There is a simple metric that many will use to judge the performance of Guatemala’s next president: Can he stop the exodus of people fleeing the country? Alejandro Giammattei, the leader of the right-wing Vamos party who won Sunday’s runoff convincingly over Sandra Torres of the center-left National Unity of Hope party, says he has a plan. But there are many reasons to be skeptical. According to local estimates, nearly 250,000 Guatemalans left their country in the first half of this year, equivalent to 1.5 percent of the population of some 17 million, and most of them headed for the [...]
Latin America is experiencing the largest migration crisis in its modern history, with millions of people fleeing desperate conditions in Central America and Venezuela in search of refuge elsewhere in the hemisphere. Nowhere has the human drama translated into a more acute political battle than in the United States, where President Donald Trump has placed immigration at the center of his administration’s agenda, making it a prominent issue in the nation’s political debate in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. Last week, Judah Grunstein, WPR’s editor-in-chief and a longtime friend, offered a thoughtful analysis of the reasons triggering the [...]
In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein; managing editor, Frederick Deknatel; and associate editor, Laura Weiss, talk about Boris Johnson’s investiture as the U.K.’s new prime minister. They also look at U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s four-country tour of Latin America and the surprisingly warm reception he received. 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 a free preview article every day of the week, plus [...]
