The Americas Archive

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was elected last year after promising to tackle corruption and inequality and improve conditions for Mexican workers. So it was little surprise that one of his first acts upon taking office in late 2018 was to raise the minimum wage. AMLO, as the president is known, also had his advisers join the team renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and encourage the acceptance of U.S. demands to embed key labor law reforms in an updated deal. The result was an annex to the labor chapter in the new NAFTA 2.0—which President Donald Trump […]

Earlier this month, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno announced that he was stripping Wikileaks founder Julian Assange of the asylum he’d been granted in Ecuador’s London embassy in 2012, under former President Rafael Correa. Moreno claimed that Assange had violated the terms of his asylum, but the decision was also part of Moreno’s broader effort to take Ecuador in a different direction after Correa’s autocratic presidency, says Carlos de la Torre, a professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky. In an interview with WPR, he explains how Moreno has reoriented Ecuador’s foreign and domestic policy since taking office in May […]

With its allusions to a planned economy and proletarian internationalism, Cuba’s 1976 constitution was unmistakably a product of the Cold War. Perhaps that’s why the island’s new leaders, led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel, moved quickly to recodify the country’s founding charter. A new constitution, which was formally adopted earlier this month, is Diaz-Canel’s first major accomplishment since his inauguration last year and should set the tone for the remainder of his tenure. Cuban authorities appear to have consulted many other countries’ constitutions in redrafting their own, and one country stands out: China. Although there is no sign that China had […]

Not much remains of the “pink tide” of leftist governments that swept across Latin America in the 2000s, riding the long commodities boom. After the boom came the bust, and with it widespread voter dissatisfaction. Where free elections have been held, most of the region has subsequently swung to the right. There are, of course, some exceptions, most notoriously in Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro, who came to office in 2013 as the handpicked successor of the leader who launched the wave, Hugo Chavez, continues to preside over one of the worst economic and humanitarian disasters in recent Latin American history. […]

Last month, South American leaders, many of them politically conservative, gathered in Chile to launch a new regional body. Although they didn’t say it, they had come to bury Unasur, or the Union of South American Nations, the left-leaning bloc that has been led by Venezuela since its founding a little over a decade ago. They hoped that their new group, the Forum for Progress in South America, or Prosur, would set the stage for a new era of integration and cooperation in the Southern Cone. But critics were quick to predict the new group’s demise, arguing that the fledgling […]

The Trump administration yesterday announced a number of new sanctions and restrictions on dealing with Cuba, including new limits on remittances and nonfamily travel to the island from the United States. In a reversal of more than two decades of U.S. policy, the administration also said it would allow Cuban Americans whose property was seized during the Cuban revolution to sue foreign companies operating on that property. A law passed in 1996 had originally allowed such claims, but that provision in the law had been waived by every president, until now. To understand the implications of this move, WPR spoke […]

Lawmakers in Brazil are expected to begin discussions on a draft proposal to reform the country’s pension system next week. The issue represents a key hurdle for President Jair Bolsonaro, who has pledged to rein in budget deficits and restore investor confidence amid persistent signs of weakness in the Brazilian economy. In an interview with WPR, Peter Kingstone, a professor of politics and development at King’s College London, discusses the thorny political issues surrounding pension reform in Brazil. World Politics Review: Why is pension reform seen as so important in Brazil? How dire are the country’s financial straits? Peter Kingstone: […]

It’s been nearly three months since Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president, vowing to oust Nicolas Maduro and bring the country’s protracted crisis to an end. But while Guaido successfully managed to muster international support from a host of countries in Latin America and beyond, it appears that hopes for a speedy improvement in conditions for ordinary Venezuelans are bound to go unmet. That’s the case not just for Venezuelans who are still in the country, but also for those who have migrated to neighboring Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America. Officials in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and […]

As part of his ongoing tirade against immigration, President Donald Trump has threatened to shut down the southern border completely. First, he said he would take action if Mexico doesn’t stop the flow of migrants; later, his demand was Mexico ending drug trafficking. Maybe it is both, though neither is feasible. When there was a hue and cry about the extreme disruption that would ensue from closing the border, Trump retreated, saying he would give the Mexican government a year to meet his demands before taking any action. He also downplayed that threat and raised the specter of imposing a […]

CUCUTA, Colombia—Blood seeped from Juan Carlos Parra’s head as he slumped in a white plastic chair just a few steps from the border with Venezuela. His floral button-down shirt, which he had removed as he fought with a member of the Venezuelan National Guard, sat rumpled in his lap, soaked a deep red. Moments earlier, Carlos, 24, had been struck with a projectile launched by Venezuelan forces on the other side of the border. Two medics from the Colombian Civil Defense dressed in orange helmets and jumpsuits gathered around him and tried to stitch up the wound. Around them, chaos […]

In one of his latest displays of undiplomatic impulsiveness, President Donald Trump unexpectedly slammed the closest ally the United States has in Latin America, Colombian President Ivan Duque. The comments startled Duque and much of Colombia, highlighting the risks to politicians everywhere who align their fates too closely with a president like Trump, who is not only unpopular in their own countries, but who also has a penchant for mistreating Washington’s friends. The incident occurred on March 29 when Trump was on a visit to Lake Okeechobee in Florida with a group of Republican officials. Trump alluded to Duque, who […]

President Donald Trump announced late last month that he is cutting off $450 million in U.S. aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, delivering on a previous threat amid news that another migrant caravan was forming in Central America. The move has drawn significant criticism, even from within Trump’s administration. The aid is largely used for social, economic and governance development programs that many consider to be an effective, long-term solution to underlying issues—such as violence, poverty and corruption—that are driving people out of their home countries and toward the United States. Perhaps not unexpectedly, Trump’s attempt to reconcile these […]

In a sign of the high value he places on forging closer ties with Washington, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro made the United States his first bilateral trip overseas as president last month. At a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, the two liked-minded leaders agreed to deepen cooperation on a wide range of issues, and Trump announced his administration would designate Brazil as a major non-NATO ally. In an interview with WPR, Guilherme Casarões, a professor of comparative politics at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, explains the ideological origins of Bolsonaro’s charm offensive and why […]

Loyal followers of U.S. President Donald Trump might enthusiastically proclaim that his “America First” foreign policy has been a success. His apologists more modestly argue that, if you ignore Twitter and focus on Trump’s actions, what little has changed in U.S. foreign policy is for the better. Whether enabled by ideological blinders or driven by partisan hackery, both claims are quite simply wrong. After more than two years of Trump’s amateurish bluster, no amount of posturing and self-declared victories can obscure the damage he has done to America’s interests. His failures are now on prominent display in Iran, North Korea […]