At his inauguration ceremony a year ago, Colombian President Ivan Duque promised a forceful crackdown on drug trafficking, especially cocaine, through “the eradication and substitution of illegal crops.” Under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, he is now pushing to restart aerial spraying of coca plantations using the herbicide glyphosate, which is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” according to the World Health Organization. Meanwhile, in nearby Bolivia, President Evo Morales has taken a different route, expanding legal coca cultivation while relying only on domestic law enforcement agencies to tackle drug trafficking. This coca policy will be one of many issues on [...]
In a significant escalation, President Donald Trump announced a total economic embargo on Venezuela yesterday, issuing an executive order that would block all transactions with the government and its officials and freeze their property and assets in the United States. The move came on the eve of a meeting in Peru held by the Lima Group, a multilateral body of Latin American countries that supports opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, rather than Nicolas Maduro. Fifty-nine countries, including the United States, are attending. The Venezuelan government and its few remaining partners, such as Russia, are not. [...]
Facing a competitive reelection campaign, Argentine President Mauricio Macri took an unexpected gamble last month in his choice of a running mate: Miguel Angel Pichetto, an opposition stalwart who has nonetheless helped the government advance critical reforms from his perch as the most senior senator from the Justicialist Party, the main political vehicle for the opposition Peronist movement. The move was widely praised by analysts. Pichetto is a moderate, so he can help Macri lure Peronists who are anxious about their party’s more populist ticket, which includes the polarizing former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as its vice-presidential candidate. But [...]
