The Americas Archive

Thieves mugged tourists in front of their swanky, beachfront hotels. Gang members traded gunfire with police, sending partygoers into a panic. A police officer was assaulted by multiple people right outside his home. This year’s celebrations for Carnival, which marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar, brought global attention to mounting insecurity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s iconic coastal city that boasts a population of around 6 million. Fogo Cruzado, or Cross Fire, an app created by Amnesty International Brazil to monitor crime in Rio, recorded 24 deaths by guns during the seven-day period, as well as a […]

There was never any doubt about who would win Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela. The lead-up was so patently undemocratic that even before the vote took place, the results were rejected as illegitimate by a large number of countries, including the United States, Canada, the entire European Union and a dozen of Venezuela’s neighbors in Latin America. That, however, was hardly the end of the challenge for the international community and, more crucially, for Latin American countries growing more worried about the impact of Venezuela’s social and economic collapse on them. The aftermath of the election has unleashed a torrent […]

Last Friday, the International Monetary Fund formally opened negotiations with Argentina for a financial bailout, after a run on the Argentine peso drove its value down by roughly 20 percent against the dollar between January and the beginning of May. The financial crisis comes against the backdrop of Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s unpopular economic reforms, which have so far struggled to deliver promised results. In an email interview, Bruno Binetti, a Buenos Aires-based nonresident fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, discusses the causes of the financial crisis, and the economic and political implications of an IMF bailout for Argentina and Macri. […]

A new attorney general took office in Guatemala last week amid sharp tensions over the role of a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission that has helped bring high-profile charges against some of the country’s most powerful politicians. Maria Consuelo Porras, a former substitute judge for Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, will run the country’s Public Ministry and direct its criminal, human rights and anti-corruption investigations. The outgoing attorney general, Thelma Aldana, and her predecessor, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, showed impressive leadership and independence in investigating and prosecuting these sorts of cases. Now their enemies want those advances reversed. Across Central America, public […]

Last week, thousands of women marched through Santiago, Chile, in a demonstration organized by university students to protest sexual harassment and violence against women on campus. The demonstration followed an even larger one the previous Friday protesting violence against women. In an email interview, Kirsten Sehnbruch, an associate researcher at the Universidad de Chile and the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion, and Patricio Espinoza, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics’ International Inequalities Institute, discuss the current protests and how they fit into Chile’s broader student and feminist movements. World Politics Review: What […]

Presiding over the Group of 20 seemed like a good idea back in 2016, when Argentina outmaneuvered India for this year’s presidency. The rotating leadership gig was supposed to showcase Argentina’s political and economic transformation after years of international isolation and scandal at home, and offer a chance at global leadership. Instead, largely as a result of jolting policy changes in the United States under President Donald Trump, Argentine President Mauricio Macri landed a burdensome assignment. So far, the G-20 warm-up meetings ahead of the November Leaders’ Summit in Buenos Aires have not rocked the influential forum, whose members represent […]

In late April, the European Union and Mexico announced the successful conclusion of negotiations to update their current trade agreement. The new framework, which still must be formally ratified and signed, will expand the range of products exempted from tariffs. It represents the latest effort by both sides to diversify their free trade arrangements against the backdrop of rising American protectionism under President Donald Trump. In an email interview, Sean Goforth, a contributing analyst at the geostrategic consulting firm Wikistrat, discusses how the new deal will affect EU-Mexico trade, opportunities and obstacles for expanding commercial ties, and the implications of […]

It wasn’t very long ago that Latin American voters, in country after country, started electing leftist presidents. The new crop of leaders that rose to power over the past few decades occupied a wide range of positions along the ideological spectrum, advocating leftist policies that varied mightily—from mild income redistribution projects to aggressive nationalization programs. But what was unmistakable was the trend moving the continent decidedly leftward. Some dubbed it the “pink tide.” That tide is now receding with as much force as it came ashore. Last month’s surprise protests against the well-entrenched Nicaraguan government pushed the tide farther out. […]

BUENOS AIRES—Last October, Argentine President Mauricio Macri celebrated the triumph of his Cambiemos, or “Let’s Change,” coalition in midterm legislative elections. For Macri, the victory represented a much-needed public endorsement of his agenda of incremental economic reforms, known as “gradualismo.” Looking at the midterm results, some analysts and politicians practically guaranteed that Macri would be re-elected in 2019. In Argentina, however, a few months can be an eternity, and Macri is now facing a string of bad economic news, which has increased popular discontent and fired up a resurgent opposition. Macri won the 2015 presidential elections by promising that his […]