Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
13-04-2026
LIMA, PERU: A record 35 candidates are vying for the presidency in Peru on Sunday. Only one, however, pitched himself as the most pro-Donald Trump option.
Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a chubby-cheeked business magnate and former mayor who goes by the nickname “Porky”, had been the race’s frontrunner since August.
He ran a far-right campaign, expressing support for the United States bombing of alleged drug-smuggling boats and proposing that the US military intervene in Peru to capture gang leaders.
Lopez Aliaga even bragged about his ties to the Trump administration. He claimed that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio invited him to Trump’s inauguration last year, and in October, he organized a memorial for Charlie Kirk, despite only learning about the Trump-aligned activist after his assassination but ahead of the vote on Sunday, Lopez Aliaga has little to show for those efforts.
He has fallen to just 7 percent of voter intent, with his right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori overtaking him by eight points, according to an Ipsos poll released a week before the vote.
Fujimori’s platform bears no mention of Trump’s ambitions in Latin America. It says that, if Fujimori is elected, her foreign policy would be “based exclusively on national interest”.
With more than 20 percent of voters still undecided, the race is still wildly unpredictable but most political analysts no longer expect Lopez Aliaga to move on to a likely June run-off between the top two presidential candidates.
That has raised questions about limitations and potential risks, of embracing the Trump brand in Peru and in Latin America overall.
“Trump’s far-right admirers are no doubt questioning the mileage in his coattails,” said Benjamin Gedan, the director of the Latin America program at the Stimson Center, a foreign affairs think tank.
Gedan believes that Trump’s aggressive foreign policy has diminished his appeal in the region. He pointed to Trump’s embrace of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, a policy that claims all of the Western Hemisphere as the US’s sphere of influence as one of his more controversial stances.
“Trump is not popular in Latin America, and the Monroe Doctrine and war in Iran will not improve his image,” Gedan said.
This year, the share of Peruvians who distrust the US government rose to 48 percent, more than double the portion in 2019, according to polling by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP).
That puts wariness of the US 13 points higher than concerns about its rival, China, whose influence Trump has sought to curtail in Latin America but Peru’s election is far from a referendum on Trump, who has yet to endorse Lopez Aliaga or any other candidate.
In fact, the US president has been largely ignored in the race, which has focused on domestic issues. During Peru’s six presidential debates, Trump only came up once, when a candidate criticized his tariff hikes.
Alberto Rojas, 46, a mechanic in Lima who is leaning towards Fujimori, indicated that Trump’s absence from the debates was fine by him.
The US president, he added, is a “madman” whom Peru would do best to avoid.
“We have enough problems as it is,” Rojas said, listing crime and corruption as his top concerns. “A president from another country isn’t going to save us. He might even make things worse.”
Peruvian political analyst Gonzalo Banda said he was surprised that foreign policy and relations with the US in particular did not emerge as an election issue at all this year. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
