By the time the coronavirus pandemic subsides and Americans turn their attention to the November election, President Donald Trump will face a battle that's more uphill than before to win the Latino vote. Millions of Hispanics work in the hotel, restaurant and tourism industries, which will be the hardest hit by the crisis.
More than 14.3 million U.S. workers are employed by the food service and accommodation sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A significant number of them are Latinos. Go to any restaurant in Miami, Las Vegas or New York _ if you can find one that's open _ and you'll discover it in a minute.
In addition, likely Democratic challenger Joe Biden has done better than expected among Latino voters in the recent primaries in Florida and Arizona. And the Biden campaign will make the most of the former vice president's past role as the Obama administration's point man for Latin America.
Few people remember, but Biden was President Obama's de facto special envoy to Latin America between 2012 and 2016.
Biden made 16 trips to countries in the Western Hemisphere since 2009, including four trips each to Brazil and Mexico, and three visits each to Colombia and Guatemala, his campaign says.
"President Trump's policy toward Latin America is limited to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua," says Juan Gonzalez, one of Biden's Latin American advisers. Gonzalez told me that Trump's policy has been more about winning votes in South Florida than about advancing U.S. interests in the region. "It has been tough talk, but no concrete actions," he said.
The Trump administration's sanctions against Venezuela should be backed by Latin America and Europe, but Trump's isolationism has antagonized traditional U.S. allies and makes it more difficult to build an effective coalition against Venezuela's dictatorship, Gonzalez added.
"Because of his 'America first' nationalism, Trump cannot build an international alliance against (Nicolas) Maduro, whereas Biden can," Gonzalez told me.
The Biden campaign also plans to lash out against Trump for his failure to provide significant assistance to the nearly 5 million Venezuelans who have fled to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and other countries in the region, or to provide Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelan refugees in the United States.
While the Obama administration forked out $6 billion for the estimated 5 million refugees during the Syria crisis, the Trump administration has committed only $580 million for almost the same number of Venezuelan refugees, Biden aides say.
The Trump administration announced in September that it had committed a total of $376 million in aid to Venezuelan refugees in Latin American countries, according to a State Department release at the time.
Biden advisers say that the No. 1 step in the region by his administration would be to repair relations with Mexico.
Biden would place a moratorium on pending deportations to review whether potential deportees have been granted their civil rights, and would engage the Mexican government to jointly address immigration, security and environmental issues, they say.
Then, they add, in addition to building an effective international coalition to restore democracy in Venezuela, a Biden administration would reverse the Trump administration's restrictions on Cuban exile travel and remittances to the island.
In 2016, Trump won 28% of the Latino vote. That support had climbed to 30% earlier this year, when the stock market was at its record high and there was near full employment. The conventional wisdom among pollsters is that a Democratic nominee will need at least 70% of the Latino vote to win in November.
But the coronavirus crisis has changed everything. Now, unemployment among Latinos is likely to soar. And the fact that Trump shamefully minimized the coronavirus threat for two months _ wasting precious time that he should have used to prepare the country for the crisis _ will further hurt his re-election chances.
If nominated, as seems almost certain, Biden is likely to shoot for more than 75% of the Latino vote. If things don't change, he may get it.
