For Latin America, the episode is a blunt reminder: When divided regional leaders fail to produce homegrown solutions to their gravest crises, the risk that the US will step in — and act alone — is ever present. That risk is heightened by the return of great-power competition and Trump’s transactional, spheres-of-influence worldview. The region now faces the uncomfortable prospect of the US remotely administering a mid-sized South American country bordering Brazil and holding the world's largest oil reserves, with little regional input.