Trump-aligned conservative wins Chile presidency in landslide as Latin America continues rightward shift 

A pro-life, Catholic conservative has won the presidency of Chile, signaling a continued rightward shift across Latin America.

Winning on his third try, José Antonio Kast defeated communist Jeannette Jara by a wide margin, gaining 58% of the vote to her 41%. He had lost the 2021 race to leftist Gabriel Boric by a similar margin. 

Kast, who has nine children, positioned himself as a Donald Trump-style candidate, pledging to crack down on crime, deport illegal immigrants and revive the economy, the Associated Press reported. 

“Chile has given us a clear mandate that allows not excuses,” Kast said in his victory speech. “This mandate does not permit delays. Chile wants change, not continuity. It has said so loud and clear.” 

Kast has publicly supported Trump, calling his 2024 election “a new victory for freedom and common sense.” 

In an AP video, a supporter is seen wearing a red hat with the phrase “Make Chile Great Again,” a variation of Trump’s signature phrase. 

Jara, of the communist Radical Party, urged her supporters to “leave behind the harshness, misinformation and hatred” from the election and pledged to support Kast in “everything that is good for Chile,” while firmly opposing what is not. 

Several South American nations have elected right-leaning leaders and legislatures this year, including Bolivia and Argentina, where Javier Milei has expanded power following gains in the Legislature. In Central America, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele is a rising conservative star, receiving praise from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a visit this year. 

Newsweek wrote about the political shift in an article titled “Donald Trump’s Influence Is Redrawing Latin America’s Map to the Right.” 

“The lurch to the right is real,” Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Wilson Center, a foreign policy think tank, told the publication. 

The Trump administration has boosted engagement across Latin America, giving it a prominent place in its National Security Strategy. It also hosted Milei, Bukele and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa at Trump’s January inauguration, as well as Edmundo González Urrutia, whom it views as the rightful president-elect of Venezuela, a nation Trump has increasingly confronted. 

The security strategy calls for keeping the Western Hemisphere “reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States.” Other points include cracking down on narco-terrorists and transnational criminal organizations and keeping the region “free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains.” 

Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who is currently in exile, said she supports Trump’s strategy. 

“We the Venezuelan people are very grateful to him and to his administration because I believe he is the champion of freedom in this hemisphere,” she told CBS Face the Nation Sunday.