As part of its expansionist approach to the Western Hemisphere, the Trump administration is trying to reassert its dominance, one U.S. visa at a time.
When Chilean officials signed an authorization for a 12,000-mile undersea cable connecting the country to Hong Kong, they were thrilled. They said the Chinese project would boost national connectivity and even reach Chile’s remote Easter Island.
But the mood shifted abruptly later that day in January after a senior official from the U.S. Embassy in Santiago met with Guillermo Petersen, the chief of cabinet at Chile’s telecommunications ministry. According to Mr. Petersen, the American official warned that the project could increase the risk of Chinese cyberattacks and that, if Chile forged ahead, the United States would issue a travel ban not only for the officials involved, but for their spouses and children as well.
Across Latin America, the Trump administration has deployed aggressive tactics to tighten its grip on the region. They include crippling tariffs and economic sanctions, strikes on dozens of boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, wading into foreign elections and the capture of the president of a nation in his own capital.
But one of its most agile and surgical tools is also deeply personal: the U.S. visa.
The meeting in Chile lasted just six minutes, Mr. Petersen said. But that was enough to persuade his government to put the project on hold.
“It was basically a threat,” Claudio Araya, then Chile’s telecommunications under secretary, said this month.
