After the End of the ‘Pink Tide,’ What’s Next for South America?

It may not be a return of the “Pink Tide” of leftist governments that swept into power across South America in the early 2000s—and were largely swept out again amid a conservative backlash in the mid-2010s. But the region’s left has been showing signs of revival.

In Argentina’s October 2019 presidential election, the moderate-left Peronist candidate, Alberto Fernandez, ousted the market-friendly incumbent, Mauricio Macri, whose austerity measures and heavy borrowing triggered an economic crisis that cost him the presidency. Also in 2019, violent protests erupted in Colombia in September against mounting police brutality under law-and-order President Ivan Duque. And both Ecuador and Chile saw massive demonstrations that forced Ecuador’s government to backtrack on austerity measures and challenged Chile’s longstanding neoliberal economic model. More recently, in October 2020, Bolivia returned the Movement Toward Socialism to power in the first presidential election since Evo Morales was ousted.

The conservative wave that followed the Pink Tide is far from ebbing, though. The 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil was a particular blow to the region’s progressives, and he has justified their fears. His administration has curbed the fight against corruption and downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, even as he has continued to denigrate the country’s Indigenous communities. And in Uruguay, conservatives took control of the government last December from the leftist Broad Front coalition that had been in power for a decade and a half.

With most of the continent turning away from the extremes and toward more pragmatic approaches to the persistent challenges of poverty, inequality and economic development, Venezuela’s regime remains as the last holdout of South America’s Pink Tide. But the Bolivarian revolution that began under former President Hugo Chavez has transformed into an economic and humanitarian disaster under his successor, Nicolas Maduro. The attempt to dislodge Maduro and replace him with Juan Guaido in 2018 gained the support of the U.S. as well as governments across the region and the world. But that effort flagged, and the opposition’s decision to boycott December’s parliamentary elections due to fears they would be as rigged as Maduro’s 2018 presidential reelection cost it control of the legislative body that had been the legal foundation of Guaido’s claim to legitimacy as interim president. Guaido is now struggling to keep his movement from fading into irrelevance.

Major advances in the region are also in danger. Colombia’s fragile peace process faltered after Duque’s hostility to the deal resulted in half-hearted implementation of its measures. Meanwhile, the illicit drug trade is booming, as is organized crime, even as corruption continues to flourish. Now the coronavirus pandemic has added another immense challenge to South America’s public health systems and economies, with implications for leaders who failed to take the threat seriously.

Prior to the pandemic, Russia and China sought to deepen trade ties with countries across the region. America, threatened by Moscow and Beijing’s newfound interest, has accused them of propping up corrupt governments and is taking steps to shore up its own partnerships in South America. How prominent a role the region will play in President Joe Biden’s Latin America policy remains to be seen.

WPR has covered South America in detail and continues to examine key questions about what will happen next. How will the health and economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic affect the region’s political landscape? What will flagging international support for Guaido mean for Venezuela’s political and humanitarian crises? And what steps will Washington take to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the region? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.

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Chile’s Constitutional Convention Reflects the Country—for Better and Worse

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Politics

Right-wing and center-right governments now control Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay. In part a reaction to the years of leftist rule, the right’s rise has also been fueled by the emergence of major corruption scandals that tainted politicians and parties across the region. But the left has demonstrated resilience as a political force. In Bolivia, for instance, the party of former President Evo Morales regained power in the first elections since his ouster. Peruvian voters also opted for the far-left candidate Pedro Castillo in that country’s recent presidential election, although for many it was due to a lack of other acceptable options. Now, however, the coronavirus has consumed the political and economic agenda across the region.

• Why Pedro Castillo’s presidential election victory in Peru is not an endorsement of his electoral program, in Peru Doesn’t Necessarily Want What Castillo Is Promising
• What’s driving the popular protests in Colombia, in Protests in Colombia Could Foreshadow a Regional Wave of Unrest
• How Ecuador’s new president could try to bring the divided country together, in With a New President, Ecuador Has a Chance to Heal
• Why the obituaries for democracy in Latin America are premature, in Latin America’s Surprisingly Resilient Democracies

Venezuela

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is deepening, even as the standoff between Maduro and the opposition seems to have been won by the Chavista regime. Though his claim to the presidency was backed by much of the continent, along with Washington, Guaido failed to dislodge Maduro. Now Maduro, who oversaw the country’s economic freefall, appears to have decisively sidelined Guaido, in part due to the support of the Venezuelan military—and Russia.

• How Venezuela’s opposition is testing the prospects of negotiations with the Maduro regime, in Venezuela’s Opposition Shifts Gears on Talks With Maduro
• Why Maduro’s hold on the country is more tenuous than it seems, in Armed Gangs and Warlords Are Taking Over Venezuela
• What’s driving the fighting between Venezuela’s military and armed groups on the border with Colombia, in Venezuela’s ‘Unprecedented’ Military Offensive Raises Border Tensions With Colombia
• Why Venezuela’s opposition needs to rethink its approach to unseating Maduro, in Venezuela’s Opposition Is Clinging to a Failed Strategy

Security and Drugs

The drug trade is booming, particularly in Colombia, where cocaine production is at an all-time high. That has fueled violence and put state legitimacy at risk across swathes of the continent. Some leaders, desperate for a solution, are responding with growing militarization. Meanwhile, labor advocates, Indigenous leaders and civil society remain vulnerable to political violence.

• What Biden can do to help Colombia solidify the peace process with the FARC, in Colombia’s Shaky Peace Deal Needs Biden’s Support
• Why Colombia should rethink its plans to resume a forced coca eradication program, in Forced Coca Eradication Could Undermine Colombia’s Peace
• How a military raid gone wrong reopened debate over how to deal with a small but lethal insurgency in Paraguay, in Why a Tiny Guerrilla Group Has Paraguay’s Government on the Ropes
• What a recent case of police brutality reveals about the need for security sector reform in Colombia, in In Colombia, Police Brutality Fuels Deadly Unrest as Protesters Demand Reform

Corruption

Corruption scandals, which proliferated under the left-wing administrations of the Pink Tide, helped drive the ascent of the right. But the scandal involving payoffs by the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht across the region has also taken down center-right politicians. Corruption remains high on the list of voters’ grievances, even as the pandemic has increased both the opportunities for and the costs of graft and impunity. Unless it is brought under control, corruption might ultimately undermine the region’s democratic institutions.

• Why both candidates in Peru’s presidential election spelled trouble for the country’s anti-corruption campaign, in Either Way, Peru’s Election Is Bad News for Anti-Graft Efforts
• Why now is the wrong time for South America to let up on its anti-corruption efforts, in Latin America’s Anti-Corruption Drive Has Stalled at the Worst Possible Time
• Why tackling money laundering is also key to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, in Money Laundering Could Stifle Latin America’s Response to COVID-19
• How Peru’s “accidental president” staked his anti-corruption legacy on snap congressional elections, in Will Vizcarra’s Anti-Corruption Gamble Pay Off in Peru’s Elections?

Trade and Economic Development

Moscow and Beijing have been eager to increase their economic ties to South America, leveraging the unease that was caused by former President Donald Trump’s mixed messages to the region. Washington has pushed back, warning that the two powers are looking to sow disorder on the continent. Meanwhile, there is evidence that South American economies will not emerge unscathed from the U.S.-China trade war, despite growing trade with Asia and Europe. And all that was before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

• Why Guyana could fall prey to the “resource curse,” in A Political Crisis Threatens to Derail Guyana’s Oil Boom
• How Uruguay got its clean energy transition right, in Why Uruguay’s Unprecedented Shift to Clean Energy Is a Model for the World
• What Trump’s latest tariff threats reveal about his trade policy, in Trump Is Ratcheting Up His Trade Wars, Targeting Brazil and Argentina
• Why Peru’s mining push is driving popular grievances, in As Anti-Mining Protests Escalate, Peru’s Vizcarra Sides With Mining Companies

Read all of our coverage of South America.

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At the outset of the Biden presidency, we are covering how myriad aspects of U.S. foreign policy are changing under the new administration. While Biden will undoubtedly repudiate Trump’s approach, which was itself a radical break from U.S. foreign policy traditions, it’s unclear whether a restoration of the United States global role is even possible. What immediate challenges will the Biden administration confront? And how will he successfully pivot policy in key areas? This report is just a sampling of our coverage so far of U.S. foreign policy under Biden. Download your FREE copy of U.S. Foreign Policy Under Biden to learn more today.

As the Biden administration takes over, the world is experiencing a sort of whiplash, as the United States performs a second about-face in its posture toward multilateralism in only four years. Although the U.S. has oscillated through cycles of internationalism and isolationism before, it has never executed such a swift and dramatic double-reverse. The Biden administration will repudiate the “America First” platform on which Donald Trump won the White House in 2016, and the hyper-nationalist, unilateralist and sovereigntist mindset that undergirds it. Such a stunning shift in America’s global orientation would have major implications for global cooperation on everything from climate change, health and nuclear proliferation to trade and human rights, as well as for U.S. relations with its Western allies.

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Editor’s note: This article was originally published in May 2019 and is regularly updated.