Latin America in Focus

On her fourth attempt, Keiko Fujimori is set to finally become Peru’s president. The right-wing former congresswoman will enter the presidential palace having bested her opponent, leftist lawmaker Roberto Sánchez , with just 50.1 percent of valid votes in the June 7 second round. “Our country is very divided,” says guest Alfredo Thorne , a former Peruvian finance minister, of the country’s third c...

The Colombian electorate sent a clear message with the two candidates they sent to the June 21 presidential runoff: they are no longer interested in politics as usual . With far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella and leftist Senator Iván Cepeda concentrating 85 percent of the first-round vote, the country’s traditional center and center-right parties have receded to the background. “[Colombia’s...

From Mexico’s Cuba ties to Washington's persistent tariff pledges, points of friction keep coming up between Mexico and the United States, reaching a crescendo last month when the U.S. Department of Justice indicted 10 Mexican officials, including a sitting governor from President Claudia Sheinbaum’s own party. "U.S.-Mexican relations are probably in their worst moment that I can remember since th...

After months of tensions, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and U.S. President Donald Trump emerged from a May meeting at the White House smiling for the cameras. The leaders, both facing critical elections, sought to project international strength during delicate domestic moments, as they tackled a bilateral trade and security agenda. “We need to be very careful in interpreting the me...

On May 1, a transatlantic trade deal covering 31 countries and a quarter of global GDP comes into effect. Some thought it would never materialize, but after 25 years of off-and-on negotiations, Mercosur and the European Union committed to one of the largest free-trade deals in the world. So why did the two trade blocs to sign on the dotted line?  “ The reality is that today, given the approach tha...

After a February military operation led to the death of Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera, Mexican authorities searched the cartel leader’s cabin and uncovered logs showing that low-level members of El Mencho’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel earned as little as $140 per week. Many people were surprised by how little the cartel lookouts and hitmen earn, given that their jobs can be, quite literally...

When the United States and Argentina signed a bilateral trade deal in February, one part of the agreement turned heads: Washington would be quadrupling the amount of tariff-free beef it would allow to be imported from the South American country. Historically, the United States, like countries across the world, limits the amount of beef it imports to help promote its domestic ranching industry. But...

Haiti has been without an elected leader since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and a spiraling security crisis threatens to derail plans to hold elections this August.   In this episode, Romain Le Cour-Grandmaison , director of the Haiti and Caribbean Observatory at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, covers bumpy governance transitions and “the triangul...

Close followers of trade news were waiting for this moment: On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 against President Donald Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to slap tariffs on trade partners around the world.  Trump first used IEEPA, a measure typically used to apply sanctions, a year ago, when he imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China...

Across Latin America, the political right has been on the march. From El Salvador to Argentina, we’ve seen the pink tide recede as voters back right-wing leaders who are oftentimes allied with the MAGA movement in the United States. Then there’s Mexico. The largest Spanish-speaking country in the world remains firmly in the hands of Morena, a left-wing party, and its popular president, Claudia She...

The Trump’s administration national security strategy was the talk of the foreign policy world late last year, not least of all because it renewed Washington’s focus on the Americas. But a few days later, China released its own policy paper focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean. But then the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro of January 3 upended the hemispheric chessboard. Parsifal D’Sola Alvar...

Organized crime continues to drive murder rates in Latin America and the Caribbean to levels well above global averages. Now in a context in which the United States has shown itself willing to flex its military muscle in the region in its battle against narcoterrorism, Latin American governments are under increasing pressure to appear tough on crime. This episode zooms in on Brazil, from where sec...

From the Donroe Doctrine to tariff turmoil a rightward electoral tilt, 2025 was a year of shifts for Latin America. Now, with Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Haiti, and Peru gearing up for presidential votes in 2026, more change is on the way. To make sense of what's to come, this episode of Latin America in focus brings back four of our prior guests from across the region: Venezuelan journalist and...

Thirty-five years after the Washington Consensus, a group of the world’s leading economists have assembled a new book formulating an alternative road map for developing economies, The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century . One of the books co-editors, prominent Chilean economist Andrés Velasco , recently stopped by the New York headquarters of Americas Society/Council of the...

For decades, Bolivia’s abundant reserves of lithium, thought to be the largest in the world, have been touted as the country’s ticket to economic prosperity. But time and again, the sector has run into political hurdles, social resistance, technical issues, and a lack of investment. As newly inaugurated President Rodrigo Paz enters office under a promise of “Capitalism for all,” what will it take...

After two failed constitutional rewrites, Chileans return to the polls to pick their new president. And like those referendums, this year’s vote will be compulsory. In this episode, international lawyer and columnist Paz Zárate covers what the mandatory vote could mean for the outcome of the first-round presidential vote. How are voters who typically don’t cast ballots approaching a contest where...

Colombia has long been considered Washington’s greatest ally in Latin America. But the Trump administration’s decertification of Colombia as a partner in the war on drugs and its revocation of the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro have brought tension to the once ironclad relationship. On this episode, Sergio Guzmán , director of Colombia Risk Analysis, talks with host Carin Zissis in a co...

Things are heating up in the southern Caribbean. Recent U.S. military strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels from Venezuela have compounded escalating tensions between Venezuela and its much smaller neighbor, Guyana, an emerging energy powerhouse, over the oil-rich Essequibo region. In this episode, former U.S. Ambassador to Guyana Sarah-Ann Lynch talks with AS/COA’s Carin Zissis about U.S. i...

On July 9, President Donald Trump threw 200 years of diplomatic relations with Brazil for a loop. Latin America’s largest economy got hit with the highest tariff in the region—a whopping 50 percent. But what truly got President Lula’s administration riled up was the U.S. government’s justification for the additional rate. “Talking with U.S. officials, they insisted that Brazil should give amnesty...

On the one hand, Mexico’s President Sheinbaum has won praise for artfully handling relations with Trump administration, as well as standing out among global leaders for winning a 90-day tariff delay. On the other, more is at stake for Mexico than most countries, given that over 80 percent of its exports are U.S.-bound. And soon it will face a new challenge: a potentially turbulent review process o...

Mafalda , Quino’s beloved comic strip from Argentina—first published in 1964—has conquered the world, appearing in at least 25 languages. Six decades on, she is finally reaching Anglophone audiences, translated into English for the first time. Award-winning translator Frank Wynne speaks on his experience translating Mafalda into English, noting the challenges of preserving Quino's subtle humor and...

Tucked inside the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill is a proposed tax of 3.5 percent on remittances that could have major consequences for how much money Latin American immigrants can send home to their loved ones—and how they send it. “Immigrants are going to absorb that tax in order to keep sending money to their families [or] they could change the channels they use,” says René Maldo...

“Brazil has historically been a driving force of regional integration,” points out Laura Trajber Waisbich , Deputy Director of Programs at the Igarapé Institute. And under the administrations of President Lula da Silva, the country has leveraged its size and diplomatic credibility to not only assert its own agency on the world stage, but also advocate for the needs of the Global South. The place f...

Competing engagement between Washington and Beijing is nothing new in Latin America, where both countries have sought out economic partnerships. But with a new U.S. administration and shifting macroeconomic conditions in China, has the U.S.-China calculus shifted for governments across the region? Managing Director of the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs at Johns Hopk...

Peru has cycled through seven presidents in the last 10 years. Four of them were impeached or resigned before they could be. The country’s current president, Dina Boluarte , even with  a 4 percent approval rating, has been able to finish her term with elections scheduled for April 12, 2026. With one year to deliberate, what will be top of mind for Peru’s jaded electorate? In this episode, electora...