Diplomacy & Politics Archive

When Bolivia’s Evo Morales resigned the presidency under pressure from the military and left the country amid widespread protests on Nov. 12, taking political asylum in Mexico, it sent shockwaves across Latin America. Morales’ fall comes at a time of ferment in the region—and what looks increasingly like a hinge moment in Latin American history. Whether Morales was the victim of a coup or the perpetrator of an assault against democracy, rightfully deposed, remains the subject of heated debate. That continuing controversy is part of the push-and-pull of the tensions roiling Latin America, where the political tide appears to be […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. A recent report in The New York Times provides an unprecedented behind-the-curtain look at the mass detention of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang autonomous region of western China. Based on 403 pages of internal government documents that the paper obtained from a source described as “a member of the Chinese political establishment,” the report reveals the origins and implementation of China’s brutally repressive policies in Xinjiang. Human rights groups and foreign reporters have already exposed many […]

It’s been a little over a week since Evo Morales resigned as president of Bolivia in the aftermath of his disputed victory in the country’s first-round presidential election on Oct. 20. Following mass demonstrations against a vote that many saw as illegitimate and marred by fraud, Morales stepped down at the “suggestion” of the country’s military and fled to Mexico. An interim government is in place, but unrest has only worsened in recent days. Protests continue in the highlands of the country, where support for Morales and his Movement for Socialism party are strong, and last week security forces reportedly […]

LA PAZ, Bolivia—Since the head of Bolivia’s armed forces “suggested” to Evo Morales that he resign the presidency on Nov. 10, following contested elections in October that were marred by allegations of fraud, Bolivia has been in a tense limbo. Two days after the military’s nudge, Morales arrived in Mexico, where authorities had granted him political asylum. In La Paz, the conservative vice president of the Senate, Jeanine Anez, declared herself his replacement. Street clashes and crackdowns on protesters have escalated since then. Can the new government, which insists it is only transitional while acting otherwise, establish its legitimacy and […]

The Trump administration’s pandering to North Korea is finally reaching its limits, with implications beyond the Korean Peninsula. At a press briefing Sunday in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced that the U.S. and South Korea were postponing a major and long-scheduled air exercise as “an act of good will” toward the North for the “advancement of peace.” This wasn’t the first time the Trump administration had cancelled or postponed readiness drills in South Korea, where the United States has long maintained a large military presence, recently estimated at 28,500 troops. But a pattern is […]

South Africa’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, or DA, is in turmoil following its poor showing in parliamentary and provincial elections earlier this year. Several senior black figures in the DA, including Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba and Mmusi Maimane, the DA’s first black leader, left the party last month. Their resignations came on the heels of the return of the party’s controversial former leader, Helen Zille, to a top leadership post. Zille, who is white, has a history of making remarks seen as racially insensitive, so her return was widely interpreted as a sign that the party would recalibrate […]

BENI, Democratic Republic of Congo—At first glance, there is nothing out of the ordinary about life in Beni, a cosmopolitan trading town on Congo’s northeastern border with Uganda. On a typical Sunday, roller skaters train for their next competition on the town’s paved main road, studiously avoiding the potholes and errant cows. Off the avenue, the side streets of packed yellow dirt are dotted with people going about their daily business. At night, clubs serve locally brewed beer, while revelers dance in the dotted pink light of a spinning disco ball. Before anyone can enter the club, however, they must […]

Last week’s White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan included plenty of compliments and praise—mostly one way, from Trump to Erdogan—but it failed to resolve the most serious issues hampering U.S.-Turkey ties. Trump, as usual, created some theater by inviting five Republican senators who take a much tougher view on Turkey to press Erdogan about the recent Turkish invasion of northern Syria and attacks on Kurdish forces allied with the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State, until Trump abandoned them. Erdogan reportedly responded by showing the senators an anti-Kurdish propaganda video on […]

If all had gone as planned this past weekend, President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping might have signed the “phase one” trade agreement that Trump billed as “the greatest and biggest deal ever made for our Great Patriot Farmers in the history of our Country.” The two leaders had been scheduled to meet and discuss the deal in Santiago, Chile, during the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. But with street protests over economic policy and inequality rocking Chile, President Sebastian Pinera canceled the summit late last month, citing the “difficult circumstances” in the country and the priority of […]

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula, was released earlier this month after more than 18 months in prison for corruption. “We are going to do a lot of fighting,” he told a crowd of cheering supporters in Sao Paulo, as he vowed that Brazil’s left would defeat far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election. But many questions remain, not only about Lula’s own legal woes, but about whether he can help overcome divisions among left-wing parties. One of the co-founders of the main opposition Workers’ Party, or PT, Lula is still its dominant […]

Last week, I attended the second Paris Peace Forum, of which I am a member of the Steering Committee and the Selection Committee. The brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, the forum was less glitzy this year than the inaugural version in 2018, which coincided with the centennial of Armistice Day and attracted more than 60 heads of state and government. But what this edition lacked in flash, it compensated for in substance. Beyond showcasing dozens of proposals for improving global governance, its opening sessions featured thoughtful speeches on the parlous state of world order from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio […]

Having been thwarted three times in his attempts to call a general election, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson finally succeeded on his fourth try in late October. British voters are now set to elect their third government in four years when they go to the polls on Dec. 12. With Johnson’s Conservative Party enjoying an average poll lead of 12 percent, all signs currently point to a commanding victory for the Tories. Yet as the previous election in 2017 showed, poll numbers in the early weeks of a campaign should be treated with serious skepticism. Two years ago, Johnson’s predecessor, […]

It has taken four elections in as many years, but Spain’s politicians are finally coming to grips with coalition politics. Pedro Sanchez, the caretaker prime minister and leader of the center-left Socialist Party, called last Sunday’s election—the second this year—in the hopes of persuading the far-left Podemos party to accept a coalition government on his terms. Instead, with the Socialists losing seats and the far-right Vox party gaining ground, he has been forced to accept Podemos’ terms, including making its leader, Pablo Iglesias, deputy prime minister. The two left-wing parties are still short of a majority in parliament and will […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. At least three university students were killed this week in the latest episodes of ethnically motivated violence in Ethiopia. The increasingly volatile situation is at risk of exploding ahead of national elections scheduled for next year. Africa’s second-most-populous country has been wracked by violence along ethnic lines this year, including the murder of the army chief of staff amid an attempted coup in June and intercommunal violence in the central Oromia region in October that left at least 86 people dead. After […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein and Frederick Deknatel talk about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the White House, and Donald Trump’s “worst of both worlds” approach to Turkey. They also discuss the fall of Bolivian President Evo Morales and why the events there are too complicated to easily categorize as either a coup or a revolution. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Neil Bhatiya is filling in for Candace Rondeaux this week. President Donald Trump this week laid out his most direct case yet for staying the course in the run-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday, he boasted that his “America First” policies had delivered stronger-than-expected economic growth and new jobs for millions of Americans, despite the disruption caused not only by his trade war with China, but also by the tariffs he has imposed on close U.S. allies in Europe. While most coverage of […]

The quickly unfolding impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump has already ensnared many other people, while raising more and more questions. From the extent of Trump’s involvement in pressuring Ukraine to investigate his domestic political rivals to the culpability of prominent officials in and outside his administration in that scheme, the public hearings that started this week have set the stage for an impeachment vote that could be among the most pivotal political moments in recent American history. One of the questions swirling around this scandal is what the revelations about Trump will mean for future U.S. policy toward […]