In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published what would go on to be his most famous novel, It Can’t Happen Here. The novel describes the rise of Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a populist politician who resembling Louisiana’s Huey Long or, for modern readers, Caracas’ Hugo Chavez. He is described thusly:
With Washington quibbling over the finer points of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), many commentators are arguing that lessons of past trade deals, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), are useful augers for what to…
I have come back to you from thorny uncertainty. I want you as straight as the sword or the road. But you insist on keeping a nook of shadow I do not want.
What would the shade of El Libertador think today surveying his beloved Venezuela? He would certainly be shocked at the dubious honor his country has been granted for claiming the number one spot on the world Misery Index for 2015. He would also surely wonder how the land of the intellectual font…
Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro, have much more in common than failing economies, populist rhetoric, and a penchant for extra-judicial political maneuvers: they are both the first and second (respectively) highest recipients of Chinese…
The fiesta is over. Mexico, a remarkably important nation of some 120 million people—indeed, the world’s fifteenth largest economy—is descending into crisis. Students have been slaughtered en masse with the complicity of a corrupt police force. The country’s young president and his finance minster…
Call it a tale of two countries. Two would-be Latin American powerhouses, both with populations surpassing 100 million people – and both with weak presidents who are beset by corruption problems. Both, in other words, are severely underperforming countries, whose chronic inability to live up to…
It’s official: Dilma Rousseff is no Lula. The left-wing Brazilian president may have been reelected late last month, but she enjoys nowhere near the popularity that Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva – better known simply as “Lula” – once did. Rousseff managed to squeak by with only 51.6 percent of the vote…
The world’s eyes may have been trained on the World Cup this weekend, but a different heated contest also took place in South America on Sunday night. In Colombia, incumbent president Juan Manuel Santos, who has made “peace” talks with leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)…
Late last month, the Spanish energy giant Repsol agreed to accept $5 billion worth of Argentine bonds as repayment for the government’s confiscation of YPF, Argentina’s largest oil company, which was formerly controlled by Repsol until its April 2012 seizure by President Cristina Kirchner. With the…
Sometimes a handshake is more than just a handshake. When President Obama warmly embraced the late Hugo Chávez at the 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, he lent respectability to a brutal autocrat who had crippled Venezuelan democracy, terrorized his political opponents, and…
Not so long ago, the fate of democracy in Central America was a prominent and deeply controversial issue in U.S. politics. Throughout the 1980s, Republicans and Democrats clashed bitterly over how to address the civil wars raging in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. In 1983, President Reagan…
When Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff canceled her October 23 White House state dinner, she created yet another foreign-policy embarrassment for the Obama administration. Rousseff’s visit, which was announced back in May, was supposed to be an opportunity for highlighting a new era of strategic…
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was a global murder capital held hostage by warring drug cartels. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it looked like a potential failed state. These days, it is described as “Latin America’s rising star,” “Latin America’s rising oil star,” “Latin America’s…
In late June, the State Department issued a controversial report on Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere. Its most notable conclusion was that “Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is waning.” Critics immediately pointed out that, just a month earlier, Argentine special…
The idea of building a $40 billion canal in Nicaragua, Central America’s poorest nation, seems highly improbable. Yet Chinese businessman Wang Jing insists he is serious about constructing such a waterway, and Nicaraguan lawmakers have given his Hong Kong–based company, HKND Group, a green light to…
If you’re concerned that the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism has been expanding its strategic footprint in the Western Hemisphere, the Obama administration has a reassuring message for you: “Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is waning.” That’s the conclusion of a State…
Socialists around the world have their own traditions for celebrating “International Workers’ Day,” and Evo Morales is no exception. Each year, the Bolivian leader uses May 1 to make a big announcement, typically regarding the military-backed seizure of a given industry or company. In 2006, during…
During his trip to Mexico and Costa Rica last week, President Obama tried to highlight the positive and downplay the negative. Thus, he spoke at length about the growth of trade, commerce, and economic partnerships, arguing that security issues should not be allowed to dominate all discussions of…
During the 14-year reign of Hugo Chávez, Venezuelans became drearily accustomed to hearing so-called cadenas interrupt the regular programming on their radios and television sets. These are “chained” broadcasts (the word cadena means “chain”) that all stations must carry. They originated long…
The day after his inauguration on December 1, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto joined with leaders of the country’s two main opposition parties to sign the “Pact for Mexico,” a joint pledge to pursue dozens of domestic reforms in areas such as education, telecommunications, and energy. At the…
There are legitimate territorial disputes, and then there is Argentina’s dispute with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands.
According to a leading Spanish newspaper, Hugo Chávez’s doctors have told his family that the cancer-stricken autocrat will not recover from his illness and will not be able to resume the Venezuelan presidency. Perhaps that’s why his return to Venezuela was a relatively subdued affair. Chávez…
About two years ago, a senior Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official said that a certain Latin American country was becoming a veritable “United Nations” of organized criminal activity, attracting gangsters from such diverse and faraway places as Albania, China, Italy, and Ukraine. He was…
In late November and early December, Peruvian business leaders gathered in the industrial city of Arequipa for the 50th Annual Conference of Executives (CADE). When the polling firm Ipsos Apoyo asked CADE attendees whether they approved of the job performance of Peruvian president Ollanta Humala, a…
Most everyone remembers what happened when Argentina invaded the British Falkland Islands in 1982. Far fewer people remember what preceded—and in many ways provoked—the Argentine invasion.
When Mexican president Felipe Calderón leaves office on December 1, his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, will inherit a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence. Of course, when Calderón entered the presidency six years ago, he himself inherited a country with rampant…
When Argentine president Cristina Kirchner nationalized the Spanish-owned YPF oil company this past April, Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero proclaimed her “the standard-bearer of populist nationalism in Latin America.” At the time, her decision played well at home: One poll found that 62…
Based on last week’s debate, both President Obama and Governor Romney believe that squeezing the Iranians economically is the best way—and perhaps the only way—to end their nuclear-weapons program without resorting to a military strike. Of course, nobody knows if sanctions will actually work. But…
At tonight’s presidential debate on foreign policy, we can expect questions related to the civil war in Syria, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, and the broader war on terrorism, including the September 11 Benghazi attack. But I hope that debate moderator Bob Schieffer also asks President Obama and…
We are now less than two weeks away from an election that could either save or destroy what remains of Venezuelan democracy.
Last month in London, Mexico’s Olympic soccer team won gold by defeating its Brazilian counterpart, 2-1. The victory gave Mexico its first-ever trophy in a major international soccer tournament (apart from the 1999 Confederations Cup), and it proved that the soccer gap between Latin America’s two…
Assuming the polls are correct, Mexico’s notorious Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will cruise to victory in Sunday’s presidential election and also win at least one chamber of the national legislature. Will this mean a return to the bad old days of authoritarian politics and corrupt deals…
China’s interest in South America is easily explained: The Asian giant has a voracious appetite for commodities and raw materials, including Argentine soybeans, Brazilian iron ore, Chilean and Peruvian metals, Ecuadorean and Venezuelan oil, and Uruguayan beef. Therefore, Beijing has expanded trade…
Today in Washington, Argentine vice president Amado Boudou will be addressing a Council of the Americas conference on the global economic recovery. I have no idea what Boudou will say in his remarks, and I have no idea how the attendees will receive it. But I do know this: Having a senior member of…
In 2001, Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill famously coined the acronym “BRIC” to describe four of the world’s most populous countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—each of which boasted great economic potential. Since then, China has enjoyed breakneck GDP growth while making very little…
Like Hugo Chávez, Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa has used vast oil wealth to boost his personal popularity and camouflage the effects of his disastrous economic policies while steadily weakening his country’s democratic institutions. Correa has not gone as far as Chávez in his erosion of…
Much like Fidel Castro, his ideological soulmate, Hugo Chávez is fond of denouncing his critics as “fascists” and “Nazis,” regardless of whether those critics are U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill, heads of state in Europe, or opposition presidential candidates in Venezuela. Yet in his militarization…
As Lula da Silva’s handpicked successor, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was widely expected to embrace his policies both at home and abroad. Domestically, she has mostly fulfilled those expectations. In foreign affairs, the story is a bit more complicated.
In 1982, Argentina’s right wing military junta launched a sudden invasion of the Falkland Islands, the South Atlantic archipelago that has been a British possession since 1833. The invasion was motivated by a desire to distract attention from the country’s severe economic woes, including…
However poor his health condition, Hugo Chávez must have enjoyed a certain measure of satisfaction earlier this month when leaders from across the Western hemisphere gathered in Caracas for the first meeting of the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a hemispheric forum…
Are we living in “the decade of Latin America”? Inter-American Development Bank president Luis Alberto Moreno used that phrase in a July 2010 Financial Times op-ed. A year later, Mauricio Cárdenas, then a Brookings Institution scholar and now the Colombian mining and energy minister, raised the…
It is by now a familiar story: A Bolivian government has sparked massive street protests, and it has subsequently caved to the pressure. It happened in 2003, when President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned after a violent conflict over gas exports. It happened again in 2005, when his successor,…
On October 21, President Obama signed into law the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement (FTA), thereby giving American exporters greater access to one of South America’s fastest growing markets. The long, tiring debate over the FTA—which began five years ago, when the agreement was first…
In her remarks to the 41st Washington Conference on the Americas this past May, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the Western Hemisphere “vital” to U.S. interests, adding that Latin America and the United States “will rise or fall together in the 21st century.” Unfortunately, the Obama…
When Honduran leader Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo visits the White House today, it will be a watershed moment in the Central American country’s diplomatic rehabilitation. More than two years have passed since Honduran authorities removed Manuel Zelaya from the presidency to block his unconstitutional,…
Iran has a lot riding on the survival—both literal and political—of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez. If the Bolivarian revolutionary beats cancer and wins another term as president, Tehran will continue to enjoy a strategic partnership with the world’s fifth largest oil exporter. But if Chávez…
Back in May, Ecuadorean voters approved a referendum that gave President Rafael Correa broader authority to regulate opposition journalists. At the time, Freedom House expressed concern that Correa was acquiring “undue influence over the country’s media,” and its senior program manager for Latin…
Last week, former army officer Ollanta Humala was inaugurated as president of Peru, and he vowed to maintain the successful economic policies adopted by his predecessor, Alan García. The significance of that vow should not be understated.
As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have said, the relationship between Argentina and Iran just keeps getting “curiouser and curiouser.”
Analyzing Argentina’s foreign policy can sometimes be more suited to psychiatrists than journalists. Consider, for example, how President Cristina Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman have handled bilateral relations with Iran.
By endorsing the judicial and media “reforms” in this month’s constitutional referendum, Ecuador has moved a step closer to Venezuelan-style autocracy. President Rafael Correa, a Hugo Chávez disciple who has attacked opposition journalists, harassed private companies, and weakened democracy, will…
Back in February, weeks before NATO launched its Libyan bombing campaign but after the Tripoli regime had slaughtered hundreds of civilians, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega phoned Muammar Qaddafi multiple times to express his support. Speaking publicly, Ortega declared that the bloodstained…
The Brazilian magazine Veja is reporting that al Qaeda members have established an active presence in South America’s largest country, as have militants associated with Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups. They are apparently engaged in fundraising, recruitment, and strategic…
The last time that Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman made international news, he was needlessly provoking a crisis in bilateral relations with the United States over a routine military-training exercise. A few weeks earlier, Timerman had accused the U.S. government of operating “torture”…
This past November, two anti-American governments each committed an act of aggression against the island territory of a neighboring democracy. North Korea shelled the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing two soldiers and two civilians. Nicaragua’s well-staffed and armed military forces…
It got lost amid the remarkable dispatches from Egypt and the broader Middle East, but last week Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela revealed some big news about Hugo Chávez and Iran. Speaking to a House subcommittee on February 15, he said the U.S. government is investigating whether…
The Washington Post recently reported on the successful Palestinian drive to achieve statehood recognition from South American countries. Over the past few months, several countries—including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay—have endorsed the existence…
Shortly after Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman accused the United States of operating torture schools, his government decided to trigger a genuine crisis in bilateral relations.
Two recent dispatches from Buenos Aires highlight the travails of Argentine president Cristina Kirchner, whose foolish populism and economic mismanagement have created serious headaches for her government.
In a little noticed but important speech on U.S. relations with Latin America delivered earlier this month at the Brookings Institution, senior State Department official Arturo Valenzuela highlighted everything that is wrong with the Obama administration’s approach to its own neighborhood.
Overwhelmed by violent protests, Bolivian president Evo Morales announced last Friday that he was reversing his controversial decision to abolish fuel subsidies. The removal of those subsidies had caused an abrupt spike in gasoline and diesel prices (which immediately jumped by 73 percent and 83…
Nearly two years have passed since his inauguration, and President Obama has yet to unveil a major policy initiative for Latin America. Regional officials are hoping that Obama ends this neglect in 2011 and increases U.S. engagement. Here are seven ways in which his administration could demonstrate…
In case further proof was needed that the Organization of American States (OAS) has become embarrassingly incompetent, witness its pathetic response to Nicaragua’s invasion of Costa Rica. On November 13, the organization passed a resolution calling for Managua to withdraw its military forces from…
With the world distracted by currency fights, European debt problems, and other economic challenges, Nicaragua has quietly invaded and occupied the sovereign territory of Costa Rica. It is an act of naked aggression that deserves to be condemned and resisted by governments everywhere, yet most…
Lula da Silva is an international superstar. Foreign journalists and politicians have fawned over his accomplishments and hailed his “transformation” of Brazil into an economic powerhouse. Barack Obama calls him “the most popular politician on earth.” A recent poll found that his approval rating is…
If you’re looking for evidence that a nuclear Iran would be very difficult (if not impossible) to “contain,” visit Buenos Aires. Between 1992 and 1994, the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah launched not one but two murderous attacks in the Argentine capital, bombing both the Israeli embassy and…
Last Friday in Moscow, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev signed a formal agreement obliging his country to help Venezuela launch a nuclear energy program. Vladimir Putin first floated the idea of Russian-Venezuelan nuclear cooperation back in 2008, following the Georgian war, and he signed a…
“When the United States sneezes, Latin America catches a cold.” This old maxim proved true in 2008 and 2009, when the U.S. financial crisis deeply affected countries throughout the Western Hemisphere. Yet while the U.S. economy has been struggling through a painfully weak recovery, Latin America’s…
Sunday’s presidential election results from Brazil came as a surprise. Pre-election polling had indicated that center-left Workers’ Party candidate Dilma Rousseff, the hand-picked successor of incumbent Brazilian president Lula da Silva, would win an outright majority in the first round of…
In a recent series of conversations with Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, Fidel Castro made several eyebrow-raising comments. The one that received the most attention was Castro’s assertion that the Cuban economic model no longer works. (He later tried, disingenuously, to backtrack on this…
In recent days, Chile and Mexico became the latest Latin American countries to reestablish formal diplomatic relations with Honduras, which (unfairly) became a pariah after the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya last summer. The holdouts, not surprisingly, include Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and…
Last summer, pundits were writing the political obituaries of Cristina and Néstor Kirchner, Argentina’s first couple. Their coalition had suffered big losses in national legislative elections. Néstor, the former Argentine president (2003–2007), had failed in his bid to win a congressional seat, and…
It’s a familiar trick: When the Castro regime wants something from the international community, it makes a grand show of releasing political prisoners, in hopes of convincing foreign officials that Cuba has liberalized and thus deserves to be rewarded.
In recent years, Latin America’s trade with India, the world’s largest democracy, has grown much more slowly than its trade with China. However, the Latin Business Chronicle notes that “an increasing number of Indian companies are now looking at Latin America as the ‘next frontier.’” The quote…
Until relatively recently, populist autocracy seemed to be advancing relentlessly across Latin America, backed by Venezuelan petrodollars and guided by the Castro brothers. It was definitely expanding into Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua; it was threatening to infect other countries in Central and…
Since taking office in 1999, Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chávez has embraced just about every anti-American dictator and strongman on the planet. So it was no surprise last weekend when Syrian boss Bashar Assad made his first trip to Latin America and met with Chávez in Caracas. Chávez said that Assad’s…
Speaking to reporters at the G-20 summit in Toronto, President Obama declared his intention to complete the U.S.–South Korea free-trade agreement, which was signed by the Bush administration three years ago. “I want to make sure that everything is lined up properly by the time I visit Korea in…
Chalk up another defeat for Hugo Chávez. Last weekend, Colombian voters delivered a landslide victory to conservative presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos, who clobbered former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus by nearly 42 percentage points.
Hillary Clinton has been touring Latin America this week. First she traveled to Peru, where she attended the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), before visiting Ecuador, Colombia, and Barbados. To her credit, the secretary of state is trying to build support for…
For Brazilian president Lula da Silva, mediating between the United States and Iran seemed like a win-win proposition. American officials were moving slowly in pursuit of a tough sanctions resolution at the United Nations Security Council, and Iran’s nuclear program was racing forward. If Lula…
Recent weeks have brought more depressing economic news from Venezuela, where populist leader Hugo Chávez seems intent on destroying not only democracy but also the last remaining vestiges of private enterprise.
Last month, a sword-brandishing Hugo Chávez marked the eighth anniversary of his return to power after an abortive coup by addressing thousands of government-backed paramilitaries. “You should be ready to take up arms at any moment and give your lives if necessary for our nation’s independence and…
Last week, U.S. and Brazilian officials signed a defense pact that will significantly enhance bilateral military ties. “This agreement will lead to a deepening of U.S.-Brazil defense cooperation at all levels,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared. While the agreement does not explicitly discuss…
As Venezuela sinks deeper into economic quicksand, President Hugo Chávez continues to mortgage his country’s future with weapons purchases and harebrained schemes. Last week, Russia’s Vladimir Putin visited the South American nation to promote greater bilateral cooperation on strategic issues,…
As Venezuela sinks deeper into economic quicksand, President Hugo Chávez continues to mortgage his country’s future with weapons purchases and harebrained schemes. Last week, Russia’s Vladimir Putin visited the South American nation to promote greater bilateral cooperation on strategic issues,…
Last week in Washington, the Organization of American States (OAS) held an election for secretary general. As expected, incumbent José Miguel Insulza won reelection to a second five-year term.
Back in December, CMA DataVision announced that Venezuela’s debt had become the riskiest in the world. In 2009 alone, the total outstanding debt of PDVSA, the country’s state-owned oil firm, grew by 42 percent, reaching $21.4 billion. At the start of 2010, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez…
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling through Latin America this week. Hopefully she will be discussing the systematic human rights abuses and extraterritorial aggression of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez. Just today, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Spanish National Court…
Like many other stories coming out of Venezuela, this one should have been big news in the American media, but wasn’t. In early February, several former Hugo Chávez loyalists published a letter urging the Venezuelan president to resign from office. The letter denounced Chávez’s governing style as…
Last week, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair presented the “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. While the report notes that Venezuela is “struggling” to deal with the post-2008 drop in oil prices and with production declines,…
Hugo Chávez and his cronies must have been very happy with President Obama’s first State of the Union address, which completely ignored the challenges to democracy in Latin America. Obama cited the brave Iranian activists who are fighting for freedom in the streets of Tehran, if only very briefly,…
In recent days, Venezuela has been rocked by large demonstrations and political turmoil. The protests began on January 23, when Venezuelans poured into the streets of Caracas (the capital) to mark the 52nd anniversary of their democratic revolution and also to protest against the failed,…
While riding in a taxi in my native Costa Rica recently, I saw the country’s magnificent new national soccer stadium rising—it is scheduled to open later this year. The Chinese government bankrolled the $83 million stadium project after Costa Rica ended its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and…
In case you were wondering what U.S. military forces are doing in Haiti, allow Hugo Chávez to explain: “I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war,” the Venezuelan leader said Sunday on his national TV show. “They are occupying Haiti undercover.”
With each passing day, it is getting harder and harder for Hugo Chávez’s remaining political and journalistic allies to defend his policies. Last week, the Venezuelan president announced a significant devaluation of the bolívar, Venezuela’s national currency, thereby making a major inflation…
Given the challenges that President Obama faces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, and elsewhere, the fact that he has thus far neglected Latin America is hardly surprising or scandalous. Obama has committed several unforced errors in the Americas, however, most notably in…
With U.S. policymakers distracted by the situation in Honduras, Nicaragua continues to move toward authoritarianism. On October 19, a Nicaraguan Supreme Court panel overturned a constitutional provision limiting presidents to two non-consecutive terms in office. The ruling will allow incumbent…
The four-month Honduran political crisis appears to be over. Last week, Honduran officials signed an agreement to establish a provisional "unity" government and allow the Honduran Congress to determine the fate of Manuel Zelaya, who was removed as president in late June for constitutional…
Several decades after its founding as the Western Hemisphere's premier democratic forum, the Organization of American States (OAS) is in danger of becoming irrelevant. As a former Latin America diplomat, I say this with great regret. The OAS should be a powerful vehicle for defending democracy and…
U.S.-Russia diplomacy is currently dominated by issues such as Iran, missile defense, and the post-Soviet republics. But the Obama administration must not ignore Moscow's role in facilitating the dangerous Venezuelan arms buildup and the nuclear ambitions of Hugo Chávez.
"We face a defining moment," Mexican president Felipe Calderón said earlier this month in his third state of the union address. While he was talking about more than just the war on drugs, that is clearly the paramount security challenge facing Mexican authorities. Calderón has taken unprecedented…
Surprise! Now the Nicaraguan president wants to change term limits. A few weeks ago, at a public celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega moved one step closer to creating an autocracy. Speaking to a large crowd, Ortega called…
The next round of diplomatic negotiations aimed at defusing the political crisis in Honduras will begin on Saturday in Costa Rica. The mediator of these negotiations, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, has requested that ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya show patience while the talks move…
To say that people in Latin America are sensitive about military coups would be an understatement. Due to the often tumultuous and bloody histories of their respective countries, they have a strong aversion to anything that looks like military interference in civilian politics. Recent events in…
It is clear to all but the most blinkered observer that Iran's recent presidential election was a sham. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fraudulent "victory" over challenger Mir Hussein Mousavi, and the violence that followed, confirmed that the Islamic Republic is a brutal police state that crushes…
In all my years as an observer of international affairs, I have seldom seen the Organization of American States (OAS) so energized by a single issue. If only that issue were the humanitarian tragedy of Haiti, or the defense of democracy in those member countries where it is under siege--such as…
Last October, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that Argentina "serves as a cautionary tale on how to ruin an economy." Now President Cristina Kirchner may pay a political price for her--and her husband's--mismanagement. With national legislative elections scheduled for next month, the…
In recent weeks, the Obama administration has quietly done an about-face on free trade with Latin America. On April 20, U.S. trade czar Ron Kirk told reporters that President Obama did not think it would be necessary to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This marked a…
In a 2006 national referendum, Panamanian voters approved a $5.2 billion project to expand the Panama Canal. As the Panama Star reports, "Percentage wise, the canal expansion dwarfs any stimulus project the United States is planning. The project represents nearly a quarter of Panama's $23 billion…
The countries of Central America are being hit hard by the global economic crisis, and Nicaragua is no exception. Last week, at a meeting of the Central American Integration System in Managua, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista party leader and close friend of Hugo Chávez, proposed…
In recent months, it often seemed as if the political debate in El Salvador was stuck in a time warp back to the 1980s. Conservative politicians warned that the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) was a "communist" outfit that would ruin the country. FMLN supporters countered that the…
Since the election of President Evo Morales in December 2005, relations between the United States and Bolivia have steadily deteriorated. Morales has embraced a political model that thrives on conflict, confrontation, and bullying. His policies have raised the specter of large-scale turmoil. Much…
VENEZUELAN DEMOCRACY SUFFERED another major blow this past weekend with the abolition of term limits for elected officials. This will enable Venezuela's autocratic leader, Hugo Chávez, to run for president indefinitely. It will allow him to consolidate his budding dictatorship and further undermine…
RECENT EVENTS SUGGEST that Barack Obama will be facing a veritable perfect storm of challenges in Latin America. The death toll in Mexico's war on drugs is mounting. The future of Plan Colombia, which began as a U.S.-backed anti-drug initiative, is uncertain. Argentina may be on the verge of yet…
Russia's dispatch of long-range bombers to Venezuela for joint military exercises may not signal the start of a new Cold War, but it does provide more evidence that Hugo Chávez has become the chief source of hemispheric instability. To be sure, the Venezuelan president is increasingly unpopular in…
Hugo Chávez has been busy lately. On July 22, the Venezuelan president arrived in Moscow to finalize a number of bilateral energy and military agreements, including several arms deals that (according to a Russian newspaper) are reportedly worth around $2 billion. (His previous weapons acquisitions…
ON JULY 14, Guatemalan state prosecutor Juan Carlos Martinez was murdered in a suburb of Guatemala City. Suspicion immediately fell on the narcotics gangs that continue to fuel violence in Guatemala and throughout the region. As Reuters reported, Martinez had been "investigating the murder of three…
LAST WEEK'S DARING RESCUE of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages (including three Americans) by Colombian commandos is cause for rejoicing. As Colombian President Alvaro Uribe put it, the rescue mission was "an unbelievable military achievement." It marked yet…
AMERICANS HAVEN'T PAID much attention to El Salvador since the 1980s, when the country was being torn apart by a civil war and the Reagan administration was trying to balance its support for the anti-Communist military regime with a push for free elections. In those days, the leftist Farabundo…
DON'T LET HUGO Chavez fool you: The past few years have actually been a golden era for economic management in Latin America. Though a small cluster of countries (led by Chavez's Venezuela) have, to varying degrees, embraced destructive populism and done real harm to their business climate, the…
IT ONLY TOOK 61 years, but Paraguay's conservative Colorado Party finally lost an election. In last month's presidential poll, a plurality of voters cast ballots for Fernando Lugo, a left-wing candidate who does not belong to an organized political party. Lugo focused his campaign on poverty, rural…
PRESIDENT LULA's successful visit to Camp David on Saturday, March 31, bolstered the Bush administration's new diplomatic stratgey towards Latin America. Spearheaded by a hemispheric initiative to reduce oil-dependency, the Brazilian president's visit may also prove helpful in reviving the…