Trump announced his new pick for ambassador, Arévalo announced Guatemala will look to buy $50 million in U.S. weapons, planes, and gear.

Defense Minister Henry Sáenz asserted that an on-again, off-again U.S. military aid embargo —first imposed in 1977 during the armed conflict, for human rights abuses— was lifted.

He called it a nod to Guatemala’s anti-narcotics bona fides, and reported the highest level of drug seizures “in the last five governments.”

In the last two decades, despite promises to fully remove postwar restrictions, some U.S. military aid to Guatemala has been hampered by abuses and conditioned on human rights, anti-corruption, and security reforms.

From 2018 to 2021, the U.S. donated equipment to Guatemala despite reports of misuse, including intimidation of U.S. Embassy staff.

In 2022, the Biden administration used a Defense Department program to skirt State Department military aid restrictions on Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

After Arévalo took office, in August 2024, the State Department certified Guatemala as compliant, per the Federal Register, releasing 60 percent of funds being withheld by law.

Last April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally re-upped that certification.

On March 5, Defense Minister Sáenz attended an anti-narcotics gathering of defense chiefs with U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

And on January 21, Arévalo announced that Guatemala is working with the Inter-American Development Bank and U.S. Southern Command on a national cybersecurity law.

Arévalo says the U.S. and Taiwan have helped repel international cyberattacks.

He has also invited the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to support port and highway renovation.

Political analyst Gustavo Berganza asserts that the port deal “removes the possibility of local drug trafficking control,” while also rebuffing domestic opponents.

Fine print on trade, migration

Arévalo has also leaned into trade with Trump. This January, Guatemala joined El Salvador and Mexico in signing reciprocal trade agreements to partially waive U.S. global tariffs.

The U.S. Supreme Court then ruled the tariffs unconstitutional, leaving the deals in the air.

The Guatemala deal restored zero-percent tariffs on most bilateral trade. The country also agreed to “endeavor to buy at least 50 million gallons” of U.S. ethanol.

Amid debate over how that jived with local producers, Energy Minister Gabriela García tried to hedge the ethanol commitment as optional, pointing to the word “endeavor.”

Arévalo, similar to the deal with El Salvador, also pledged to replicate U.S. trade sanctions on third countries “with equivalent effect.”

Hugo Maúl, president of the Center for National Economic Research (CIEN), notes that CAFTA, still in force, “was precisely intended to prevent such unilateral measures” as Trump’s tariffs.

On migration, Arévalo has echoed internationalist rhetoric about “root causes,” while also largely playing ball with Trump.

In February 2025, Guatemala agreed to receive 40 percent more deportations. In June, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced Guatemala had agreed to accept third-country deportees.

Arévalo has tried to distance himself from the idea that he signed a “safe-third-country” agreement. But he concedes that Guatemala is receiving Nicaraguans, calling it Central American solidarity.

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Henry Ziemer, associate fellow for the Americas at CSIS, ventured in a recent blog post that “the status quo is ideal for Arévalo.”

“Guatemala gets to reap the benefits of cooperation,” he continued, despite claiming to be a social democrat, which “simply doesn’t play to the Mar-A-Lago crowd the way El Salvador’s swaggering millennial dictator does.”

But MAGA appears undecided about whether that kind of status quo is acceptable to them.

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