Donald Trump’s first days in office have proved that his earlier isolationist rhetoric was always a facade. Statements about conquering Greenland, “retaking” the Panama Canal, and invading Mexico have made headlines; it seems that the administration has done away with the formalities of “diet” imperialism and fully embraced Trump’s supersized version. But like all gluttons, he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

On Sunday, Trump entered into a duel of words with Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, who refused to accept a US military plane of shackled Colombian immigrants. As the contents of the social media posts of both Trump and Petro have made the rounds in the US media, much of it has claimed Trump as the victor and quickly moved on to the next scandal. Yet had the media chosen to pay attention a little bit longer, it would have seen that Petro’s public challenging of Trump worked; the Trump administration agreed to allow the immigrants to return home in a dignified way and decided not to enforce any of the sanctions that Trump threatened. The next day, the same Colombians who were previously shackled reached Bogotá uncuffed on the Colombian presidential plane.

Reporters rushed to interview the migrants as soon as they descended the stairs onto the runway. The stories they told were a testament to the cruelty of the Trump administration and the dehumanization of migrants that has characterized US politics over the past year. While many ran past the cameras, a woman with a child in her arms stopped to tell her story. She said that she had crossed the Sonoran Desert with her child when she was robbed by coyotes and forced to endure hunger, only to be apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and forced into detention. She ended by saying that people are being held in custody and there are people desaparecida — a phrase that hearkens back to some of the darkest days in Latin American history, when military dictatorships and paramilitaries forcibly disappeared the “undesirable” elements of society, whether that be leftists, unionists, queer people, drug addicts, sex workers, or just poor people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Another man, José Erick, an asylum seeker, was interviewed by reporters in the lobby of the airport, telling a similar story of crossing the desert and being forced to endure sleep deprivation in ICE custody, a practice Colombian journalist Diana Carolina Alfonso identifies as a form of torture, banned by international law. Erick then told the story of how he was seeking asylum to join the rest of his family in the United States and escape violence, a problem in Colombia fueled by arms that are manufactured in the United States. Another man was asked to respond to Trump’s accusations that those on board were criminals. “I’m a mechatronic engineer,” he replied. “Trump needs better advice on who was on that plane.”

The highly publicized return of the immigrants under more humane conditions put on show for Latin America and the Caribbean the horrors of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy. For Petro, this was a moral victory.

President Petro also laid the groundwork for a regional coalition that might overcome ideological divides and unite the majority of Latin America behind a shared agenda in the face of threats from the Trump administration, including tariffs. This took the form of a Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) emergency meeting convened in Honduras by that country’s president, Xiomara Castro. While the meeting was canceled once Colombia and the United States reached an agreement, other leaders have been keen to show their disdain for Trump’s treatment of their citizens.

Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s left-wing president, has also made headlines for her tongue-in-cheek response to Trump, particularly his proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” She countered by proposing that the continent of North America change its name to “América Mexicana,” citing a colonial-era Spanish map as evidence.

In response to Google’s recent approval of Trump’s name change, the Mexican Foreign Ministry sent a formal complaint to the company, reminding them that it violated international law. However, despite a brief spell over the denial of a deportation flight last week, Mexico has been diplomatic about how it plans to receive migrants. Still, if things were to heat up, it could deny the use of its airspace to the Trump administration, making their deportation flights to other countries extremely costly.

The Trump administration has wasted no time in alienating even would-be regional allies beyond the far-right governments of El Salvador and Argentina. Even Panama’s center-right president, José Raúl Mulino, found himself in an awkward position after Trump targeted the country in speeches falsely claiming that the Panama Canal is in the hands of China and that the United States may need to “take back” the canal. Mulino has made clear that these statements violate the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which returned sovereignty of the canal to the Panamanian people in 1999 after nearly a century of US occupation.

The fact that Trump has attacked some of the United States’ traditional allies in the region could push its leaders to look toward bolstering relations with China, Russia, and Europe and give impulse to a new wave of Latin American integration. The prospect of a concerted Latin American response to the Trump administration across left-right divides remains unlikely, but recent US aggression and a popular left bloc in the region has made it far less remote. That bloc alone could put significant pressure on the current administration. Even as parties alternate power, the inhumanity of the United States’ recent actions won’t soon be forgotten.