The Americas Archive

While Donald Trump spent his first week as president of the United States rapidly upending ties with Mexico, undermining major free trade deals, and flaunting his protectionist ambitions, outgoing French President Francois Hollande visited Latin America, where he signed a host of bilateral agreements with Chile and Colombia. In Chile on Sunday, he warned against creeping protectionism, which he called the “worst response” that “impedes trade, hinders growth and even affects employment, including in countries that advocate for it and implement it.” The comment was an indirect jab at Trump and other populists on the rise, not least Marine Le […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the world. On New Year’s Eve, a man broke into a house in southeastern Brazil and shot and killed his ex-wife, their son and 10 other people, before taking his own life. The incident was a particularly shocking example of the rampant violence against women in Brazil, where disturbing cases of gender-based violence are a near-daily occurrence. In an email interview, Sueann Caulfield, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, discusses women’s rights in Brazil. […]

Brazil’s president is having a kind of homecoming, but not the one he wanted. Long before ascending to the presidency last summer after the impeachment and removal of Dilma Rousseff, Michel Temer served in the 1980s as the top security official for the state of Sao Paulo, overseeing its prison system. He is now struggling to contain an unprecedented nationwide crisis in Brazil’s jails. On Jan. 1, the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary Complex in Manaus, capital of the remote state of Amazonas, erupted into violence; inmates took hostages and set to work killing their rivals, throwing their mutilated corpses outside the […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on income inequality and poverty reduction in various countries around the world. Mexico has one of the highest rates of inequality among developed countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with the richest 1 percent of the population owning almost half of the country’s wealth. In an email interview, Patricio Solís, a sociology professor at el Colegio de Mexico, discusses poverty reduction and income inequality in Mexico. WPR: What is the rate of income inequality in Mexico, what are the latest trends in terms of widening […]

A perfect storm is gathering in Mexico as the dawn of Donald Trump’s presidency north of the border coincides with domestic upheaval. While Trump’s threats on trade, immigration and border security have received the most attention, Mexico’s deeply unpopular president, Enrique Pena Nieto, also faces social unrest and a potential recession ahead of a presidential election in 2018—one in which, much as in the U.S., a populist underdog will look to capitalize on public anger. Since Jan. 1, headlines from Mexico have been dominated not by Trump, but by the so-called “gasolinazo,” a controversial yet inevitable decision by the Pena […]

Resource booms and busts are a sad reality for most commodity-based developing countries, and Trinidad and Tobago is no exception. While by far the wealthiest of the Caribbean economies, thanks to its oil and gas resources, the country is currently mired in a severe recession after the collapse of world oil prices beginning in 2014. The economy contracted by 1 percent that year, followed by further declines of 2.1 percent in 2015 and 2.8 percent in 2016, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. Oil and gas, which make up about 40 percent of gross domestic product and 80 […]

Venezuela’s roiling crisis just became far more complicated for the country’s political opposition and exponentially more unsettling for the United States. On Jan. 4, President Nicolas Maduro reshuffled his Cabinet and named a new vice president, Tareck El Aissami, a man who has reportedly helped forge back-channel links for Caracas to terrorists and drug traffickers. Until now, Washington has mostly treated Venezuela’s dramatic social and economic disintegration as a matter to be watched from afar: troubling, to be sure, but without very significant repercussions beyond its own borders or neighborhood. But the appointment of El Aissami means that the next […]

Venezuelans endured a particularly difficult year in 2016. Inflation skyrocketed; scarcities lingered; crime continued to soar; and the Venezuelan currency plummeted, albeit with a bit of a December rebound as OPEC cut oil production levels and the government eliminated its 100-bolivar note, its largest and most-used bill. The year offered little respite for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, too. The opposition, which has controlled the National Assembly for the past year, continued to press for a recall referendum, while many political actors abandoned the dialogue mediated by the Vatican. Beyond the country’s borders, conservative governments replaced leftist ones in Argentina and […]

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet was in Argentina last month, where she gave her support to Argentina joining the Pacific Alliance trade bloc. It was her first visit to the country since President Mauricio Macri assumed office in 2015. In an email interview, Peter M. Siavelis, the director of the Latin American and Latino Studies program at Wake Forest University, discusses relations between Chile and Argentina. WPR: What are the main areas of cooperation between Chile and Argentina, and how have ties evolved over the past 10 years? Peter M. Siavelis: Chile has historically shared troubled relations with neighboring Argentina and […]

Last month, The New York Times reported that the growing number of tourists in Cuba is dramatically increasing the demand for food and leaving ordinary Cubans without many basic staples. In a phone interview, William LeoGrande, a professor of government and a specialist in Latin American politics at American University, discusses the effects of tourism in Cuba. WPR: What positive impacts has Cuba seen from expanded tourism in recent years? William LeoGrande: Tourism has become one of the leading economic sectors in Cuba. Last year, around 4 million foreign visitors came to the island, generating $2.8 billion in revenue—only the […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on income inequality and poverty reduction in various countries around the world. Honduras is the most unequal country in Latin America and the sixth most unequal country in the world, according to World Bank statistics. The poverty rate currently stands at 64.5 percent, while 42.6 percent of Hondurans live in extreme poverty. In an email interview, Jake Johnston, a research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, discusses income inequality and poverty in Honduras. WPR: What is the rate of income inequality in Honduras, what are the […]

The governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle have been under considerable domestic and international pressure to address rampant corruption since high-ranking officials were exposed in 2015. How did they fare in 2016? Guatemala’s track record has been the best, thanks in large part to the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, which was created in 2006 by a joint agreement between the Guatemalan government and the United Nations. It has not only investigated and prosecuted sensitive cases, including the high-profile and bizarre killing of Rodrigo Rosenberg, who had arranged for his […]