Today’s situation, with the loss of Venezuelan energy support, is somewhat reminiscent of Cuba’s experience with the devastating economic impact of the Soviet Union’s in the 1990s, and it may be tempting to draw comparisons between the two periods. At that time, the Castro regime was forced to confront similar challenges: material shortages, isolation and civil unrest. However, today’s reality is characterized by new factors: the physical absence of Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro; the widespread use of social media; resumed flights to and from the US since 2016; and increased liberalization and warmer diplomatic relations.

No matter how valuable ending the longest-running communist government in the Americas may seem, US President Donald Trump seems to be trying out a new for foreign intervention: decapitating regimes while keeping the establishment intact. This model clearly prioritizes business opportunities over democratic values. However, it’s not only uncertain whether it could be applied to Cuba, but also whether this is actually the plan. All of which makes it particularly difficult to imagine what could happen next.

Historically, international observers have oscillated between fascination and outrage towards Communist Cuba. In the early years of the revolution, this fascination was understandable. Cuba was a potent for activists in the 1960s and for the global civil rights movement. However, as the revolution shifted toward military autocracy rather than democratic ideals, the initial romanticism faded. This group of observers, largely comprising European baby boomers who rebelled against post-World War II imperialism, has seen its initial fervor tempered by time. Reflecting a broader evolution in leftist thought, they continue struggling to reconcile Cuba’s social achievements with its authoritarian political regime and the continuous, increasing and deepening impact of the US trade on these revolutionary ideals since 1962.

The Cuban Revolution officially began with the 1953 of the Moncada Barracks by a group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro, who was relatively unknown at the time. The uprising aimed to overthrow ’s illegitimate military dictatorship and the systemic corruption and poverty it fostered. Specifically, the movement demanded economic independence from US imperialist interests and the restoration of political liberty through an armed uprising of the working class.

After the attempted coup, Castro, a trained lawyer, was tried and imprisoned by Batista’s regime. During this trial, he delivered an iconic defense speech that ended with the famous words, “History will absolve me.” Indeed, he was pardoned after 22 months due to a general amnesty and went on to lead Cuba for life. However, total absolution by history is doubtful and yet to come.

After his release from prison, Castro adopted July 26 — the date of the attack on the Moncada Barracks — as the name of his revolutionary movement: the Movimiento 26 de Julio. By January 1, 1959, the rebels, including the iconic Comandante Ernesto “Che” Guevara, had successfully overthrown the dictatorship. In response to Batista’s pro-US regime, the revolutionaries had campaigned with slogans such as: “Cuba sí, yanquis no!” (“Cuba yes! Yankees no!”) and “Yanquis, vayanse!” (“Yankees, go away!”).

Shortly after Castro and his group took control, the US intervened militarily in 1961, but was defeated at the Bay of Pigs. This defeat solidified the first self-proclaimed communist revolution in the region, which would become the longest-standing regime of its kind in the Western world. It is now approaching its seventh decade.

The revolution as an unfinished process

After years of rumors that he was dead and that his government was keeping him alive to prevent a political collapse, Castro died on November 25, 2016, at the age of 90. Following Castro’s illness in 2006, his younger brother Raúl assumed provisional power. By 2011, Raúl had solidified his position as leader of both the presidency and the Communist Party. This appointment communicated a strong stance on hierarchy and kinship. Yet, Raúl ultimately delegated governance in 2019, eight years later.

Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Cuba’s current president, is a direct descendant of the Castro regime, having been personally appointed by Raúl Castro. Born in Villa Clara Province on April 20, 1960, Díaz-Canel was born one year after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Although Díaz-Canel holds onto the revolutionary ideals of his predecessors, he is facing unprecedented times. Amid escalating instability and unrest, he called for dialogue on Monday, March 23, while not capitulating on the Revolution, stating:

We don’t want war; we want dialogue. But if that space isn’t provided, we are ready. I tell you this with the deep conviction that I hold, which I have shared with my family, that we would give our lives for the Revolution.

Díaz-Canel said this in a conversation with Pablo Iglesias, the Spanish founder of the left-wing political party Podemos, and former vice president of Spain. Iglesias arrived in Cuba on March 24, 2026, as part of the humanitarian convoy. There, he Díaz-Canel on behalf of his media organization, Canal Red. With the support of figures like Iglesias and British politician Jeremy Corbyn, the Nuestra América mission delivered 20 tons of aid, including solar panels, to help alleviate the island’s severe energy crisis.

The convoy’s name invokes the legacy of (1853–1895), the “Apostle of Cuban Independence” and a foundational figure in the development of the nation’s identity. In his influential 1891 essay, Nuestra América, or “,” Martí contended that Latin American nations should develop governance systems grounded in their unique social realities instead of imitating foreign models. By warning against “the giant of the north” and calling for cultural sovereignty, Martí’s manifesto remains a powerful symbol that the modern mission seeks to reclaim. In fact, both Díaz-Canel and Iglesias reiterated Martí’s accusations that the US is responsible for Cuba’s structural problems of the past several decades, that the 1959 Revolution eliminated “all miseries and evils.”

The blockade of all trade and diplomatic relations with the US, coupled with the nationalization or expulsion of the private sector, did not stop the steady stream of tourists, primarily from Europe, from arriving on the island. Despite the gradual disenchantment of many, a sense of mysticism about Cuba as an oasis outside of capitalism began to emerge.

For as long as I can remember, I have heard the same tropes in stories by foreigners who visited the island in the ‘90s and ‘00s. One recurring theme was the idea that Cuba was “suspended in time.” People often mentioned the old cars, which were rare in other urban landscapes. In a dimmer note, Fidel, who had once that Cuba would no longer be the “brothel of the Western Hemisphere,” later used that same imagery in a 1999 speech, infamously , “Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the world.”

In his 1965 work, , Virgilio Piñera famously referred to “the curse of being completely surrounded by water.” Writing from a first-person perspective while sitting in a café in Havana, Piñera captured an insular reality that visitors, often distracted by the island’s tropical allure, could never truly grasp. This metaphorical curse reveals a less paradisical side of the nation, grounding its international isolation in a bittersweet reality.

Piñera’s sentiment mirrors the devastating truth in Fidel’s later remarks about the island’s “cultured” prostitutes. Both the poet’s verses and the leader’s words acknowledge a reality that, despite its high ideals, remains trapped by its circumstances. Piñera’s image remains profoundly expressive today, as Cuba faces renewed media attention and political turmoil, making this sense of cursed isolation feel as relevant as ever.

Following a period of diplomatic warming that began in 2015, US–Cuba relations shifted from a hopeful path toward greater understanding to extreme hostility under the Trump administration. By 2025, Marco Rubio, a former senator from Florida and Cuban American, had become one of the loudest advocates for this shift. A Gen Xer, Rubio belongs to the first generation of diaspora children who have historically migrated to Miami. This group has traditionally been fiercely opposed to the regime they fled.

Today, many of them see the current moment as the opportunity they’ve been awaiting for decades. Hispanic outlets Univision and Telemundo Miami have the various demonstrations, many of which were led by Cuban activist Ramón Saúl Sánchez, who on the exile community at the iconic Cuban restaurant to support the protests occurring on the island. The Free Cuba Rally, which through Washington, DC, featured slogans such as “Trump” and “Cuba Next!” calling for US action.

Founded by Cuban exiles in Valencia, Spain, in 2014, the news outlet Cibercuba has been a relevant source that divulges information from inside the island. It has extensively covered the protests of the last few weeks against constant outages and the growing precarious situation. According to Cibercuba, there have been pot-banging , fires started in the middle of roads, and people taking to the streets regardless of the significant military and police presence.

Though their demands are diverse and sometimes conflicting, protesters in Cuba and the diaspora are united in their response to the same lack of coherence embodied by an unfinished revolution and an authoritarian regime. Unlike the diaspora, protesters on the island largely US intervention. They call for freedom and anti-authoritarianism, yet they never question their own autonomy. They correctly believe that their future is in their hands, more on immediate needs than on challenging the entire economic system. Despite its flaws, the revolution’s accomplishments should be recognized, such as ensuring that and remain for all. 

Taking all of this into account, it’s reasonable to conclude that Cuba is experiencing its most severe economic and social crisis in decades. Nevertheless, Díaz-Canel has taken a defiant position against Washington, considering the one-party political system and the decades of cultural and structural revolution that sustain him. Even as it prepares for potential American aggression, the Cuban government refuses to negotiate its political system and its national sovereignty.

Perspectives from the Island: the case of Beto

I traveled to Cuba for the first and only time in January 2018, spending the first eight days of the year in Havana. I flew from Miami, a route that had only direct service in December 2016. I remember the other passengers, most of whom were not tourists, rushing to stand up as soon as the plane landed. Their urgency seemed to reflect the extraordinary experience of taking a direct flight after decades of needing to take indirect routes, such as via Cancún, or of being unable to travel at all due to visa or the risk of state retaliation for those in exile.

Coming from a place where unlimited internet access was the norm, the intermittent service during that short trip felt unusual. Access was a luxury; you had to go to a hotel or somewhere with Wi-Fi, or buy a $5 data card that lasted 30 minutes. For the majority of Cubans, this was a significant expense, as average monthly salaries among the lowest in the world. According to a 2025 , this digital divide persists as Etecsa, the national telecommunications enterprise, continues to restrict and raise the price of monthly data top-ups.

This atmosphere of restricted access and slow change makes the current shift in US foreign policy feel like a long-awaited opportunity. However, the notion of a tipping point once again reveals its tantalizing and procrastinatory nature. To understand how this pivotal turning point was perceived beyond the official headlines, I reached out to my Cuban friends living abroad.

One of them is Beto, a chef and owner who has lived in Madrid for over 20 years. When he responded on Monday, March 16, he was visiting family in Cuba, 30 minutes outside Havana. He stayed in touch throughout his week-long trip, and I am fortunate to be able to share some of his insights here.

Beto began his testimony by recounting how difficult it was to move around the island. His brother had to buy fuel on the black market just to pick him up from the airport, paying between eight and ten dollars per liter. Beto could only afford this expense because of his life in Spain. This corroborates reports of a severe decline in fuel supply, despite Beto’s testimony that money was circulating. 

On the drive from the airport to his hometown, which usually takes place on a busy highway toward Havana, there were no other cars. In a video he , the empty horizon could be seen in both directions, interrupted only by a car that eventually passed them. According to Beto, the airport itself also felt empty. His Iberia flight, designed to carry over 200 passengers, landed with only 60 people on board. The rental lots were empty, yet filled with cars no one was renting. “Havana doesn’t even have fuel for the planes,” Beto explained. He noted that his flight had to detour to the Dominican Republic just to refuel for the return trip to Madrid. He added that due to limited resources, tourism and travel for non-urgent matters have become extremely difficult these days.

This perception of a shortage is indicative of a broader energy crisis in which access to electricity depends on having the right technology. This takes us back to Diaz-Canel’s recent with Pablo Iglesias. Overall, the Cuban President’s tone was optimistic. Diaz-Canel mentioned that even amid an intensified blockade, Cuba is on the path to energy sovereignty. He highlighted the importance of solar panels, electricity generated from sugarcane fields and the increased use of electric motorcycles for various services, describing all of it as a form of “creative resistance.”

Overall, listening to Beto confirmed both Diaz-Canel’s description of advancements in renewable energy and the fact that it is insufficient. During the most recent national blackout, Beto said that only people near power plants or with solar panels were able to power their electronics. This was the case in his father’s village. To cope with the heat, he said he used a battery-powered fan for up to five hours at a time in his father’s house. A tropical storm on Monday night also helped cool the air.

Based on what he saw and experienced on this trip, the state-run food supply system, which used to equitably distribute food despite its imperfections, has nearly vanished. A new reality has emerged in which private enterprises import food and sell it at higher prices than in Madrid. Beto also shared photos of solar energy kits and kerosene stoves being sold on social media. The flyers provide contact information and state that payments must be made in cash in US dollars, and that delivery is available for an additional cost.

In addition to the photos of electronics, Beto shared a video with me depicting the unique blend of eras and economic systems found on Cuban streets. In the video, bicycle-powered taxis rattle past an old Polish Fiat, an iconic Soviet-era car, that has been modified to include a solar panel on its roof. The car was parked outside a bar called Tómatela Fría, where reggaeton music played from a speaker. During my short visit in 2018, I noticed that music, mostly reggaeton, was always playing on the streets. Seeing that it’s still the norm gave me a sense of reassurance that other reports didn’t.

Throughout the week, Beto and I were able to communicate with each other more than twice a day, albeit intermittently. He relied on airport Wi-Fi or Etecsa offices for internet access. There, you can pay 40 cents an hour for a connection to their Wi-Fi, which is powered by generators. When he described this situation to me, he paused and said it was all a “strange, high-speed transformation caught between socialism and capitalism.” As citizens increasingly take to the streets, Beto’s ambiguity sums up the reality of existing in the long-term middle ground between the two systems that polarized the second half of the 20th century.

As proof of the exceptional circumstances due to intensified protests and government dissent in the days prior, Beto sent a picture showing military helicopters circling overhead and armored vehicles moving through his father’s neighborhood. While the townspeople attempt to maintain a facade of normalcy by selling everyday goods in private stalls, intermittent electricity and the shadow of helicopters serve as constant reminders that the country is transforming into something entirely unknown.

Against this backdrop, Beto told me that when people in Cuba talk about the importance of money from family members abroad, they often ask each other, “¿Tú tienes fe?” While “fe” means “faith” in English, it actually stands for Familiar en el Extranjero, or “family member abroad.” This refers to receiving remittances from places such as Miami or Madrid. The double meaning of faith speaks to the concept of the hybridity of the two systems that Beto mentioned earlier. The anecdote also conveys a sense of truth when considering that faith may be the only unifying factor among the different positions, regardless of the indeterminate results.

The curse of being completely surrounded by water

The curse of being completely surrounded by water condemns me to this café table. If I didn’t think that water encircled me like a cancer, I’d sleep in peace. In the time that it takes the boys to strip for swimming, twelve people have died of the bends … The eternal misery of memory. If a few things were different and the country came back to me waterless, I’d gulp down that misery to spit back at the sky … The uniform of the drowned sailor still floats on the reef. It makes you want to jump out of bed and find the main vein of the sea and bleed it dry.

— The Whole Island, Virgilio Piñera

In closing, I would like to return to Virgilio Piñera’s poem and his words: “The curse of being completely surrounded by water.” In the poem, he also speaks of finding “the main vein of the sea and bleeding it dry,” building to a crescendo of intensity. Following the success of the Revolution, Piñera was one of many intellectuals who initially supported the movement. However, the revolutionary promise soon turned into systematic censorship. Piñera was arrested at the beginning of a period of state repression that intensified throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s.

In his posthumous memoir, (1993), Reinaldo Arenas, a writer of a later generation, explains how he, like Piñera, was imprisoned because of his homosexuality and his stance as a dissident public writer. The title, Before Night Falls, refers to how he had to write by the last rays of sunlight while hiding in parks as a fugitive. It �ɲ�����’t until 1980 that the Cuban state stopped homosexuals criminal figures, and the Ley de Ostentación Homosexual was repealed.

However, prosecutions due to sexual orientation didn’t stop overnight (it was not until 2019 that a new constitution was approved in Cuba that included regarding gender rights, and it �ɲ�����’t until 2022 that same-sex marriage was legalized). Arenas was able to flee during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift , which began when a bus crashed into the Peruvian embassy, causing a massive refugee crisis. To be granted permission to leave through Mariel, Arenas had to “” his homosexuality. He eventually settled in Miami and then New York, where he died by suicide while awaiting death from AIDS in 1990. In his suicide note, he explicitly blamed Fidel Castro for his death.

It’s hard to reconcile heartbreaking stories like Arenas’s with the continued loyalty of other prominent figures. As I have striven to convey in this piece, we find ourselves in limbo, torn between disillusionment and faith. Silvio Rodríguez, a renowned musician, exemplifies the latter. The government recently him a Kalashnikov rifle in recognition of his loyalty. Interestingly, in his popular 1993 song “,” or “the fool,” Rodriguez sang that deciding what the world deems foolishness may also be a stance: “Could it be that foolishness was born with me?/The foolishness of what now seems foolish/The foolishness of embracing the enemy/The foolishness of living without a price.”

On March 16, the day I spoke with Beto, Trump escalated his rhetoric, he could “take Cuba in some form” and do as he pleased there, adding that such a thing would be “an honor.” Once again, when we bring together the rhetoric of Rodríguez and Trump, we feel as though we are traveling in time. As the “giant of the North,” in Martí’s words, confronts Cuba, the island remains caught between the remnants of communism and an emerging informal capitalism. Cubans are resisting creatively, as they always have, even when struggling in the context of an accentuated decades-long blockade. Currently, their system of governance is holding strong, albeit while being cornered in their search for a path forward.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post All Eyes Are on Cuba, and No One Knows How Its Future Could Play Out appeared first on 51�Թ�.

On the screen of a seized cellphone, the country barely fits. It fits in names, invitations, contacts, suggested favors, denied payments, hurried official statements and a succession of messages. Even when they do not prove the crimes the social media mobs crave, they reveal plenty about the environment in which a mid-sized bank was able to grow, seduce, promise, escape and, ultimately, crumble. Banco Master has become a matter for the police, the regulators, the deposit insurance fund, Brasília and the Supreme Court. It is too much of a bank to be mere gossip. There is too much gossip to be just a bank.

The question arose early and bears repeating: What is the true scale of the Banco Master case? Not the — the one that obsesses over helicopters, parties, Coldplay performing at a Sicilian engagement and penthouses for sale on the day of an arrest. The real dimension. The size of the hole. The design of the mechanism. The proximity to power. What has been proven. What remains mere noise. And, above all, what this case tells us about Brazil when the subject is money, oversight and people who learned to circulate where the door should have been bolted.

At first glance, the plot is familiar. A mid-sized bank grows too fast, pays a premium to attract liquidity and bets that the market will continue to believe what is written on its balance sheet. Master was exactly that. But that is not enough. The bank’s collapse turned into a financial, criminal and institutional scandal because it bundled together suspected banking fraud, a multibillion-real bill for the Credit Guarantee Fund (FGC), an investigation into former high-ranking Central Bank officials and a trail of connections that pushed the crisis into the Supreme Court’s (STF) orbit.

The scale and impact of Banco Master

For the international reader, it is best to translate without an excessive accent. Banco Master was not large enough to topple the Brazilian financial system. It was not a “tropical .” But it was large enough to expose significant cracks in how Brazil supervises mid-sized banks, in the almost anesthetic comfort the deposit insurance fund offers investors and in the ancient intimacy between markets, politics and institutions. Had it been liquidated, Master held less than of the country’s banking assets. Still, its failure would trigger an estimated 40.6 billion Brazilian reais from the FGC and affect roughly 800,000 creditors. Less than 1% in size. 40.6 billion Brazilian reals in trouble. The number does the talking.

At the center of the story is , the bank’s controller. Master grew by offering high-yield securities, particularly certificates of deposit (CDs), to retail investors through investment platforms. This model, in itself, is neither a crime nor original. Mid-sized banks do this. They pay more to compete with giants that have the brand, the reach and the comfortable lethargy of loyal clients. The flaw appears when trust begins to fray. When the market believes, a high rate looks like an opportunity. When it stops believing, that same rate smells of desperation.

Here enters one of the Brazilian peculiarities that best explains the speed of expansion. The FGC, though private and funded by the banks themselves, functions in the mind of the average investor as a quasi-public safety net. It generally covers up to 250,000 Brazilian reais per Tax ID per institution. In practice, this produced a dangerous habit: many bought mid-sized bank CDs looking first at the yield and only much later, or never, at the quality of the issuer. The guarantee became a sedative. When Master collapsed, the sedative turned into a debt.

This detail matters because the case is not just about one banker, one bank and eventual fraud. It is also about incentives. When the market learns it can take more risk because an institutional cushion exists, caution evaporates. The investor thinks they are being clever. The platform loves the high-converting product. The bank gains momentum. The entire system kicks the can down the road. Until the day it comes back.

In 2025, the unease surrounding Master ceased to be market gossip and became a visible crisis. Doubts about liquidity and asset quality began to circle the bank. The proposed exit was an with Banco de Brasília (BRB), a state-owned bank controlled by the Federal District government. The plan envisioned BRB purchasing a relevant portion of Master’s assets, specifically the “prime” ones. Suddenly, the banking crisis acquired a political face.

The moment a state-owned bank enters the stage to absorb choice pieces of a troubled private institution, the nature of the debate shifts. It is no longer just about balance sheets. It is about who gets the meat and who is left with the bone. Critics viewed the operation as a transfer of attractive assets to a public institution, with the remaining risk remaining distributed among creditors, investors and the FGC. The operation was eventually stalled by the Courts and later by the Central Bank.

The formal rupture would come on November 18, 2025. On that day, the Central Bank the extrajudicial liquidation of Banco Master, Banco Master de Investimento, Letsbank, and a brokerage firm within the group. The allegation was blunt: “severe liquidity crisis, sharp financial deterioration, and grave infractions of systemic rules.” In the same context, the Federal Police moved forward with investigations into fraud linked to credit securities, and Vorcaro ended up arrested. The Central Bank maintained that there was no systemic risk. Perhaps there �ɲ�����’t. But there was already, by any measure, an institutional disaster.

Extrajudicial liquidation is a technical term for something quite simple: The regulator steps in because the house can no longer explain itself. From there, the dismantling begins — counting assets, attempting recoveries, defining creditors, triggering the guarantee. It is not a movie-style bankruptcy with a judge and slamming drawers. It is an administrative surgery. And every surgery, when it finally arrives, is already too late for those who only wanted a remedy.

Until that point, one could still argue the case was large but sectoral: a supposedly broken bank. A bitter bill; investors scrambling to understand their coverage limits; a regulator trying to convince the country that the fire was contained. Then, the story moved to a different floor.

Regulatory capture and institutional failures

In March 2026, that the investigation had begun targeting two former high-ranking Central Bank officials: Paulo Sergio Neves de Souza, former Director of Supervision, and Belline Santana, former Head of the Department of Bank Supervision. The suspicion is that both may have provided informal counseling to Vorcaro while still occupying or orbiting sensitive roles linked to system oversight. Messages described in the investigation reportedly indicate prior review of regulatory documents, strategic guidance, and signs of attempted influence through gifts and sham consulting contracts. The defense teams deny any wrongdoing. They deny it because they must. But the point has been made.

This is the nerve of the case. If it is proven that a troubled banker received privileged advice from the very person meant to watch him, the problem stops being a banking issue and becomes one of regulatory capture. The technical jargon describes a banal scene of Brazilian life: The inspector begins to behave like a consultant for the inspected. The gate remains in place, but the padlock is already in someone’s pocket.

This is what gives the episode a stature beyond the financial hole. Master may not be the largest bank to fall. It may not yet be the largest scandal in absolute volume. But it touches a more corrosive point: the hypothesis that the control environment itself was contaminated. It is not just the thief lurking around the safe; it is the suspicion of a conversation in the hallway between those who hold the key and those who shouldn’t even know where it is kept.

The Supreme Court’s role and public perception

The crisis reached the Supreme Court. Here, it is wise to take a deep breath, lower the social media adrenaline and separate what exists from the hunger for scandal. In the case of Justice Dias Toffoli, in February that a Federal Police report cited references to him in data extracted from Vorcaro’s phone and mentioned allegations of payments to a company linked to the Justice, along with invitations to social events. Toffoli’s response was objective: He never received payments and never had a relationship with Vorcaro. Later, he reportedly decided to recuse himself and step down as the case’s rapporteur. The STF, in a note signed by its Justices, reportedly expressed personal support for Toffoli, stating there was no legal impediment to his staying, though he preferred to step aside.

Thus far, there is no consolidated public proof of Toffoli’s illicit involvement. There is a reference in investigative material. There is a mention of alleged payments. There is the Justice’s denial. There is a declared recusal. There is reputational damage. But reputational damage is not evidence. In high-profile cases, the difference between the two is usually the first casualty.

With Alexandre de Moraes, the temperature rose through the channel Brazil currently masters best: the partial capture of a message, the accelerated circulation of screenshots and the outsourcing of conclusions to the nearest shouting match. The STF’s was direct. According to a note from the Communication Secretariat, after analyzing the disclosed material, the messages attributed to the context were reportedly not sent to the Justice’s contact, but to others in the banker’s contact list. In plain English: The Supreme Court asserts that the screenshots do not demonstrate communication between Vorcaro and Moraes.

Here, too, the distinction matters. Is there, to date, proven compromising communication involving Moraes? No. Is there enough noise to amplify public suspicion of proximity between the case and the top of the Judiciary? Yes. And this “yes” is enough to contaminate the environment. In institutional matters, the wear and tear does not always come from a proven crime. Sometimes it comes from the combination of suggested contact, a toxic context and a succession of episodes that give the public the feeling that the same old names are, once again, standing too close to the smoke.

This caution is not pedantry. It is method. The case already produces enough noise on its own. There is political, social and institutional proximity suggested by reports, meetings and references in seized material. That exists. It is one of the reasons the case grew so large. But is there, today, airtight public proof of criminal participation by STF Justices? No. What exists in a robust and verifiable way is something else: Toffoli denied payments and links to Vorcaro and recused himself; Moraes denied the messages were directed to him; and the Supreme Court attempted to contain, via official note, the reading of direct contamination of the Court.

This point is decisive because Brazil suffers from a recurring narrative disease: Either everything is mundane, or everything is the greatest conspiracy in history. The Banco Master case needs neither of these crutches. The question of whether it is “the greatest heist and corruption case in Brazilian history” requires a journalistic handbrake. Not yet. What benchmark reporting points to is something more precise and more serious: The episode may become the largest banking fraud in the country’s history and is already treated as a multibillion-real scandal that has shaken the Central Bank’s reputation. This is massive. And it remains different from decreeing, without a verdict or conclusive evidence, that we are facing the largest corruption case in Brazilian history in a broad sense.

However, there is a visual element that helps explain why the case boiled over so quickly outside technical circles: Vorcaro’s lifestyle. Not because luxury proves fraud — it doesn’t. But because excess, when paired with fragile liquidity, suspect assets and asset-tracking, organizes the public imagination with unparalleled efficiency.

Opulence and public outrage

The eventual lifting of the banker’s bank secrecy reportedly revealed arrangements for an event in Sicily featuring performances by Coldplay, David Guetta, and Andrea Bocelli, with an estimated cost of over (roughly 198 million Brazilian reals). The number has the delicacy of a punch. It doesn’t prove the crime. But it offers the exact image of the kind of disconnect that transforms a financial case into an elite soap opera: While the bank sinks into doubt, the controller’s private life seems to operate on the scale of a landlocked principality.

Other episodes bolstered this portrait. Reports surfaced that Vorcaro’s daughter’s 15th birthday party allegedly cost around Brazilian reais. Messages reportedly pointed to a hurried attempt to sell a penthouse in São Paulo for 60 million Brazilian reais on the day of the banker’s first arrest. Brazilian authorities have been tracking luxury real estate, artwork and other assets in Florida linked to Vorcaro and his family in search of asset recovery. Bloomberg Law reported that the bank’s liquidator accuses the controller’s family of participating in a scheme that allegedly diverted over $1 billion from Master, including through luxury assets abroad. An accusation is not a conviction. But an accusation with this profile repositions the case on a different level of gravity.

Money, here, functions less as a moral judgment and more as a dramatic contrast. The point is not to attack champagne, expensive singers or Miami real estate as if the problem were merely bad taste. The point is different. When a bank grows by distributing high-yield securities to small and medium investors under the tranquilizing shadow of the FGC, and later enters liquidation with a 40.6 billion Brazilian real bill for that fund, every display of opulence by the controller begins to function as an involuntary allegory of the system. The party is not the proof. The party is the caption. What is solidly established, even without exaggeration, would already suffice for a major crisis.

The anatomy of a systemic mirror

Banco Master reportedly grew too much and too fast with expensive funding. Its model reportedly depended on the persistent belief that assets and guarantees would withstand the run. An exit via a state-owned bank was attempted. The Central Bank intervened late, according to critics, and technically, according to its own defense. The FGC inherited a multibillion-real bill. And investigations began to describe a network of influence that includes former regulators, political connections and the fringes of the Supreme Court.

The case, therefore, is not just the story of how a mid-sized bank broke. It is the story of how it managed to grow so much, circulate so close to power and produce a hole of this scale without being contained sooner. It is a question about chronology. About complacency. About the selective slowness of institutions. About the old Brazilian habit of treating warning signs as market noise until the truck is already in the living room.

There is also a deeper, perhaps more Brazilian, irony in the anatomy of the case. Master did not topple the system. There was no national banking panic. There was no apocalypse that the jargon-heavy headlines love to anticipate. The system remained standing. And yet, precisely because it was not a systemic collapse, the episode became more revealing. It shows that a bank does not need to be massive to expose a country. It only needs to be ambitious enough, well-connected enough and tolerated for long enough.

In the end, the true dimension of the Banco Master case perhaps lies less in the isolated size of the hole than in the kind of intimacy it revealed. Intimacy between private risk and collective coverage. Between supervision and undue proximity. Between the market and the State. Between the promise sold to the investor and the bill passed to the system. Between regulators’ technical routine and the Brazilian fascination with people who confuse access with immunity.

Institutions look solid from a distance. Up close, they depend on small things: distance, procedure, timing, shame, closed doors, unanswered phone calls. The Master case is the chronicle of an environment in which some of these small things reportedly failed at once. And when they fail together, a mid-sized bank ceases to be just a mid-sized bank. It becomes a mirror. And the country, once again, does not like what it sees.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Master Paradox: How a Mid-Sized Bank Exposed the Cracks In Brazil’s Power appeared first on 51�Թ�.

When impeachment becomes routine

Geurts begins by explaining that presidential turnover in Peru has become normalized. “It has become a kind of a folkloric event to change presidents,” he observes, capturing how this otherwise extraordinary situation has become routine. The immediate triggers may vary, from corruption allegations to political maneuvering, but the underlying mechanism is clear.

Congress holds the decisive lever. With 87 out of 130 votes, lawmakers can remove a president, and since 2016, they have repeatedly exercised that power. Geurts traces this shift to a narrow election that year, when a razor-thin presidential victory collided with a hostile congressional majority aligned with former autocratic President Alberto Fujimori’s political legacy. That confrontation set a precedent. Once Congress realized it could unseat presidents, it began using impeachment as a tool of political strategy rather than a last resort.

From 2000 to 2016, presidents often governed with minority support but survived by negotiating with Congress. That political culture has now eroded, replaced by constant brinkmanship between the two branches.

Presidency weakened, Congress empowered

The result is a system in which the president formally controls the executive but operates under persistent threat. Geurts argues that, in practice, Congress has emerged as the dominant force. Political parties within it act less as coherent ideological blocs and more as shifting alliances, often driven by short-term interests.

This fluidity produces what he describes as a “cat and mouse game” between Congress and the executive. While the president retains the theoretical power to dissolve Congress after repeated votes of no confidence, lawmakers have strong incentives to avoid such outcomes. Many benefit materially from their positions, while others maintain ties to powerful local or even illicit economic networks.

The removal of interim President José Jerí in February illustrates this dynamic. Although the allegations against him — contacts with lobbyists and questionable appointments — were relatively minor by local standards, Congress found a procedural workaround to remove him without the required supermajority. The episode illustrates how politicians often bend legal mechanisms to serve political ends.

Fragmented politics and the 2026 test

Looking ahead, the electoral landscape offers little immediate reassurance. With dozens of parties and candidates, Peru’s political system is highly fragmented. Many parties function less as enduring institutions and more as vehicles built around individual candidates or narrow interests.

Geurts bluntly notes that some of them are backed up by lobbies of informal, sometimes even criminal, sectors. Such fragmentation makes it easier for outsider or disruptive candidates to reach the decisive second round of presidential elections, often without broad-based support.

Still, reforms tied to the 2026 elections may begin to reshape the system. A new electoral threshold will require parties to secure at least 5% of the vote and representation across multiple districts to enter Congress. This could reduce the number of parties and encourage more stable coalitions.

Simultaneously, Peru will return to a bicameral legislature, reintroducing a Senate abolished in the 1990s under Fujimori. In theory, a second chamber could improve the quality of legislation by adding scrutiny. In practice, public skepticism runs deep, with many Peruvians viewing the Senate as little more than an expansion of political patronage.

Peru’s economy defies the chaos

One of the most striking aspects of Peru’s situation is the disconnect between political instability and economic performance. Despite constant leadership changes, the economy has remained relatively stable. Strong institutions, particularly an independent central bank, have insulated monetary policy from political turbulence, while high commodity prices have supported growth.

Geurts recounts a telling remark circulating in the region: “The real president of this country is the president of the central bank.” This reflects both the strength of economic governance and the weakness of political leadership.

Yet this stability has limits. Without a functioning government capable of investing in infrastructure and addressing rising crime, economic growth remains constrained. Analysts suggest that Peru could grow significantly faster under more stable political conditions.

Public frustration without revolt

For ordinary Peruvians, the constant churn in leadership has produced a mix of frustration and resignation. Citizens express dissatisfaction not only with politicians but also with public services, from healthcare and education to infrastructure. Rising crime, particularly extortion in poorer urban areas, has deepened the sense of insecurity.

And yet, widespread unrest has not materialized. Geurts attributes this to a combination of economic resilience and daily necessity. Much of the population works in the informal sector, relying on daily income to survive. As he explains, “They have no time to go to the streets because every day they go to the street, there is no income.”

This tension between dissatisfaction and survival helps sustain the status quo. Peru’s political system may be unstable, but it persists because the conditions for large-scale upheaval have not fully coalesced.

Incremental reforms and institutional adjustments offer some hope for the upcoming elections. But as Geurts cautions, these remain aspirations rather than guarantees. For now, Peru continues to navigate a fragile equilibrium, where political disorder coexists with economic continuity, and where stability remains an open question.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO Talks: Eight Presidents in Ten Years — Peru’s Political Chaos Explained appeared first on 51�Թ�.

These achievements are politically because they concern not only Spanish as a language, but also what the language, music and the artist himself represent. In light of the of violent racism and civil rights against Hispanic, Latinx, Latin American and immigrant individuals in the US, both in and in , recognizing and representing these groups is of the utmost importance.

A cultural moment that challenged national narratives

Bad Bunny’s popularity speaks to the resilience of the Latinx diaspora and the undeniable truth of a multilingual, multicultural and multiracial America. It’s safe to assume that almost every person of Caribbean, Latinx or Latin American descent who watched the halftime show felt emotional and experienced a much-needed sense of pride.

However, US President Donald Trump as a “slap in the face to our country” on his social media account. Based on this characterization of the show, I infer that the president recognizes the halftime show as a challenge to his idea of the nation.

Indeed, it was a slap in the face when considering what Bad Bunny’s masterful performance challenged. The reason for the slap is not because it was “terrible” nor because “nobody understands this guy,” as Trump alleged. No, the performance was a slap in the face because it challenged the long-held beliefs of those who support colonialism and white supremacy.

For a country whose greatness is tied to the dispossession of indigenous populations and immigration, it served as a reality check and a historical reminder. Negating the significance of the performance shows an inability to recognize the large Spanish-speaking population in the US and a lack of insight into the shared history of the Americas.

This collective history includes the fact that indigenous populations in the Americas, including parts of the US, were by Spain before the US existed. Spanish was once a colonial language, but today, it is also a symbol of cultural rebellion against Anglo-imperialist ideals of homogeneity, especially given the racialization and criminalization of Spanish speakers.

In the same social media post mentioned earlier, Trump added that the performance “made no sense.” However, the performance struck a chord precisely because it resonated with a large global audience and was deeply relevant to history.

From viral artist to symbol of the Americas

Through this spectacular production, Bad Bunny showed the world that America has multiple meanings and identities — and that more than one person can define them. Since he first went viral in 2016 with his SoundCloud hit “”, and going from working in a supermarket in San Juan to the multimillionaire he is today, Bad Bunny’s artistic persona reflects the multifaceted, complex and intersectional character of the Americas.

In one of the songs from his 2023 Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana (No One Knows What Tomorrow Will Bring), called “,” Bad Bunny tells the story of how he went from humble beginnings to attending the famous Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix. As he says in , he is hanging out with actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, discussing topics that only billionaires can understand. During the performance hosted by the NFL, when “Monaco” was playing, he delivered a message in Spanish directly to the camera that said, “I never stopped believing in myself. You should also believe in yourself. You’re worth more than you think. Believe me.” Minutes later, he took a moment to whisper, “Puerto Rico, never stop believing in yourself.”

The above parallel between his own journey and that of Puerto Rico is just one example of the many tributes he has paid to his homeland since he began making albums. Bad Bunny’s massive representation has always occurred alongside his public denunciation of Puerto Rico’s involuntary dependency on the US.

For example, “,” a 2018 hit, was the first of many protest songs and Puerto Rican anthems written by Bad Bunny. The song alludes to the messages that Puerto Ricans sent to their loved ones in the diaspora after the caused by Hurricane Maria, which exposed the island’s structural neglect. These anthems, along with some of his public statements and at protests, are a lesser-known aspect of his fame. His unique, melodic, gravelly voice and his ability to blend depth and emptiness in his lyrics with Afro-Caribbean rhythms sometimes overshadow his activism. However, his cultural relevance has caught the attention of academics. Numerous panels, and have been developed around him.

In addition to taking a political stance on Puerto Rico, many of his greatest hits, such as “” and “,” focus on the freedom to express gender and sexuality, central themes to his popularity. All of these songs were featured in the halftime show. However, his latest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, was the key focus in the show’s production. This is noteworthy because the album on the disputed history of Puerto Rican sovereignty. Given the resurgence of imperialism under the Trump administration, the fate of Puerto Rico becomes particularly relevant. This resurgence is evident in Trump’s renewed territorial expansionist efforts, such as his interest in and his interventionism abroad, as seen in .��

Puerto Rico has remained the last occupied Spanish-speaking territory since Italian explorer Christopher Columbus set foot on the island in 1492, and the US the island from Spain in 1898. After invading the island, the US made Puerto Rico a free-associated state, granting some rights but taking many others away. These include the right to vote in US elections and, most importantly, the right to national sovereignty. In this regard, the “Lo que le pasó a Hawái” or “What Happened to Hawaii” is one of the most powerful in Debí Tirar Más Fotos, as it conveys the hope that Puerto Rico won’t suffer the same fate as Hawaii and be forced into US statehood.

The nation’s is a contested subject in Puerto Rico and the US Congress. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, has been one of the most advocates of the Self-Determination Bill, and Puerto Ricans have held displaying the complexities and divisiveness of existing in the ambiguity between statehood and self-determination. As I mentioned earlier, Bad Bunny has long advocated for Puerto Rican independence. For example, he has publicly that he “would never want to see Puerto Rico become a state.”

Cultural pride and memory on the halftime stage

Another major theme of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance was his tribute to and recognition of the Puerto Rican, Latinx and Caribbean communities in the US. Through props and imagery, the production not only denounced a long history of resistance to cultural homogenization and erasure but also honored the profound influence of the diaspora on the US’s cultural heritage and social fabric.

For example, Bad Bunny brought the iconic Highland Park Mexican in Los Angeles to the stage, while also paying homage to the importance of the Caribbean in New York City and to the development of Latinx music genres based there, such as salsa. During his halftime performance of “,” the stage was designed to resemble a classic New York street, featuring a bodega next to a Dominican barbershop. The song opens with a remix of “Si te quieres divertir, solo tienes que vivir un verano en Nueva York” by the El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, which translates to “If you want to have fun, you only have to spend one summer in New York.”

With all eyes on him during the performance of “Nuevayol,” Bad Bunny sang about one of the city’s attractions, “Un shot de cañita en casa de Toñita,” as Toñita, the octogenarian heart and soul of the last Caribbean in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, handed him a drink. As he gradually became the global phenomenon he is today, Bad Bunny made rare appearances at this small social club, located in a Nuyorican neighborhood on the verge of , in the heart of trendy, homogenized Williamsburg.

Bringing Toñita to center stage at the halftime show in San Francisco embodies the struggle of Latinx and Caribbean diaspora communities against gentrification, developers, and other forms of attempts at erasure. Just as the Caribbean Social Club provides a physical and symbolic space for the hispanophone immigrant community, the opening scene of the original “Nuevayol” music video features the Puerto Rican flag flying atop the Statue of Liberty — a well-known entry point for immigrants. In line with the overall sentiment of the song, this tribute to the 1977 Puerto Rican Nationalist of the statue also signals the legitimacy of the immigrant presence in the US.

Bad Bunny’s portrayal of the Nuyorican experience is part of the broader history of the Puerto Rican diaspora’s grassroots activism and art. The first large wave of Puerto Rican immigration to New York in the 1950s. This set the stage for a vibrant second generation of Nuyorican artists and activists who flourished in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, the Nuyorican Poets established a groundbreaking hub for slam poetry in the Lower East Side, and the Young Lords was a pivotal civil rights group. One of the Young Lords’ most notable protests against the lack of public services in their neighborhoods occurred in 1968 when they took over a Methodist church in Harlem and converted it into a daycare center. Given this history, Bad Bunny’s proud representation of Boricuas in the US cements his position within the long tradition of Latinx artists and activists who have fought against the neglect and of their communities while raising awareness through protest art.

Similarly to how Bad Bunny made his way into the most popular American sporting event despite the longstanding institutional exclusion of those he represents, Nuyorican and Latinx communities have historically forged numerous artistic and cultural paths. As previously mentioned, the confluence of rhythms and ethnicities in New York City’s cultural landscape laid the groundwork for the creation of salsa, the most globally influential Latinx genre to date. Although salsa rhythms originated in Cuba and Puerto Rico, the genre did not become established until the founding of the Brooklyn-based , which made 1960’s New York central to its formation.��

In Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos, salsa takes center stage as he blends orchestral salsa with Puerto Rican , as well as his upscale reggaeton and dembow production styles. Of all the songs on the album, “,” meaning “unforgettable dance,” stands out because it reinterprets and reestablishes the genre. During the halftime show, “Baile Inolvidable” followed Lady Gaga’s performance of a salsa-inspired version of her hit “Die with a Smile.” Bad Bunny danced to “Baile Inolvidable” with Lady Gaga, symbolizing a sense of binational and bilingual unity through rhythm and dance. In several early , before achieving (and maybe even surpassing) Gaga’s global fame, Bad Bunny Lady Gaga as his biggest idol. Their Super Bowl collaboration sends a message of unity and serves as a testament to Bad Bunny’s success story.

A moment of justice: Ricky Martin and the politics of language

His second guest was his fellow Puerto Rican, Ricky Martin. Martin is an iconic Latino artist from a previous generation who “La Copa de la Vida” at the 1999 Super Bowl. The National Football League made him translate the song to “The Cup of Life.” Because Ricky Martin �ɲ�����’t allowed to sing in Spanish in the ‘90s, his a cappella performance of “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii” during Bad Bunny’s halftime show has been called an “.” This moment of vindication alone conveys the symbolic intensity of the entire show.

Right before Ricky Martin’s emotional performance, we saw Bad Bunny give his Grammy to a young child and whisper, “Puerto Rico, cree siempre en ti.” The camera stayed on the child for a moment, allowing us time to reflect. Some that the boy represented either Bad Bunny’s past self or Puerto Rico. Others speculated that he was Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old boy who was infamously detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and later . Although the child was an actor, the speculation sheds light on what was on people’s minds as they watched the performance.

Shortly after the shot of the child holding the Grammy Award, Martin’s voice is heard singing the chilling words: “Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa, quieren el barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya. No sueltes la bandera,” which translates to “They want to take my river and my beaches. They want my neighborhood and my grandma to leave. Don’t let go of the flag.” Soon after, Bad Bunny is seen holding a large Puerto Rican flag in the middle of a sugarcane field. The flag is light blue instead of the official darker shade. Incidentally, this flag was from 1948 to 1957 due to laws intended to suppress Puerto Rican nationalism. This moment of him in the field holding the unofficial flag resonates, as stated, with his long-term making of protest anthems.

One such protest anthem is the hit “” (or “The Blackout”), in which a female voice states the same sentiment as in “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii” with the words “No me quiero ir de aquí, que se vayan ellos,” or “I don’t want to leave, let them be the ones to go.” Furthermore, the official video of the song features a short documentary on the human impacts that foreign interests have had on the island.

The song “El Apagón” also has its own epic moment in the Super Bowl. As dancers dressed as sugarcane workers climb electric posts, Bad Bunny sings, “Everyone wants to be Latino, but they lack flavor, energy and reggaetón.” The 2022 version of the song is a testimony to the long-lasting aftermath of Hurricane María in 2017 and the insufficient US aid that left the island without electricity for days. “El Apagón” immediately became an anthem and a form of historical memory for the island’s neglect.

In addition to exposing the unequal and racialized distribution of public aid, the song unveils a centuries-long, systemic colonial worldview. Both “Lo que le pasó a Hawai” and “El Apagón” epitomize what groundbreaking Black feminist scholar Bell Hooks termed “imperialist nostalgia” in her 1992 Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance. This concept describes the paradox by which imperialism destroys and enslaves conquered territories while simultaneously idolizing and mystifying them as paradises to be exploited and visited, or as fashionable aesthetics to be imitated. Thus, the idea that “everyone wants to be Latino” carries significant implications.

“Seguimos Aquí”: identity, sovereignty and the power of presence

Toward the end of the halftime show, a group of flag-holders takes the stage and surrounds the , a signature prop from his latest world tour. From the overhead camera view, we see all the flags being raised. First is the US flag, followed by the Puerto Rican flag and then the flags of all the other nations in the Americas. Throughout the show, we have seen flags emerge as a recurring theme in the symbols employed to vindicate national identity and self-determination. After focusing on the flags, the camera moves to Benito, who is grabbing a football.��

Holding the football, he begins, “God bless America.” Then he continues, “Be it Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and so on.” Bad Bunny made a point of acknowledging all the countries in the Americas. He did so with a traveling shot, walking toward the viewer while continuing to carry the football and looking into the camera the entire time. In the still photo of the larger composition, the flags surround him in the background. Further back, a neon sign reads, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” These are the same words he when he received the 2026 Best Album Grammy, directly addressing ICE’s actions toward immigrants and protesters. In addition to what the larger frame shows, listing all the nations asserts their identities and their right to be recognized as sovereign entities with horizontal relationships with one another.

Though not at the top, the US was included on the list of countries stretching from south to north, appearing just before Canada. After finishing the list, he held up the football he had been holding and displayed a message written on it. He then read the message aloud: “Seguimos aquí,” which means “We are still here.” By making a touchdown gesture with the ball, a symbol of victory, Bad Bunny physically expressed the same message written in “Seguimos aquí,” which encapsulates the unwavering presence of Latinx communities in the face of ongoing supremacist, colonial and imperialist endeavors.

The triumphant touchdown momentarily resolved the debate over whether the halftime show was an affront or a source of pride. For at least one cinematic moment, Benito and those he represents claimed victory. “Seguimos aquí” is written in the present tense, expressing the idea of always having been there and a sense of continuity. The surrounding the halftime show ultimately serves as a reminder of historical power struggles over narratives, such as those concerning the use of Spanish and the right to occupy spaces of representation. Despite the government and armed forces’ attempts to undermine indigenous sovereignty and fundamental civil rights, Bad Bunny’s halftime performance shone as a much-needed moment of beauty and vindication.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Bad Bunny’s Record-Breaking Popularity Proves That Latinos are Paving the Way in the Americas appeared first on 51�Թ�.

“You can’t imagine how it touches every part of our lives,” she sobbed. “It’s a vicious, all-encompassing spiral downward. With no gasoline, buses don’t run, so we can’t get to work. We have only three to six hours a day. There’s no gas for cooking, so we’re burning wood and charcoal in our apartments. It’s like going back 100 years. The blockade is suffocating us — especially single mothers,” she said, crying into her hands. “And no one is stopping these demons: Trump and Marco Rubio.”

We came to Holguín to deliver 2,500 pounds of lentils, thanks to fundraising by CODEPINK and the Cuban-American group Puentes de Amor. On our last trip, we brought 50-pound bags of powdered milk to the children’s hospital. With Trump now imposing a brutal, medieval siege on the island, this humanitarian aid is more critical than ever. But lentils and milk cannot power a country. What Cubans really need is oil.

Cuban costs

There were no taxis at the airport. We hitchhiked into town on the truck that came to pick up the donations. The road was eerily empty. In the city, there were few gas-powered cars and no buses running, but the streets were full of bicycles, electric motorcycles and three-wheeled electric vehicles used to transport people and goods. Most of the motorcycles — Chinese, Japanese or Korean in manufacture — are shipped in from Panama. With a price tag near $2,000, only those with family abroad sending remittances can afford them.

Cubans don’t pay rent or have mortgages; they own their homes. And while national healthcare has deteriorated badly in recent years because of shortages of medicines and equipment, it remains . This system is gasping but not abandoned. When my partner, Tighe, had an asthma attack, we went to the clinic and he was breathing in albuterol mist from a nebulizer within minutes. No insurance forms, no bill, just care delivered competently with a smile. That’s what health care looks like when it’s treated as a human right.

The biggest expense for Cubans is . Markets are stocked, but prices are out of reach — especially for coveted items like pork, chicken and milk. Even tomatoes are now unaffordable for many families.

Holguín was once known as the breadbasket of Cuba because of its rich agricultural land. That reputation took a severe hit last year when Hurricane Melissa through the province, destroying vast areas of crops. Replanting and repairing the damage without gasoline for tractors or electricity for irrigation is nearly impossible. Less food means higher prices.

Production across the economy is grinding to a halt. Factories can’t function without electricity, and many skilled workers have given up their state jobs because wages are so low. Jorge, whom I met selling bologna in the market, used to be an engineer at a state enterprise. Verónica, once a teacher, now sells sweets she bakes at home — when the power is on. Ironically, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims he wants to bring capitalism to Cuba, US sanctions are the very private sector that most Cubans now depend on to survive.

Blame and survival

I talked to people on the street who blame the Cuban government for the crisis and openly say they can’t wait for the fall of communism. Young people told me that their goal is to leave the island and live somewhere they can make a decent living. But I didn’t meet a single person who supported the blockade or a US invasion.

“This government is terrible,” said a thin man who changes money on the street — an illegal but tolerated activity. But when I showed him a photo of Rubio, he didn’t hesitate. “That man is the devil. A self-serving, slimy politician who doesn’t give a damn about the Cuban people.”

Others put the blame squarely on the US. They point to the dramatic improvement in their lives after US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro reached an and Washington eased many sanctions in 2014–2016. “It was the same Cuban government we have now,” one man told me, “but when the US loosened the rope around our necks, we could breathe. If they just left us alone, we could find our own solutions.”

Cubans are only surviving this siege because they help one another. They trade rice for coffee with neighbors. They improvise, saying the phrase, “no hay, pero se resuelve” (“we don’t have much, but we make it work”). The government provides daily meals for the most vulnerable — the elderly, the disabled, mothers with no income — but it becomes harder each day as the state has less food to distribute and less fuel to cook with.

At one feeding center, an elderly volunteer told us he spends hours every day scavenging for firewood. He presented us with a chunk of a wooden pallet, nails and all. “This guarantees tomorrow’s meal,” he stated, his face caught somewhere between pride and sorrow.

Can Cuba endure?

So how long can Cubans hold on as conditions worsen? And what is the endgame?

When I asked people where this is leading, they had no idea. Rubio wants regime change, but no one can explain how that would happen or who would replace the current government. Some speculate a deal could be struck with Trump. “Make Trump the minister of tourism,” a hotel clerk commented, only half-joking. “Give him a hotel and a golf course — a Mar-a-Lago in Varadero — and maybe he’d leave us alone.”

Who will win this demonic game that Trump and Rubio are playing with the lives of eleven million Cubans?

Ernesto, who fixes refrigerators when the power is on, places his bet on the Cuban people. “We’re rebels,” he told me. “We defeated Batista in 1959. We survived the Bay of Pigs. We endured the when the Soviet Union collapsed, and we were left with nothing. We’ll survive this, too.”

He summed it up with a Cubans know by heart, from the great songwriter Silvio Rodríguez: “El tiempo está a favor de los pequenos, de los desnudos, de los olvidados” — “Time belongs to the small, the exposed, the forgotten.”

In the long sweep of time, endurance outlasts domination.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Suffocating an Island: What the US Blockade Is Doing to Cuba appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Six years ago, the US government stimulated scenarios following the fall of Maduro, predicting societal and infrastructural collapse. Now, the world is a version of that scenario unfold in real time. Trump’s pledge of “no new wars” is being tested by the dramatic US military operation on January 3, 2026, in Caracas, resulting in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Administration officials have since teased the possibility of further military action if Venezuela fails to cooperate with US demands, including oil resources and political transition.

Proximity changes everything

Since the infamous kidnapping of Maduro, the US government has mobilized its communications efforts to counter domestic and international backlash. Trump’s initial strike on drug trafficking boats in the escalated into an oil and now direct military involvement. 

Mainstream outlets like and have drawn direct comparisons to the excuse used for former US President George W. Bush’s 2003 of Iraq. Whether or not Trump recognizes these comparisons, Venezuela’s proximity to the US fundamentally alters risks. Unlike distant Middle East conflicts Americans experienced during the War on Terror, war here could spill closer to home and increase the risks of conventional war on our continent. Such a conflict would directly threaten US national security and regional stability and spell out long-term hemispheric chaos. 

It would likely trigger mass displacement and intensify refugee flows towards the border, straining border infrastructure, law enforcement and local humanitarian systems. Yuma, Arizona, as a cautionary example: During the 2021–2022 migrant surge, border patrol agents, local hospitals and food banks were overwhelmed. A larger influx of migrants also leaves room for transnational crime, trafficking and cartel expansion. US war games guerrilla-style attacks on oil refineries and prolonged conflict, similar to the sectarian that followed Bashar al-Assad’s fall in Syria.

Within Venezuela, this could shatter remaining institutions and destabilize surrounding countries like Colombia and Brazil, which are geographically even closer to the US. It also opens a space for American adversaries to play the “hero” and establish a stronghold in the hemisphere. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already weapons as a sign of support, in the way he did with Assad in Syria, which secured permanent military bases. China, as Venezuela’s buyer of crude oil, has extended support to the Maduro-aligned leadership amid the blockade.

Regime change efforts offer stark warnings from recent history. In Syria, the that once surrounded the fall of Assad in late 2024 is with the explosion of and of vengeance killings of minorities — the Druze, Christians and Alawites — often downplayed by the transitional government under Ahmed al-Sharaa. Western leaders are choosing to avoid embarrassment from a “former” in the first place. 

In Iraq, the US involvement toppled Saddam Hussein but unleashed years of destruction in the political and city infrastructure after American withdrawal. US military intervention has rarely produced any democratic or positive outcomes for the local populations, and chances are high that it’ll be the same in Venezuela.

Pragmatic solutions

A more effective alternative to hemispheric stability is economically incentivized negotiation. Sanction relief, access to US markets, mediation and other calibrated pressures have delivered results in cases like the normalization agreements and the Iran nuclear framework. These approaches could align with �Ѳ���ܰ���’s recent public appeals for “peace, not war,” including his recent of John Lennon’s “Imagine” at a November 2025 rally.

President Trump should align US interests with regional stability rather than try to justify a new conflict with the oil , proving his adversaries right about the well-being of Americans being last on his administration’s list.

Moving forward

War at our borders is nothing like war in the Middle East. Americans would feel the direct striking consequences, such as refugee pressures and criminal spillover. Unilaterally to run another sovereign country a concrete plan for democratic transition or a clear exit strategy undermines civilian protections abroad and heightens danger at home. 

Strategic restraint has been absent from US foreign policy for too long. At this moment, serious diplomacy — not reckless escalation — is urgently needed.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post War With Venezuela Risks Hemispheric Destabilization appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Trump’s precision operation

Vivas outlines the scale and sequencing of the Operation Absolute Resolve, which involved a large US naval presence in the Caribbean, strikes on drug-trafficking routes and the interception of oil shipments bound for China, India and Cuba. The final phase unfolded in the early hours of Saturday, January 3, when US forces launched a helicopter raid on Fuerte Tiuna, �Ѳ���ܰ���’s heavily guarded residential compound in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.

According to Vivas, the operation’s success depended on surprise, intelligence and timing. The compound, often misunderstood as a single residence, is closer to a fortified city, staffed largely by Cuban security personnel rather than Venezuelan forces. When Delta Force units moved in, resistance collapsed quickly. Around 40 Cuban guards were killed, while US forces reportedly suffered no casualties.

Khattar Singh notes the global disbelief that followed the first videos on social media, which many assumed were fabricated. The lack of visible resistance and the speed of the operation made the outcome appear almost unreal. For Vivas, however, the operation reflected months of preparation and a clear strategic intent. It also demonstrated that Washington was willing to act unilaterally and decisively, outside traditional diplomatic frameworks.

Betrayal at the top

The operation raises a central question: Why did Venezuela’s military and political elite fail to respond? Vivas argues that key figures inside the regime may have facilitated �Ѳ���ܰ���’s downfall to preserve their own survival.

He points to the rise of Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as acting president and the continued influence of her brother, President of the National Assembly of Venezuela Jorge Rodríguez, who has long overseen negotiations with both the US and the Venezuelan opposition. In Vivas’s view, the absence of resistance suggests coordination rather than paralysis. As he puts it, “They just double-crossed Maduro, and they just offered him on a platter.”

Formally, the Rodríguez leadership condemned the operation, but Vivas argues this response was largely performative. In practice, the interim leadership is operating under intense US pressure, particularly over oil exports and revenues. Control of shipments, escrow accounts and destinations effectively places Venezuela’s most important economic lever under external supervision.

This arrangement, Vivas suggests, explains the regime’s internal fragility. Those excluded from the alleged conspiracy now face a serious query: If Maduro was expendable, who is safe? Sporadic unrest by paramilitary groups and armed colectivos reflects this underlying uncertainty.

Oil as leverage, not salvation

Oil dominates the strategic logic of the operation, but Vivas cautions against assuming a rapid recovery of Venezuela’s energy sector. Production has fallen from a peak of 3.3 million barrels per day to roughly 900,000. Refineries are degraded, infrastructure has collapsed and the country now imports gasoline from Iran.

Even with the world’s largest proven reserves, Venezuela’s oil is heavy and technically demanding. Restarting production requires years of investment, advanced processing and institutional stability. Vivas estimates that meaningful recovery would take at least two to three years, even under favorable conditions.

He is skeptical that US energy companies, beyond Chevron Corporation, will commit serious capital. Property rights remain uncertain, inflation approached 700% by the end of 2025 and Venezuela carries massive sovereign and corporate debt. In a global market with ample supply and soft prices, Venezuela is a high-risk proposition. Oil, in this context, functions less as an economic windfall than as a geopolitical bargaining chip.

Venezuela’s uncertain future

�Ѳ���ܰ���’s removal delivers a major blow to Russia, which had supplied Venezuela’s arms and valued it as a strategic foothold near the United States. Vivas argues that Moscow stands to lose the most, noting that “the one that loses more is Russia.” China, by contrast, appears more adaptable, shifting its energy focus toward neighboring Guyana while gradually reducing its exposure to Venezuela.

Regionally, the operation sends a warning. Leaders in Colombia, Brazil and beyond are forced to reassess Washington’s tolerance for defiance. Vivas describes Trump’s negotiating style as coercive but transactional, recalling that “once you put the gun on the table, then you go and negotiate.”

Looking ahead, Vivas expresses sympathy for Venezuela’s democratic opposition but remains pragmatic. “I would love that Edmundo �ҴDzԳ�á����� Urrutia, who is the legitimately elected president of Venezuela, could take power,” he says, yet he doubts that such a transition is currently sustainable. Chavista forces — supporters of late Venezuelan President Hugo ���á�����, whose ideologies Maduro carried on — still dominate the military, judiciary and security services, while non-state armed actors further complicate the landscape.

For now, Venezuela’s future hinges on whether the interim leadership carries out reforms under US pressure and whether those reforms are meant as genuine change or merely a survival strategy. The outcome remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: Power projection, not diplomacy, has reshaped the Venezuelan equation — and the effects will extend far beyond Caracas.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Trump, Maduro and Oil: How the Venezuela Operation Redefines American Power appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Operation Absolute Resolve

Bouchard describes Operation Absolute Resolve, a tightly executed raid in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas involving US Delta Force, the CIA and US Southern Command. He says the raid included low-altitude Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters, precision strikes on select military and political targets, and a rapid extraction of Maduro and Flores. Khattar Singh notes there are no reported US casualties so far, while reporting suggests dozens of deaths on the Venezuelan side, with many reportedly Cuban security personnel.

Bouchard’s assessment separates tactics from strategy. While he disagrees with the broader objectives, he characterizes the speed and coordination as startlingly effective, noting “how quick it was, how seamless it was.” Khattar Singh emphasizes the “live” aspect of the moment: a head of state being seized in a social media environment where evidence of major clashes would surface quickly if they occurred.

The Venezuelan military’s silence and Cuba’s role

A major thread is what neither man can yet explain with confidence: the apparent absence of Venezuelan military resistance. Khattar Singh points out that Maduro previously showcased air power in public drills, including General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon jets and Russian Sukhoi aircraft, yet “not a single jet” appears to have been scrambled during the raid. Bouchard agrees, saying, “we’ll only know the complete truth in 10, 20 years when they declassify.”

He offers multiple working theories. One possibility is restraint from the top. Maduro may have calculated that direct engagement would trigger a larger US occupation and decided survival of the broader regime mattered more than fighting for his own position. Another possibility is a deeper compromise inside the system, including the idea that key figures were “flipped,” bought off or instructed to stand down.

On the ground, Bouchard links the reported casualties to a longstanding security dynamic. He argues Maduro distrusted portions of his own apparatus and relied heavily on Cuban protection. Purges in the Venezuelan military and inner circle may have created incentives to outsource security to personnel seen as more loyal, disciplined and ideologically reliable. That might explain why the fiercest resistance, to the extent it occurred, appears to have come from Cubans guarding the presidential residence rather than from regular Venezuelan forces.

Proxy governance and Machado’s sidelining

After the capture, Maduro was reportedly transferred first to �ҳܲ��Գ�á�Բ����� Bay and then to New York to face charges tied to narco-terrorism. Bouchard explains the administration’s public framing. It is presented as a law-enforcement operation to apprehend a wanted fugitive with a bounty, reinforced by “War on Terror” language meant to widen legal and political cover.

But he argues those charges function as a pretext rather than the true driver. In his telling, narco-terrorism rhetoric echoes earlier US justifications for force and is designed to make a dramatic action feel procedurally legitimate.

The conversation then shifts to who runs Caracas now. Bouchard says Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez assumes control with backing from the ruling party, while Washington signals it can pressure her to comply. He also says the CIA may prefer governing “by proxy” rather than mounting a full occupation, keeping the state machinery intact enough to maintain stability and oil production while making leadership responsive to US demands.

That framework sets up the politically awkward question of María Corina Machado. This well-known opposition figure appears absent from the immediate post-raid arrangement. US President Donald Trump has commented that Machado lacks domestic respect and reads it as intentional sidelining. Bouchard floats several explanations: Trump’s personal grudges, the optics problem of installing a figure whose pro-oil messaging has been highly public and an intelligence preference for a less overt “coup signature” that does not inflame chavista supporters or provoke regional backlash.

The “Donroe Doctrine”

Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” as many call it, is a more aggressive Monroe Doctrine posture in a multipolar world. Bouchard says the administration’s rhetoric toward Mexico, Colombia and Brazil has sharpened, with leaders branded as “narcos,” “terrorists” or “communists.” He identifies Mexico and Colombia as the most immediate focus, noting operational feasibility in Mexico and sharper ideological confrontation in Colombia.

Bouchard frames Colombian President Gustavo Petro as uniquely defiant, predicting intense resistance to US pressure. He also points to the diplomatic and financial tools Washington already uses: visa revocations, cuts to security cooperation, and pressure campaigns that can escalate alongside military threats. Cuba enters as a separate but related case, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s long-standing hard line and renewed talk that Cuba’s capital of Havana could be next.

But what is the Trump administration’s motive? Bouchard argues drugs and migration work as political messaging, but he doubts they explain the policy reality. He notes fentanyl supply chains point primarily to Mexico and China, not Venezuela, and he questions the logic of using military force as a standard response to trafficking. From his perspective, the center of gravity has shifted to oil, gold and strategic denial of China’s access to Venezuelan energy. “I think this is about money,” he states.

The final exchange broadens to Beijing’s next move if Venezuela is effectively closed off. Bouchard suggests China may look harder at Mexico, Colombia and Brazil for energy and commodity access. He also notes that Washington has floated sanctions against exporters to China and Russia. For Khattar Singh and Bouchard, the situation reads as a signpost of an emerging order where major powers increasingly enforce spheres of influence, raising the stakes for Latin America as a contested strategic zone rather than a secondary theater.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: The Donroe Doctrine: Will Trump Go After Mexico, Colombia and Brazil? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

For three decades, many in Washington saw the post-1945 order in very different terms. The American political thinker Robert Kagan famously described it as a��“” — an artificial space of relative peace and prosperity, fenced off from the global “jungle” of historical great-power rivalry and tended by US power and alliances. The job of American statecraft, in this view, was to keep the garden alive: expand its borders cautiously, prune its institutions and keep predators at bay.

Trump’s Venezuela operation marks a break with that metaphor. This is not Iraq 2003. There is no talk of a broad “coalition of the willing,” of democratization or of weapons of mass destruction. There is an indictment in a US court, a helicopter raid and an to restore Venezuelan oil production under US guidance — “we’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” as Trump put it. The logic is not Wilsonian gardening; it is frankly transactional destroyer-boat diplomacy.

For Trump and his advisers, Venezuela is a test case of a new Monroe Doctrine updated for the twenty-first century: shut out China and Russia, discipline unruly left-wing governments in the hemisphere and secure cheap resources and leverage over migration and narcotics flows. The National Security Strategy’s “” spells this out: Latin America is to be kept “free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets,” and governed by regimes that “cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations.”

Trump’s Venezuela move vindicates neither the liberal center nor its most strident critics. It reveals, instead, how much of our politics — on the populist right and, in a different way, on parts of the left — has slipped back into a geopolitical language of spheres of influence and transactional deals. And it sends a powerful signal to other autocrats, especially in Moscow and Beijing, that the old rule-book of territorial carve-ups may be back in business.

The new Monroe Doctrine as transactional geopolitics

From the White House’s standpoint, the case for attacking Venezuela has shifted over time. Maduro was first as a narcoterrorist heading the so-called Cartel de los Soles; the Justice Department in 2020, and Trump placed a bounty on his head. But specialists in counternarcotics have long questioned whether that organization exists in the form described, and the administration has not presented a clear threat to US national security that would meet UN Charter standards for the use of force.

In practice, the more compelling explanation is strategic and commercial. The new National Security Strategy asserts the right — indeed the necessity — for the US to dominate the Western Hemisphere, keep out extra-regional powers, and secure access to energy and critical minerals. Trump has been unusually blunt about wanting control of Venezuelan oil, which he insists rightly belongs to US companies and, by extension, to American consumers and “the people of Venezuela” once they align with Washington.

This is an old pattern in new clothes. President James Monroe’s 1823 doctrine warned European powers not to meddle in the Americas; President Theodore Roosevelt it into a charter for gunboat diplomacy and “international police power” in the Caribbean and Central America. Trump’s version adds 21st-century targets: Chinese loans, ports and telecoms; Russian military advisers, bases and energy stakes.

What’s missing is any sustained concern with Venezuelan democracy. Washington is sidelining opposition figures like María Corina Machado and Edmundo �ҴDzԳ�á����� — widely seen as the rightful winners of the 2024 Venezuelan election — in favor of a “transition” negotiated with elements of the Maduro regime and US energy firms, with Trump announcing that the US will “run” Venezuela for now. Even sympathetic analysts warn that there is no coherent “day after” plan and that a dash to restart oil production could trigger a scramble for assets and a new cycle of corruption and conflict.

This is regime change, but not in the Iraq mold. It is closer to what The New Statesman “a new era of rogue superpowers,” in which great powers overtly claim regional spheres as their own and use pretexts — drug trafficking, terrorism, separatism — to justify “snatch-and-grab” operations against unfriendly leaders.

From Lebensraumto the “Donroe Doctrine”

Seen in this light, Trump’s Venezuela operation is not an aberration but an extension of a much older tradition of thinking about space and power. In late-19th-century Germany, figures like German geographer and ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel and Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén drew on German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel’s popularized Darwinism to describe states as organisms competing for space. Ratzel coined the term����to capture the territorial conditions a people needed to flourish; Kjellén of the state as a living being whose borders were never permanently fixed. This intellectual climate helped normalize the idea that great powers were entitled to expand at the expense of weaker neighbors.

German political geographer and his interwar school of��Geopolitik��popularized a language of heartlands, buffer zones and pan-regions — “continental blocks” and civilizational spheres that should be organized under a dominant power. The legal and conceptual term���Ұ���ß�����ܳ� — a large space ordered around a hegemon — was developed most systematically by the conservative jurist��Carl Schmitt, whose on international law in the late 1930s justified regional spheres under German leadership and attacked universalist notions of sovereignty. Haushofer provided the maps and rhetoric; Schmitt provided the juridical theory.

Together, they portrayed Germany as a cramped “middle state” unjustly constrained by Versailles, surrounded by hostile powers and lacking the living space that Britain, France and the US had achieved through empire. This story resonated far beyond the far right.

German Dictator Adolf Hitler radicalized it into a necropolitical program: Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia, was to be cleared and resettled to secure German existence for a “thousand years.” Political activist and Marxist Franz Neumann, in his powerful 1942 analysis of the Nazi state,��, saw clearly that geopolitics in this guise was not a neutral science but “nothing but the ideology of imperialist expansion” — a language that made war over territory seem natural, even inevitable.

After 1945, this vocabulary became disreputable in Europe, but the underlying logic persisted elsewhere. The Soviet Union asserted a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe; the US asserted one in the Americas. Monroe’s hemispheric exclusion and Schmitt’s �Ұ���ß�����ܳ� ideas found an echo across ideological lines. Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” speaks directly to that heritage. He is explicit that the Western Hemisphere is America’s unquestioned domain, where “nonhemispheric competitors” such as China and Russia are to be denied serious footholds. He is equally open about wanting a sphere that matches, symbolically, those of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The goal is not a rules-based order but a negotiated cartel of empires.

What the right misunderstands — and what the left forgets

A powerful strain of the populist right — including Trump himself — embraces this shift. In Trump’s practice, “America First” has meant not pure isolationism, but��mercantilist hard-power politics within a self-defined sphere: over drugs and migration; Colombia and Brazil with tariffs and sanctions; flirt with the idea of or making Canada the “”; and now, physically remove an unfriendly leader in Caracas.

Alongside this, there is indeed a genuinely isolationist current in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) coalition — voices who want to cut aid to Ukraine, avoid confrontation with Iran or China, and focus exclusively on domestic culture wars. The Tucker Carlson/“no more foreign wars” is real. But when push has come to shove, Trump’s own version has dominated: rhetorical Fortress America at home, selective coercion and deal-making abroad, especially in what he considers “our” hemisphere.

The right’s critique of the post-1990 order is not entirely wrong. It is true that globalization eroded the industrial base of many communities, that liberal interventionism produced disasters in Iraq and Libya, and that US elites have too often cloaked raw power in lofty rhetoric. What is wrong is the conclusion: that the cure is to abandon alliances, normalize spheres of influence and treat neighboring states as bargaining chips. That is how Europe sleepwalked into catastrophe a century ago.

The contemporary left, for its part, is divided. The strand that matters most for this argument is not authoritarian “campism” that reflexively sides with any regime opposed to Washington, but a more mainstream current that sees international law, multilateral institutions and transnational activism as sufficient to contain aggression, and that views almost any use of US power abroad as suspect.

Here, too, there is a long pedigree: the disillusionment of 1918, German novelist Erich Maria Remarque’s�� (All Quiet on the Western Front), the interwar peace movements’ faith in Kellogg-Briand, the “” internationalism of US Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, the mid-century cult of the UN. That tradition continues today in climate accords, human-rights campaigns and pandemic-era defenses of “the international scientific community.”

The left is right to stress interdependence and to highlight Western hypocrisy. But it often underestimates how far regimes like Putin’s or Xi’s have moved beyond the rules-based order, and how little they care for the constraints of law when core interests — as they define them — are at stake. In practice, a world in which the US renounces any hard-power role while others pursue spheres of influence would not be more peaceful; it would be more dangerous, especially for smaller democracies like Ukraine, Taiwan, or now perhaps Colombia and Mexico.

A dangerous precedent for Moscow and Beijing

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Maduro coup is not what it says about Trump’s worldview — that is no secret — but what it signals to other major powers. The administration has justified the operation by pointing to �Ѳ���ܰ���’s US indictment on drug-trafficking charges; officials present the raid as an arrest operation, not a war.

Critics have been quick to note how easily this logic can be repurposed. Commentators have pointed out that one could easily imagine Beijing indicting a Taiwanese president on spurious grounds and citing Trump’s precedent to “execute an arrest warrant” across the strait — or Moscow doing the same with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine. Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has that if the US asserts a right to use force to capture foreign leaders it accuses of criminal conduct, “what prevents China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan’s leadership? What stops Vladimir Putin from asserting a similar justification to abduct Ukraine’s president?”

This plays directly into the hands of Moscow and Beijing, both of which already treat neighboring democracies as wayward provinces within their historical spheres. Putin speaks of “” Ukraine; Xi speaks of “” Taiwan. If Washington now abandons any pretense of respecting the UN Charter, its objections to those projects will ring even more hollow.

In the longer term, Trump’s move may also accelerate the very multipolarity he claims to resist. Latin American governments that fear US volatility will quietly hedge with China, diversify trade and seek diplomatic cover in BRICS-style forums. A hemisphere that experiences the US primarily as a capricious sheriff, not a partner, will be less receptive the next time Washington asks for solidarity over Taiwan or Ukraine. Trump appears to believe that the world can be stabilized if the great powers simply agree on who owns which sphere. In reality, he is endorsing a crude version of the Athenian historian : the strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must.

Old maps, new dangers

From Ratzel’s Lebensraum to Roosevelt’s corollary, from Schmitt’s �Ұ���ß�����ܳ� to Putin’s “Russian world,” the temptation to divide the globe into tidy zones of influence has always been strongest when empires feel threatened, and elites lose faith in universal rules. It is understandable that, after the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, many on both right and left have turned away from the rhetoric of liberal order.

But Trump’s Venezuela gambit is not a corrective to those failures; it is a relapse into an older, more brutal way of thinking about the world — one that will be eagerly imitated by other strongmen if it goes unchallenged. It shows that the US is not withdrawing from world politics, as isolationists claim, but reentering it on explicitly neoimperial terms in its own backyard. That should worry not only Venezuelans, but also Ukrainians, Taiwanese and anyone else whose security depends on the idea that borders cannot be redrawn at will.

The left is right to insist that we cannot bomb our way to a just world order. The right is correct to insist that power and geography still matter. Both are wrong if they think the answer is to abandon the attempt to build and enforce common rules — whether by retreating into small utopias of cooperation or by cutting deals over other peoples’ sovereignty.

We are unlikely to return to the liberal triumphalism of the 1990s. But we do not have to accept a future in which rogue superpowers arrest each other’s enemies across borders, parcel out regions and call it stability. Kagan’s liberal garden was always more fragile and partial than its defenders admitted. The alternative, however, need not be a jungle of competing empires. The first step is recognizing when our own governments have started to talk like the geopoliticians of the past — and refusing to pretend that this is anything other than a return to a past we thought we had left behind.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The End of the Liberal Garden Era appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In fact, US President Donald Trump has long prepared for a confrontation with Venezuela, conducting in the Caribbean Sea for the past few months. Trump’s intentions seemed evident in his stern to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro regarding the alleged infiltration of US territory by Venezuelan citizens with drugs, supposedly at the behest of Venezuela’s government.

However, the truth behind the attacks is quite different and relates to Venezuela’s vast natural reserves, including oil, coal and gold, which Trump has been eyeing to serve his country’s ever-rising energy security challenges. Beyond resources, the US to expand its sphere of influence by establishing a US-supported new regime in Caracas — a core pillar of its foreign policy since the end of the Second World War.

Disturbingly, Trump has supposedly bypassed Congress and singlehandedly executed his executive orders through Washington’s awesome military power against Caracas. The most disturbing part of this attack is the arrest of Maduro and his wife, who were brought back to the US to face trial in a US court. This plan is reminiscent of the US’ of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in its fierce attack on Baghdad 20 years ago. They brought him to the US to face flimsy court proceedings, ultimately imposing the death penalty on him. It is possible that the same treatment could befall Maduro and his wife while in US custody.

Sovereign equality under siege

What kind of sovereign equality is this that superpowers, such as the US or Russia, and other major powers, including China, Germany, England, France and Israel, are able to violate it? Indeed, Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine is a blatant violation of the principle, and Israel’s years-long military campaign to stamp out Hamas forever, along with its campaigns against other Arab countries, further erodes respect for sovereignty. International relations remain the most lawless field, where the age-old brute principle, “might is right”, prevails, or naked power rules the roost.

While the US has already fabricated grave charges against President Maduro to justify this attack on Venezuela, the international community is at the many international tensions, skirmishes and wars occurring throughout the world. These include China’s around Taiwan and throughout the South China Sea, between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, in Pakistan and in parts of Africa.

Additionally, the US Iran’s nuclear establishment last year in June and has made threats to launch strikes again to destroy Tehran’s covert nuclear weapons program. Iran’s attack on Pakistan in January 2024 and India’s likely Operation Sindoor 2.0 also created panic in Islamabad. All these together gravely harm the barely emerging peaceful and secure environment of the Asian continent.

Escalating global tensions and the threat of war

While Russia, China and Iran are already allied against the US’ actions for different reasons, the blunt warning by North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-Un may further complicate the already volatile and grave situation in the world, possibly leading to a Third World War, in which the use of nuclear weapons by many belligerent countries is not ruled out. This potential nuclear holocaust threatens catastrophic loss of human life, ecosystems, property and the environment.

In this volatile context, the emerging saner voices of national leaders, religious personalities and responsible people across the world must unite — as the masses in the US, France, and other countries of Europe and elsewhere are doing — against any highhandedness or bullying by superpowers like the US, Russia, a fast-ascending China or any state whatsoever. These voices must condemn the gross lawlessness of these superpowers by launching a collective international opinion to demoralize and isolate them from the global mainstream.

Since the UN Security Council is powerless due to the veto power of the five permanent members, the UN General Assembly must unite to restrain such irresponsible actions in the common interest of peace and security worldwide. Maduro, along with his wife, must be released from the US’ illegal custody and safely returned to his position in Venezuela to face trial for human rights violations. The US must be for this illegal invasion, and Trump must compensate the losses incurred by the victim nation and be tried for the war crimes committed so as to restore the solemn principle of “sovereign equality of the nation-state system” intact in letter and spirit.

Ultimately, the people of Venezuela must be allowed to choose their own leader, not President Donald Trump or any other foreign power. Such interference would indeed set a dangerous precedent, as no sovereign national leader will be safe in their own country.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post US Strike on Venezuela: A Violation of the Sovereign Equality of Nation-State Principle appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Responses from Beijing and Jakarta

Beijing’s reaction was swift and unequivocal. It the US operation as a violation of international law and called for dialogue over unilateral action. Chinese officials framed the capture as an erosion of the international legal order and reiterated China’s opposition to external intervention, consistent with its long-standing diplomatic positions.

Indonesia a more restrained tone. Jakarta urged all parties to pursue a peaceful resolution, emphasized respect for international law and called for de-escalation, while avoiding direct criticism of Washington. The carefully calibrated language reflected Indonesia’s preference for neutrality and its effort to preserve diplomatic space.

Together, the two responses revealed differing diplomatic styles, but also a shared emphasis on stability and legal principles.

How the episode shapes China–Indonesia engagement

The significance of the Maduro episode lies in how it may influence Indonesia’s reading of China’s broader diplomatic posture. Beijing’s emphasis on sovereignty and nonintervention aligns with themes that resonate in Indonesian foreign policy. At the same time, Jakarta places a premium on consistency and predictability in its external partnerships.

The Maduro incident directly impacts how China interacts with Indonesia on multiple fronts. First, the episode reinforces Indonesia’s preference for steady and measured engagement. While China’s position underscores its normative stance, Jakarta’s focus remains on maintaining balanced relations with all major powers. This places importance on continuity in China’s approach to Indonesia rather than shifts driven by external crises.

Second, the incident also draws attention to how principles are applied across different contexts. Indonesia closely observes China’s behavior beyond rhetoric. The contrast between Beijing’s defense of sovereignty in Venezuela and its near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands continues to shape perceptions. Although Indonesia is not a claimant to the Spratly Islands, it has consistently rejected China’s maritime claims where they overlap with Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone near the Natuna Islands, making Chinese activity in those waters a sensitive issue in the bilateral relationship.

Taken together, these factors suggest that China’s engagement with Indonesia is shaped not only by shared positions on international law but by how those positions are reflected in regional practice.

Economics as a stabilizing pillar

remains the foundation of China–Indonesia relations. Trade, investment and large-scale infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative anchor the partnership and provide resilience against political uncertainty. The Maduro episode may encourage Beijing to emphasize the economic dimension of the relationship more strongly, providing tangible benefits while avoiding overtly confrontational rhetoric. Economic ties are a key lever in ensuring Indonesia remains a partner in Southeast Asia, particularly as Jakarta balances US security cooperation and regional leadership ambitions.

Indonesia’s importance magnifies this dynamic. As Southeast Asia’s largest economy and a leading Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member, Jakarta plays a central role in China’s regional strategy. Beijing’s ability to accommodate Indonesia’s preference for neutrality and multilateral engagement will influence both bilateral ties and China’s broader standing in Southeast Asia. Careful management of economic cooperation remains essential to sustaining trust.

A stress test for engagement

The US capture of Maduro is unlikely to trigger an immediate shift in China–Indonesia relations. Instead, it functions as a stress test for how external developments interact with existing dynamics in the relationship.

For Indonesia, the episode reinforces the importance of strategic autonomy and balanced diplomacy. For China, sustaining engagement with Indonesia will depend on aligning its global positions with regional expectations, while maintaining economic cooperation and sensitivity to Indonesian concerns. Maritime conduct near the Natuna Islands remains a quiet but enduring reference point.

Viewed this way, the Maduro episode illustrates how developments far from Southeast Asia can influence the context in which China and Indonesia manage their relationship — not through rupture, but through careful adjustment and sustained engagement.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How the US Capture of Nicolás Maduro Impacts China’s Engagement with Indonesia appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Thus began what US forces dubbed “.” The name implies finality; the strategy is a century-old relic. The initial pretext — a “law enforcement operation” — evaporated by the press conference’s end, when Trump’s laid bare the true motive: “we are going to be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.” The administration has since clarified that a primary objective of this protectorate is to extract Venezuelan oil as “reimbursement” for US investments predating former Venezuelan President Hugo ���á�����’s rise in the late 1990s.

The geopolitical context

This intervention unfolds at a critical moment when US global power is in decline, and China has become the trading partner for most of South America. While diminished, the US retains overwhelming military supremacy in the Western Hemisphere, enough to intervene unilaterally in countries to pursue its narrow interests. Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, presents a strategic target.��

The unilateral intervention sends a clear message to Beijing: this hemisphere remains a US sphere of influence, where Washington can still intervene unilaterally to secure resources and block rival access. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson the US attack, referring to it as “hegemonic acts” that compromise peace in Latin America and the Caribbean.��

The Trump Corollary: reviving the Monroe Doctrine

In less than 24 hours, the world witnessed what might be called the “Trump Corollary” in full view: the use of military force abroad to secure resources under the banner of “America First.” This is not a new doctrine but an old one reheated — a reassertion of a century-old imperial recipe that treats Latin America, as Trump calls it, “,” as a backyard for extraction.

In essence, Trump is reactivating the Monroe Doctrine, which shaped 19th- and 20th-century US policy toward Latin America. This doctrine envisioned that US interests in the region would be pursued at any cost, including control of the region’s natural resources.

The intended political settlement follows an equally cynical colonial script. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has expressed willingness to collaborate with �Ѳ���ܰ���’s vice president, — a committed Chavista who served as Foreign Minister during the ���á����� era — to ensure a “stable transition.” This reveals the envisioned endgame: a managed arrangement where key figures of the old regime are retained to facilitate control and resource extraction, while Venezuela’s genuine democratic forces remain sidelined. This is regime manipulation, not democratic restoration.

The parallels to past interventions are striking. The last US unilateral intervention in the region occurred in Panama in 1989, when US troops captured de facto president General and transferred him to the US to stand trial on drug-trafficking charges — a script now repeated with Maduro.

Wider implications

The consequences of this action ripple far beyond Venezuela’s borders, threatening stability across multiple dimensions.

The intervention resurrects the specter of gunboat diplomacy in Latin America. The message to Cuba and Nicaragua — left-wing governments long dependent on Venezuelan oil — is unmistakable: you could be next. This reignites fear and instability throughout the region, ensuring it remains on edge, dominated by the ghost of past US interventions. The rhetoric echoes the traditional US justification for the embargo on Cuba: recovering assets after the expropriation of American property.

Perhaps most significantly, this action irreparably shreds the fragile veneer of a rules-based international order. By unilaterally toppling a government and seizing its resources in its declared “home region,” the US does not just violate a norm — it annihilates the principle of sovereign equality. On what conceivable ground can it now object to a Russian “peacekeeping” mission in Moldova or a Chinese blockade of Taiwan? Moral authority, once voluntarily surrendered, cannot be reclaimed. Washington instantly forfeits its voice to condemn aggression in Ukraine or instability in the Taiwan Strait

This aggression arrives at a moment of profound global fragmentation, when collective action is desperately needed yet increasingly impossible. Trump claims to break from his predecessors, but his “boots on the ground” in Venezuela follow a well-worn path — the same path that led to protracted quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating failed states rather than democracies.

The likely future

The eerie calm in Caracas suggests key regime figures are prepared to negotiate a transition — on US terms. Based on Trump’s declarations, the US-led transition in Venezuela will not hesitate to coopt these figures in service of extracting Venezuelan oil. Meanwhile, Corina Machado — the main opposition leader to Maduro, who the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025 — and — the elected president in the 2024 election — will likely be sidelined.

The recipe is tragically familiar: a noble slogan, a swift invasion, a lucrative resource and a pliable local elite. The ingredients for a long-term disaster are all present. The only thing “absolute” about this operation is the certainty that it will leave Venezuela more shattered and the world more perilously divided.

This is not statecraft; it is tired and brutal imperialism, repackaged for a new era.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Gunboat Diplomacy Returns: US Resource Grab in Venezuela appeared first on 51�Թ�.

What analyst Andres Izarra had described as a poker match in which Donald Trump held a weak hand due to his proclivity to bluff has suddenly turned into a geopolitical chess game. It is still unclear whether the special operations team that seized Maduro acted solely on local intelligence or whether betrayal at the top levels of government played a role. What is clear is that �Ѳ���ܰ���’s fall is no minor development — Venezuela has entered an entirely new phase. Leaders must navigate this time of unpredictability and avoid the fog of war if they wish to secure Venezuela’s future.

�Ѳ���ܰ���’s capture marks a new era

Regarding the legal grounds for capturing the active president of a sovereign country — independently of him having lost a presidential election — two angles are worth mentioning. From a strictly US , Maduro was indicted in 2020 in a court of law on charges of helping to transport cocaine and working with narco-terrorist organizations. The charges against him are reminiscent of others, such as and the former military leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, who had also been captured by US forces back in 1998. Therefore, in the US’s view, there is legal precedent and just cause for �Ѳ���ܰ���’s capture.

From an international perspective, the capture of Maduro infringes basic tenets of international law. The world we live in today has seemingly changed abruptly from the one inherited after World War II, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. UN Secretary General António Guterres that US actions “constitute a dangerous precedent.” However, the UN cannot pass resolutions against the US for its recent actions because of the veto power the US holds in the UN Security Council. Today, the United Nations architecture is at its weakest since its inception.

Within Venezuela’s borders, politicians are also responding to the actions of the US. María Corina , the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has declared that this moment marks the beginning of a new era. She continues to insist that under Edmundo �ҴDzԳ�á����� �� — opposition leader and of the 2024 Venezuelan election — the democratic movement is prepared to govern. Her confidence may prove overly optimistic, or it may signal a pledge to play a more direct role in shaping the transition ahead. Either way, her responsibility, and Venezuela’s at large, is unmistakable: to defend the popular will expressed during the July 28, 2024, elections, and to assert the democratic leadership’s claim to govern.

For now, however, the crisis is a two-player confrontation between the remains of the Chavista elite and the Trump administration. The Nobel Peace Prize recently awarded to Machado in Oslo was a global acknowledgment of the democratic movement’s legitimacy. It is a recognition that Washington has yet to fully embrace, aside from the occasional sotto voce recognition and a 2025 from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. US President Donald Trump has even that Machado doesn’t have the “respect” of the Venezuelan public.��

Only when the fog of war lifts will it be possible to discern the real role the democratic forces will play. What is certain is that there is no clear return to the status quo ante. What comes next is unknown, and both Venezuela and the US must choose their paths carefully. 

Two scenarios are emerging

The first, more cautious scenario involves with Delcy Rodríguez, �Ѳ���ܰ���’s successor, to reach an arrangement that might unlock large-scale U.S. investment in Venezuela’s oil sector. But most American energy companies remain to invest in a country where property rights and basic legal guarantees are absent. The ���á����� years already demonstrated the risks: expropriations without compensation that helped drive the collapse of the oil industry.

Even if democratic leaders keep being sidelined from these negotiations, �ҴDzԳ�á����� Urrutia and Machado retain overwhelming popular support from the Venezuelan public — expressed unequivocally in 2024 and never withdrawn. Despite imprisonment, exile and clandestine life of the vast majority of its leadership, Venezuelans continue to back them. Under such conditions, a Rodríguez government would face from the public to make internal concessions, especially now that it is weakened by the capture of its main leader. That includes more than 1,000 political prisoners detained by the Chavista regime, creating conditions for a more open polity or agreeing to new elections.��

The second scenario is what Trump has called the “”: another military action aimed at dismantling what remains of the dictatorship. Such a move would inevitably force Washington to engage with Machado and �ҴDzԳ�á�����. They possess the internal political legitimacy to govern and the credibility to negotiate with institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the credibility to offer partial amnesty to the military, security forces and government officials that are not involved in high crimes. Overall, Trump’s suggestion that the United States would govern Venezuela is not taken seriously even within his own circle.��

Legitimate leadership must fill the power vacuum in Venezuela

Intermediate outcomes — or a combination of the above — are possible. This includes some form of Chavista regime survival under conditions like those prevailing today, though that scenario doesn’t seem highly likely. Firstly, if �Ѳ���ܰ���’s capture resulted to some extent from being double-crossed by part of the regime’s leadership, this surely has created a environment at the top not amenable to internal stability and cohesion.��

Secondly, as mentioned by both Trump and Secretary Rubio, economic pressure will continue. Venezuela’s inflation for 2025 was nearly and it could potentially reach 680% in 2026. This will compromise any attempt at normalizing economic life in the country, as well as responding to the demands of the Trump administration to propel the oil industry to higher production levels. As everyone knows, the oil industry in Venezuela — exploration, drilling and refining — is near total , as well as the electrical and other infrastructure allowing it to improve productive capacity.��

Finally, as widely documented, the Chavista leadership elite — known as the — has amassed vast fortunes. It seems likely that, given the growing internal uncertainty, some of its top figures (and their families, who enjoy the comforts of capitalism) will seek to protect their assets and salvage what they can.

The path ahead will be difficult: Chavismo still controls the military, security forces, the judiciary and regional governments. Rebuilding the country will require a series of partial negotiations with each of these power centers, as well as transitional justice measures for those not implicated in serious crimes. Venezuela has entered a period of profound uncertainty, and the chess match has only just begun. As the fog of war and competing narratives begin to clear, the facts will surface — and with them, the direction of the wind that will shape the country’s future.

[ first published this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Beyond the Fog of War: Venezuela’s Democracy is at Stake appeared first on 51�Թ�.

If you enjoy geopolitical melodrama, 2026 promises to be a record-breaker. But records aren’t the only thing being broken. With his foray into a presidential bedroom in Caracas, Trump has ensured that any notion of international law or a “rules-based order” has been smashed to smithereens.

In the West, January is traditionally a time of cocooning, digesting and detoxifying after the excesses of “the 12 days of Christmas.” Here in France, January stands as the month that offers us 31 days to get back into contact with all our relations as we communicate our meilleurs ���ճ�x to everyone we know or are in contact with. The usual translation of meilleurs voeux is “best wishes.” But the word ���ճ� also means “vow” and is, in fact, the origin of the English word. In English-speaking countries, the closest cultural equivalent to the obligatory meilleurs ���ճ�x in France is the ritual we call the New Year’s resolution, which is a kind of vow to oneself. We’re all expected to come up with one or more benign intentions that we then “resolve” to accomplish.

Last Saturday, to honor the new year, Trump “Operation Absolute Resolve” in Venezuela. It was nothing less than a brazen assault on a sovereign nation that ended with the successful kidnapping of a sitting president based on the pretext of his having violated a US law. Most ordinary citizens rarely carry out any of their New Year’s resolutions for more than a few days. Trump’s “absolute resolve” sets a new standard.

After Trump’s well-orchestrated act was carried out so “absolutely,” the administration went into “Mission Accomplished” mode, forecasting a future of sunlight for the American people, oil companies and even Venezuelans (as a kind of afterthought). Investigative journalist Seth Hettena attempted to bring us back to reality, accurately that “questions about legality, geopolitics, and consequences will demand answers in the days ahead.” After describing a complex operation cleanly executed thanks to “good intelligence” (i.e. this was a covert action led by the CIA, including bribery and recruitment of �Ѳ���ܰ���’s inner circle), Hettena provides his own guarded, provisional answer to the question of consequences: “What comes next, however, may prove far more complicated than what happened before dawn.”

Domestically, this could herald a much-needed constitutional crisis around the question of executive authority to declare war. In particular because the administration chose not to notify even the “Gang of Eight” (top Congressional leaders) prior to the strike. This stands as a direct challenge to theWar Powers of 1973. Then there is the question of how the court in the Southern district of New York will handle the trial of a foreign head of state for crimes no honest observer believes he should be accused of.

A hard reign’s a-gonna fall

The international consequences will likely be greater. The absoluteness of Trump’s resolve reinforces and exaggerates the impression the people and leaders of other nations are beginning to have of Washington’s lack of respect for or utter indifference to any other government’s sovereignty. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, , clearly stated what Washington thinks of nearly every other country in the world that cannot be called a superpower:

“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

This message was clearly directed at the nations of Europe, a group that includes some former superpowers. One prominent member of that group is Denmark, which happens to control a landmass the Trump administration is seeking to annex: Greenland. Miller’s argument boils down to this: “You may be our ally, even within the world’s oldest and most powerful military alliance, NATO, which was designed specifically to prevent its members from going to war with one another, but we have decided to annex your territory by force and are thus justified by ‘laws’ that date from ‘the beginning of time.’”

Miller is Jewish and a committed Zionist. Does this reflect his political or theological thinking? Is he referring to the first day of Creation in the Book of Genesis, when God created day and night, effectively starting time? The reasoning he employs resembles that of the current Zionist regime in Israel that justifies its deeds, including genocide, by affirming its belief in fundamental laws from the past that overpower and cancel the effect of modern laws.

This formulation of the principle behind US foreign policy marks a shift in the former “rules-based order” recently championed with numbing regularity by former US President Joe Biden’s State Department. Biden’s and all earlier administrations were no stranger to the use of hard power as evidenced by the number of wars and military interventions the US has initiated or been involved in since the end of World War II. Officially, one can count five to seven major wars. According to a by the Congressional Research Service, the “U.S. launched 251 Military Interventions since 1991 and 469 since 1798.”

In other words, Miller’s belief in the law of hard power fails to qualify as an innovation. The practice and scope of hard power has undergone an obvious acceleration over the past 35 years. Before 1991, which marked the end of the Cold War, things were paradoxically calmer. Looking backwards, some may see the period between 1945 and 1991 as a kind of golden age in which US administrations put at least as much faith into developing soft power as they did to exercising hard power.

Despite the disastrous wars in Korea and Vietnam, the second half of the 20th century demonstrated that hard power can coexist alongside soft power. That was the secret of the success the US achieved throughout the Cold War, allowing Washington to credibly position itself as the “leader of the free world.” While the CIA was busy nevertheless overthrowing governments in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, Bolivia and elsewhere, it was also collaborating with Hollywood, Madison Avenue and prestigious such Encounter and Ramparts to promote the image of a nation seeking peace, harmony, pleasing entertainment and democracy while promoting US-inspired arts across the globe.

Trump’s team has no time for soft power. First of all, it’s expensive and its effects are at best long-term. As soon as he returned to the White House for a second term, Trump defunded USAID, the most significant official platform for spreading US soft power. Second, the focus on soft power inconveniently lowers the level of fear they believe to be the principal factor of motivation in politics. If other populations lose the habit of cowering in fear, buoyed by the idea that ultimately it was all about learning to get along and work together in peaceful pursuits, some of those foreigners may get the idea that revolt is possible.

The problem Hettena hints at is that such policies and brazen actions such as the one that played out last weekend in Caracas may produce blowback on the part of entire populations, who increasingly perceive the US as a threat to their way of life rather than a model to aspire to. And more significantly, it also provokes strategic resistance on the part of governments that increasingly seek the means of detaching themselves from US influence. When hard power becomes too visible and eclipses soft power, allies and partners begin to panic as they increasingly feel compelled to seek other sources of comfort.

Gordon Gekko in the Oval Office

When US President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq to remove the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) they “knew” (and not just suspected) Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding, most commentators not affected by the reigning sycophancy of the media said it was really about “the oil.” Only the most astute appeared to be aware of the fact that it was also the persuasive powers of the Israeli government that convinced Bush’s neocon administration to go to war with the nations that made Tel Aviv uncomfortable. As early as 2001, with the start of the war in Afghanistan, conservative Republican (but anti-neocon) Pat Buchanan in an with the title, “Whose war is this?,” described the pressure coming from Bush’s neocon friends to “widen the war to include all of Israel’s enemies.”

In a television interview ten days after September 11, a very serious General Wesley Clark , with comic brio, his discovery at the Pentagon of a classified plan by the Department of Defense to invade seven countries in the Middle East over five years. The plan appeared derived from the neocon “Clean Break Memo” drafted for newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. So, not only were the critics right that access to Iraq’s oil rather than fear of non-existent WMDs was at the core of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, the neocon clique that ran the government had literally fused aggressive Netanyahu’s Zionist extremism with US foreign policy, making it “logical” to conduct a regime change war in Iraq.

Fast forward to 2025, when a new Republican president, Trump, claimed that Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, was the head of a drug cartel and that justice required he be arrested and tried in New York. But, as soon as the deed was accomplished, Trump revealed his true motives, similar to Bush’s: . “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground, and that wealth is going to the people of Venezuela, and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela, and it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country.”

This isn’t just access to oil. In Trump’s formulation, this is an updated version of Gordon Gekko’s celebration of greed in Oliver Stone’s 1987 movie, Wall Street. When Bush proclaimed his mission to remove Hussein’s WMD, all the media and most honest citizens believed those dreaded weapons existed. No reasonable person took Trump’s campaign against narco-terrorism seriously. As soon as Trump began bombing small boats in the Caribbean, the media mocked his claim that this constituted a threat to the US justifying extra-judicial killings. They knew it was about the combined interest of a cheap geopolitical power play and the desire to confiscate Venezuela’s resources.

In his Mission Accomplished speech, Bush celebrated ridding the world of an evil dictator, always an appealing argument for Americans who have been trained to hate dictators. Bush was, of course, lying when he Hussein was an “ally of al-Qaeda” and that the successful military operation had prevented terrorists from potentially acquiring WMDs from the regime. But he never admitted, not even years later, that controlling Iraq’s oil was part of his agenda.

Trump, on the contrary, seized the occasion to use the idea of controlling oil and other Venezuelan resources, with the following : “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country, and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so.” He added, “We need total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild their country.”

Greed is indeed good, as Gekko affirmed. Maria Corino Machado, whom many in the Trump administration hope to see as the future new Venezuelan president made it equally : “And American companies are in a super strategic position to invest. This country of Venezuela is going to be the brightest opportunity for investment of American companies, of good people that are going to make a lot of money.”

It’s unlikely that such a rosy outcome will come as easily as Trump and Machado make out. But Trump, to use one of his favorite expressions, “holds all the cards” and, like Miller, apparently believes he has done so “since the beginning of time.”

*[The Devil’s Advocate pursues the tradition 51�Թ� began in 2017 with the launch of our “Devil’s Dictionary.” It does so with a slight change of focus, moving from language itself — political and journalistic rhetoric — to the substantial issues in the news. Read more of the 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary. The news we consume deserves to be seen from an outsider’s point of view. And who could be more outside official discourse than Old Nick himself?]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Absolute Resolve, Zero Rules: Trump’s Venezuela Gambit appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Having served as a senior US diplomat in Iraq during the US occupation of that country and as a member of the US armed forces in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, I witnessed firsthand how such undertakings can quickly turn sour. 

America’s unlearned lessons

The American track record of invading foreign countries, ousting leaders it didn’t like and installing more acceptable ones has not been a good one. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq turned out disastrously for America, despite some initial positive results. Latin America, with the possible exception of the of Panama’s de facto ruler, General Manuel Noriega, in 1989, has been an especially bad region for American adventurism. The expression, “Yanqui go home,” was born south of America’s border some 125 years ago with invasions, covert actions and occupations on some dozen or so occasions, and in some countries — in particular and — multiple times. In , where I also served as a US diplomat, people remember America’s history of coming in uninvited. Although some entrenched, well-monied pro-US classes were happy to do America’s bidding, running the country afterwards.

Have the Americans not learned the lessons of history? The long and short answer is that while many Americans have, US leaders become seduced by the idea, “We can do it differently.” In his post-invasion press conference, Trump shockingly , “We will run the country.” Even more astonishingly, he said it won’t cost the US anything because US oil companies will come in, revive its flagging oil sector and produce the revenue necessary to get the country back on its economic feet. 

America and the world have heard it all before. Call it the great deception. Somehow, the new crowd — be it Lyndon Johnson, George W. Bush, Donald Trump and others before them — believes that American ingenuity and determination “will get it right this time.” It’s a tantalizing mirage that seemingly appears regularly throughout 19th and 20th-century US history. It has reappeared in this century.

It’s worth asking, “Why Maduro?” 

Maduro, as oppressive as he was in his own country, presented no verifiable threat to the US. The effective of tankers carrying Venezuela’s oil abroad, on which �Ѳ���ܰ���’s regime depended for vital hard currency earnings, would have eventually strangled the nation’s finances and created conditions for �Ѳ���ܰ���’s fall. Trump’s repeated references in his Saturday press event to Venezuela’s oil resources raise justified concerns for Americans. Is that what this is all about? Doesn’t the US have what it needs? For now, yes. Even so, aren’t there plenty of countries willing to sell America their oil? Yes. Shouldn’t we be investing in renewable energy sources as China and others are now doing? Yes again.

Opposition to invading a foreign country, however, shouldn’t prevent anyone from celebrating the removal of a brutal and much despised dictator, at home, in the region and around the world. Maduro the presidential elections in August 2024, which he verifiably lost by a wide margin. He and his autocratic predecessor, Hugo , destroyed one of Latin America’s most thriving democracies and prosperous economies. Since 2015, an estimated Venezuelans have been forced to flee the country, more than a quarter of its population then. They took refuge mostly in the US but also in neighboring countries and in Europe. They are justifiably �Ѳ���ܰ���’s ouster. 

And while he was not the real drug threat the US administration cast him to be — that would be the flow of fentanyl into the US primarily through — he did little to thwart what modest flows emanated from or passed through his country. And he likely took his cut of the profits. He will deserve whatever judgment the US courts find against him.

Venezuelan governance or American occupation?

So, what comes next? America running the country cannot and should not be the answer. As euphoric as many Venezuelans may be to see �Ѳ���ܰ���’s departure, they will be anxious to take back the country they began losing in 1998 following ���á�����’s first election as president. Many will want to see the real winner of the 2024 election, Edmundo , in the office he legitimately won. And what of Maria Corina Machado, a hugely popular Venezuelan politician forced into exile by Maduro and the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize ? She would have run in the 2024 presidential election had she not been illegally barred and removed from the ballot by Maduro. 

These are all decisions for Venezuelans, not the US. They won’t want the Americans to decide the country’s political and economic future, especially in regards to the management of their oil resources. Now that the usurper of their democracy has been evicted from the presidential palace in Caracas, they do not want it reoccupied by some Yanqui overseer.

Aside from the predictable reaction of Venezuelans to a US occupation, there is the looming question of how the US will do it. The of Iraq was accomplished with more than 150,000 troops and thousands more diplomats, aid workers, various advisers and myriad contractors, not to mention thousands of forces and diplomats from countries that were also involved in the Iraq transition. It was costly and plagued with problems, despite the many experts from the Pentagon, State Department, USAID and elsewhere who eventually were able to manage an acceptable turnover to the Iraqis. Such experts are now long gone from the State; USAID no longer . Most in the Pentagon are already preoccupied with Russia’s occupation of Ukraine and threatening behavior toward Eastern Europe, and with America’s major challenge, China. 

Does the US even have the depth of personnel resources with the necessary expertise to effectively manage a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela? If, as Trump asserts, America will run the country, then specifically who does he have in mind? What is the plan and who will be in charge of executing it? How long will it take? What resources will be necessary? Even if Venezuela can eventually be self-supporting, its oil sector will likely take years to resume what had once been normal operations.

A democratic transition also assumes that there will be no resistance. Has the Trump administration considered how troops and police forces loyal to Maduro might react? In 2003, the Bush administration didn’t, and America and Iraq paid an enormous price in lives and resources for its unpreparedness. Former Iraqi forces opposed to the US, terrorists from elsewhere in the Middle East and Iran wreaked havoc in the country. There’s no word yet at this early stage, but it’s safe to assume that some, perhaps many, Venezuelans may decide to take up arms against whatever follows, especially if the occupation drags on. Will the US be expected to confront them? If not, then who? And if so, is the US prepared for a protracted, perhaps low-grade guerrilla war? The American people have been down that road before and likely won’t be happy. Nor will neighboring countries.

Another self-inflicted blow to America’s image

International reactions have been predictably critical of Trump’s decision. Some have chosen to be quiet, especially America’s allies. Countries in Latin America are especially angered. Mexico is left to if it may be on Trump’s hit list now. Action against Mexico would be exponentially worse and troublesome for the region and the US. There is also the and , both of which Trump has claimed should be American. The US action also undermines the world’s opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

So, are we back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when larger nations snatched up smaller ones for no other reason than they just could under whatever guise was fabricated? If so, China’s plans in Taiwan become more . Ditto its actions in , Rwanda’s in the Democratic Republic of and Ethiopia’s in . However despicable Maduro, America’s action does not augur well for the rule of law or the international order America helped to establish. America’s already declining image abroad has just taken another major blow, this one self-inflicted, like so many previous.

This is a destructive act for America itself. Congress does not appear to have been consulted. In fact, the US administration may have to Congress when its senior representatives told members of Congress that the US does not support regime change or military action in Venezuela. Where and how will the administration get the funding required for running Venezuela? Will an already supine Congress simply give in to an increasingly autocratic president? 

Trump’s MAGA base cannot be pleased. Having supported a president who promised no more wasteful foreign wars, they must now ponder their president having started one of his own. The rest of the country is also feeling unsettled. America has been down this road of foreign wars it started before, only to watch the bus drive off the cliff in terms of lives lost, limited resources expended and increased national debt.

Trump claims he has brought justice to Maduro and Venezuela. At what cost?

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The US Invades a Latin American Country — Again appeared first on 51�Թ�.

�����Բ�����������’s , which ended with the toppling of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year increasingly authoritarian premiership, was the first of this Gen Z Protests wave. What started as dissent against quota-based recruitment to government jobs quickly grew into a massive pro-democracy and anti-corruption movement, in which were killed, and the incumbent fled across the border to India and has since been sentenced to death.

In the last 18 months, similar Gen Z protests have emerged in more than 20 countries worldwide, from Mozambique to Mongolia, Paraguay to the Philippines. There are ongoing protests in 11 countries.

From local sparks to a global Gen Z uprising

The triggers for resistance are often incidental and varied in different contexts. In Serbia, the of a rooftop in the Novi Sad railway station, where 16 people were killed, led to a spontaneous eruption of protests among the student community against government corruption and negligence. In Madagascar, a peaceful September protest against the persistent failures of state-owned companies’ provision of power and water in the capital into widespread unrest spearheaded by a Gen Z online movement, and a military coup has since replaced the President.����

But there are between these disparate protest movements: the erosion of democratic rights, rising authoritarianism, corruption and economic stagnation. Each protest has learned the lesson of the last, taking from online culture and other protests to create independent movements, each with a recognizable Gen Z signature.

Gone are the “There is no Planet B” placards of 2020’s Fridays for the Future , which blossomed globally but were most prominent in the capital cities of Europe, Australia and North America. Now, protestors are taking inspiration from online meme culture. “Ok boomer, time’s up” became a rallying cry for the successful protests in Nepal this past September. A skull-and-crossbones flag from the Manga One Piece has become a of protest across countries, and Pikachu is no longer a beloved Pokémon but a firebrand provocateur.��

The protests themselves are an expression of a generation that has grown up in a global social media age, who pride themselves on absurd humor and nihilism, and ironically, are willing to die for it. 

And while their methods and motivations might be unconventional, with Nepal’s election via the app Discord providing the best case in point, Gen Z protestors have been remarkably successful. Governments have been overthrown in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Madagascar. Major policy changes have been achieved in Timor-Leste and Kenya.��

Not since the of 2011 and 2012, when pro-democracy protests deposed rulers in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, has a protest movement caused so much political upheaval in such a short time.

Climate change and global protests

There were many contributing factors to the political instability that rocked the Arab Region over a decade ago. But the of climate change, especially when combined with bread and butter issues like affordability, corruption and authoritarian overreach, are an explosive cocktail. Indeed, widespread droughts wiped out around of livestock across eastern Syria in 2011, while severe weather-induced in 2010 saw price spikes on key foods cascade across the region.����

With protests ongoing around the world, it would be difficult to attribute all current Gen Z protests to a single climate event. In fact, climate change has been noticeably absent as a rallying call for the movements altogether.

At a cursory glance, that might be surprising. It was only six years ago that more than protesters took to the streets around the world for the Global Climate Strike. The phrase “Gen Z Protest” has its origins in a by the French Market Research firm Ipsos, which looked at climate action and intergenerational conflict. Since then, climate activism hasn’t gone away, but it has undergone a reckoning. The last major global climate strike took place in ahead of the 26th UN Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.

For a while, the COP process provided a lightning rod for protest. But the hosting of three subsequent COPs in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Azerbaijan significantly curtailed the space for such campaigns. 

One noticeable outcome of COP30 being hosted in democratic Brazil has been a welcome return of newsworthy peaceful protests. This was best exemplified when 90 protestors from indigenous communities the negotiators’ entrance to object to resource extractivism in the Amazon.

Why climate change is missing — and why that matters

A decade on from the landmark Paris Agreement, there has been little progress in annual greenhouse gas emissions. However, there have also been wins along the way. China continues to hurtle forward in its staggering rollout of . Recently, the European Union announced that it was on track for its 2030 emissions .

However, anthropogenic greenhouse gas are still higher than they have ever been. Even the Secretary-General of the United Nations has warned that exceeding the warming target, even temporarily, is inevitable.

During that period, activism and protest movements have had to adapt to a more turbulent and impoverished world, rocked by the economic and social shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, major military conflicts and the advent of artificial intelligence. The World Bank estimates that global growth in this decade will be the slowest since the .

Key figures in the climate movement, while not abandoning their roots, have since chosen to devote their energy to pressing humanitarian disasters. In September, Greta Thunberg and 170 other pro-Palestinian protestors were by Israeli forces as they sailed an aid flotilla to Gaza.

The flare-ups of protest led by Gen Z are a response to a fragmented and dangerous world order. It is not surprising, then, that the center of gravity of this new wave of protests lies in developing economies and fragile democracies, and that its chief protagonists are local activists focused on bread-and-butter issues.

Climate change will exacerbate the conditions for political instability. The World Economic Forum estimates that for every degree of warming, of global GDP is lost. The world is currently on course for 2.7 °C warming by .

The nature of that instability could derail climate action and see a slide towards authoritarianism. This is already happening in the United States, where a in climate migrants crossing the US-Mexican border has been used to justify the Trump administration’s homeland security policies. The Gen Z protests might demonstrate an antidote to this in the long run, ironically, precisely because they do not tackle climate change head-on.��

Accountability and the rule of law are prerequisites for international climate action. Corruption and inequality are blockers to addressing both rapid mitigation and adaptation, the latter being a significant challenge in the developing world. 

In this day and age, some of the most effective climate change activism might not be about environmental collapse, but rather about reinvigorating the democratic contract between governments and their people.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Climate Protest in the Age of Unrest appeared first on 51�Թ�.

and , social movement , representatives of the and from left-leaning parties joined together in many cities to support women’s rights. Protestors carried placards saying, “Marielle lives.” This message references Rio de Janeiro’s former councilwoman, , a women’s rights activist who was in 2018. The statement reminded everyone that violence against women is not constrained to domestic relations, as remarked by Marielle’s sister, Minister for Racial Equality , in the event in the capital of Brasília.

Not even five blocks ahead of the Sao Paulo demonstration, however, 1,200 people had for a different cause: hardline supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, organized by Sao Paulo’s vice-mayor, Colonel Mello Araújo, demanded amnesty for him. Bolsonaro is a notorious who recently lost his house arrest privileges after using a soldering iron to with his ankle monitor. As his ally, Sao Paulo State Governor Tarcísio de Freitas has cut of the budget to fight violence against women since 2024; this move mirrors Bolsonaro, who cut of the funding to fight gender-based violence between 2020 and 2022.

With of the police, neo-Pentecostal pastors and of Brazilian politics, Araújo told the media there was only one agenda for protests that Sunday: amnesty for Bolsonaro. It was not a lack of judgment or a faux pas by the city’s second-in-command, but a clear message from the right-wing state and municipal governments that the safety of 54% of Brazilians does not matter.

Misogyny in Brazil

Brazil is no stranger to femicide and all forms of violence against women. Since , and racism have been intertwined, with a patriarchal Christian imposing gender roles and behavioral standards on a largely population. From the struggle of women to get basic and rights to the ongoing fight to achieve full body , Brazil has mistreated its female population for centuries.

Misogyny is still a socially acceptable political , as former Brazilian President — the only woman to ever hold that position — during her term and impeachment. Brazilian women than men despite being better educated, and experience life conditions. Certain professions, such as those in the law field, women despite them graduating in higher numbers than men. Sexism runs rampant in Brazilian and . Women in Brazil suffer discrimination at work for getting despite law protections, are subject to and have medical care, as doctors ignore their complaints more often.

Racial and income aggravate these issues. Domestic violence occurs in all female demographics but is for young, black and lower-income women. Poor black women in Brazil are targets of , despite this demographic being the in public universities thanks to affirmative action. The insidious combination of racism and misogyny, however, has yet to be extirpated from Brazilian society if the vulnerability of this population, who represents of Brazilians, is to be reduced.

Progress in femicide law and behavioral change

The country has seen strides to reduce gender inequality since the 1988 promulgation of the most recent , which institutes gender equality in its 5th Article. Previous civil law changes improved the agency for women to remove themselves from dangerous relationships. For example, the nation divorce until 1977, when it became a legal process, but still required a cause and a mandatory minimum of legal separation. The whole process could be contested, generally by the man, at any moment. The law was generally applied unfavorably to women, especially if they were accused of adultery. Courts could only implement the current “no-fault” process after a constitutional amendment in 2010 dispensed with the need for judicial agreement. This led couples to divorce in�� for several years.

“Crimes of honor,” which practically allowed men to kill their wives, were only in 1991. Adultery, often used as a defense in domestic violence cases against women, was in 2005. One of the most infamous cases in Brazil, in which both the moral slander of a woman’s behavior and the “defense of honor” were used to acquit a murderer, was recently adapted to film: the of socialite Ângela Diniz by entrepreneur Doca Street, her then-boyfriend, with four close-range gunshots to her face. In his 1976 trial, he pleaded guilty of “killing for love,” initially received a two-year prison sentence and immediately saw release.

The trial focused on Diniz’s “immoral lifestyle;” she was separated but not divorced from her husband, and therefore was an adulterer and sinner. The opposite of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, the media described Diniz as a woman who was “begging to be killed.” Public prosecutors appealed, and Street was re-sentenced in 1981, this time to 15 years in prison. The media circus led to one of the first campaigns against domestic violence in Brazil: “Quem ama não mata” (“Those who love do not kill”).

The most important legal turning point came with the creation of the landmark Maria da Penha in 2006, based on the infamous 1983 against Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes by her husband, after the authorities ignored her pleas for help. The case ended up in the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of American States in 1998 — it found Brazil negligent in her case.

The new law defined domestic violence more broadly, including, in addition to physical violence, psychological, sexual, moral and patrimonial violence by partners regardless of gender or cohabitation, understanding these as a breach of human rights. It also created specialized courts and support mechanisms for victims, including shelters and protection measures for women threatened by their partners, and increased sentences for offenders. Its efficiency, however, is highly dependent on sociocultural factors and regional implementation. Some suggest the law has decreased hospitalizations and deaths caused by domestic violence, and increased case notifications.

In 2015, Brazil enacted the , adding femicide to the Penal Code as an aggravated form of homicide and a hate crime, with much higher sentences. Its implementation still encounters sociocultural and regional obstacles. Then in 2023, after two years of deliberation in the Brazilian Supreme Court, the “legitimate defense of honor” argument, used by Street in his first trial, was definitively unconstitutional. It cannot be called on any phase of a femicide case, from the investigation to the trial by jury.

Beyond legal instruments to protect women, federal, state and municipal governments, social movements and even companies created strong campaigns that reviewed traditional Brazilian attitudes that fostered domestic violence. In 2018, Magazine Luiza, one of Brazil’s largest retail stores — famously founded and headed by women — picked on the old saying, “Em briga de marido e mulher, ninguém mete a colher” (“No one should poke their nose into a husband-and-wife fight”). The urged the population to “yes, poke [their] noses” and intervene, call the police or anonymously denounce cases. The slogan later found adoption by the National Campaign to Fight Violence Against Women, or “,” which defines a yearly month-long awareness campaign about the Maria da Penha Law.

The of campaigns appears to depend on adopting the behaviors recommended by them and the multiplication of behavior-changing ideas through social contact, or “word-of-mouth” actions.

Misogyny, Bolsonarism and Brazil’s digital sphere

Violence data is tracked by the Institute for Applied Economic Research, a public institution linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Planning and Budget. Its interactive Atlas da Violência (“Atlas of Violence”) pools homicide rates from 1980 up to 2022, allowing users to select particular years and states, gender, race and age. However, it does not discriminate between femicide, manslaughter or felony murder. Overall murder rates fluctuate in the country, but have been since 2017.

The murder rate of women, however, from 5/100,000 in 1997 to 3.8/100,000 in 2022, including manslaughter and robbery-homicides. A more detailed view comes from the Observatory on Violence Against Women, a committee from the Brazilian Federal Senate designated to study femicide rates and accompany legal cases. It identifies an unsettling in this type of crime since 2022, with the state of Sao Paulo having the highest numbers in 2025. Renata Furbino, a professor of criminal law from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, affirms that, despite the laws already in place to protect women, it is necessary to understand the present of society to interpret and combat these trends.

Digital campaigners from , a non-profit organization fighting misogyny in global politics, published a study about Brazil that highlighted the of misogyny against Brazilian women in public life. They identified organized actors who coordinated social media attacks towards women in leadership roles, most connected to politicians such as Bolsonaro and his allies, and pseudo-intellectuals such as the self-proclaimed philosopher and far-right guru Olavo de Carvalho.

Men have so frequently targeted women in the Brazilian digital sphere that entire are published on the phenomenon, alleging that Big Tech companies organize and foster the attacks. A study from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro shows that digital misogyny is a from social media platforms, with algorithms pushing disinformation and fraudulent ads that demean women in all digital channels. Misogyny is , and tech companies found a gold cauldron in Brazil, as the nation’s digital presence is one of the largest worldwide. Dubbed the “Social Media of the Universe,” Brazil is the second largest market on Facebook, with over 65 million users. Its netizens spend more than a day interacting with others online.

This is such a hotbed for social media misuse that Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes X owner Elon Musk for circumventing Brazilian laws against hate speech and spreading disinformation. Moraes even temporarily blocked X in the whole country until Musk paid the fine.��

Misogynistic efforts from Big Tech platforms are growing more hostile. Recently, Meta content from organizations advising on reproductive rights across the world, regardless of whether abortion, queer rights and transgender support are legal in a country. These accounts enable cisgender and transgender women to deal with body autonomy and domestic and social violence, providing an anonymous, discrete way to access information and guidance while they seemingly browse their social media.

Progressive lawmakers are still fighting for pieces of legislation that may ameliorate this shameful scenario in Brazil. In 2024, after intense lobbying by Big Tech companies with far-right congressmen, then-President of the Chamber of Deputies Arthur Lira a vital bill meant to regulate the spread of fake news through social media. The caucus all but stopped any bills trying to halt hate speech in social media, forcing the Supreme Court to the responsibility of digital platforms with the content they host. Another bill, which legally misogyny to racism, would make social media bullying against women a non-bailable offense and carry higher sentences. The ongoing public consultation of the Senate about this bill has not yet reached the greater public, but already has over support for its approval.

The digital sphere also fostered and spread throughout Brazil imported movements such as “,” “” and the “,” bringing in concepts such as masculine supremacy, extreme misogyny and justification for . Together with ideology, which is intrinsically linked to gender-based violence, neo-Pentecostal churches have pushed to gender equality for at least a decade. They have found social media perfect for convincing battered, socially-isolated and hopeless that they are divinely entitled to rule over, and even , the women who reject them.

Far-right populism, such as that personified by , attracts during economic crises, while women tend to be attracted to progressive movements under the same circumstances. Misogyny may be the differential, also by racism and cruelty, to the point that Brazil now has a saying when gender- and race-based violence happens: “Nem todo Bolsonarista, mas sempre um Bolsonarista” (“Not all Bolsonarists, but a Bolsonarist”). Femicide during Bolsonaro’s term, and researchers understood this hike in numbers to be connected to a virtual “ to kill” granted by the presidency.

A perfect example of the explosive mix of misinterpreted mythical Christian biblical masculinity, militarism, the money-oriented Prosperity Gospel and far-right conservatism is the movement, created by an evangelical pastor in Guatemala and imported to Brazil in 2017. Claiming to transform “woke” and “weak” men into “heroes,” the movement charges high fees to take men on hikes in nature, teaching them to up their feelings and “soldier up” when in distress. This strategy led to in 2025.

Despite claiming to teach Christian love, on March 8 — International Women’s Day — two ���𲵱�Ի�á�����Dz� members violently a woman in the city of Cuiabá, state of Mato Grosso, beating her in front of security cameras after an argument at a restaurant’s playground. The group later expelled the two wealthy entrepreneurs after social backlash. Progressive religious leaders continue to the movement and point out the link between this Christian interpretation and increasing femicide numbers.

Digital media platforms became for Bolsonarism and the growth of misogynistic hate speech in Brazil, a phenomenon that is involved with the on January 8, 2023, and receives strong from Big Tech companies. When the Bolsonarist caucus in Brazilian legislative houses became a majority during Bolsonaro’s 2019–2023 presidential term, it employed disruptive strategies to create during votes on human rights, gender equality and race equality topics, using inflammatory moments as snippets for social media. For the 2023 election, they used Telegram to question the validity of Brazil’s and, as the main group inside “deep web” environments and the “influence-sphere,” managed to gain an even larger for the current legislative term.

Using social media techniques such as polarization, false identity, emotion, defamation (often targeting women, ethnic minorities and LGBTQIA+ politicians) and conspiracy theories, far-right politicians and influencers digital platforms to destabilize social discourse and feed into Brazil’s ingrained prejudices. They produce virtue signaling short videos inside Congress and post them on TikTok, Instagram and X, showing far-right politicians preaching against “woke” congressmen, in particular female, transgender and black left-wing representatives. In January 2025, Chief of Staff Rui Costa warned that the opposition in the legislature behaves like “spoiled brats” and one cannot build hospitals with “.”

The most recent push to achieve amnesty for the perpetrators of the coup attempt brought and authoritarian moves by conservative President of the Chamber of Deputies Hugo Motta, of the Republicanos party. On December 9, Motta ordered Legislative Police to forcefully remove a progressive lawmaker, cut the live feed of the TV Câmara public television network — an unprecedented move after re-democratization — and the press from the building, physically journalists like Universo Online reporter Carolina Nogueira. Bolsonarist lawmakers took the opportunity to pronounce their prejudices and hate speech for their audience, and instances of violence against women repeated on the tribune.

The next night, on December 10, Congress held a vote to left-wing Congressman Glauber Braga for kicking a far-right activist from the Movimento Brasil Livre (Free Brazil Movement). The debate inflamed Bolsonarist congressman Paulo Bilynskyj, the proud grandson of a who is infamous for his involvement in his girlfriend’s . At the session, Bilynskyj Congresswoman Duda Salabert, a transwoman, saying he would “break her face” if he could. Motta then called Congresswoman Benedita da Silva, a black 83-year-old veteran of the center-left Workers’ Party, a liar, told her that her party was against the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution and her microphone mid-speech. Da Silva managed to return to the microphone and read him the signatures on her copy of the Constitution: She was actually the of the Constitutional Commission.

A bizarre tale can serve as a summary of Brazil’s situation of mixing neo-Pentecostal religions, Bolsonarism and femicide. A film about Bolsonaro’s life, Dark Horse, is in in Brazil, directed by American filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh, written by Bolsonarist congressman and actor Mário Frias and starring actor Jim Caviezel as Bolsonaro. The production company, headed by executive producer Karina Ferreira da Gama, has no experience in cinema. Yet it received 108 million reais (over $19.5 million) to install overpriced Wi-Fi systems in Sao Paulo’s low-income communities — which it never properly delivered — and raised funds for neo-Pentecostal festivals.

The whole convoluted deal, as by news agency Intercept Brasil, involves large amounts of public funds being transferred to the production company and its subcontractors. One of these subcontractors, Alex Leandro Bispo dos Santos, received over reais (over $2.1 million) from Dark Horse’s production company and inadvertently helped trigger the massive protests against femicide around the country. On November 29, following a violent domestic altercation, Santos’s severely beaten 25-year-old wife Maria Katiane Gomes da Silva after falling from the tenth floor of their apartment building. Police arrested him a few days later, when doubted his account of her suicide, and abundant of his violence came to light.

Brazil’s femicide struggle persists

The actions taken by Motta and the Bolsonarist caucus in Congress to pass a disguised amnesty to Bolsonaro and the military involved in the coup attempt triggered yet another country-wide . Called by popular progressive organizations in just three days, supporters held massive in all Brazilian capitals, with calls to remove Motta from the presidency of the Congress, and continued for indigenous rights and against femicide. In the city of Recife, feminist groups and female politicians made their known. The northeastern Brazilian capital has a strong feminist and has acted as a haven to guarantee legal abortion rights that other Brazilian states .

When asked their views on the anti-femicide protests, the women who attended illustrated how important these mobilizations were. Artist Lia Letícia, who works with the relations of patriarchalism, race and gender, that femicide has always happened in Brazil. Since the European invasion in the 16th century, indigenous women, and later African women, were raped, traded and killed with impunity. Violence against women is a tragic part of Brazilian past and present. “Now, we are coming together and talking about it, so this is a step forward,” Lia Letícia affirms.

Cultural producer and actress Irma Brown agrees that femicide has always been present. “Brazil was born from , so all gender-based, racial and class violence end up falling on women, especially women of color,” she says. The current situation allows for free discussion, but violence against women is still naturalized across Brazil and bringing the topic to the streets can illuminate this issue. Lia Letícia and Brown believe that instead of an actual growth in femicide in the last months, we are seeing high profile cases and open dialogue on the topic, rather than an actual increase of numbers. In fact, recent governmental statistics show an overall in cases of lethal violence against women between 2023 and 2024.

Photographer Camila Silva agrees that these cases were highly publicized, and the media pushed the discussion forward, but women faced gender-based violence all their lives in Brazil. “We all know friends and relatives in some sort of domestic violence situation, and hear about femicide cases all the time,” she says. She believes there was a turning point for women’s rights born from collective action which allowed for women to get positions of power, but masculine fragility could be the reason for many of these instances of violence. Illustrating this is the case in which a public servant his two female superiors at a public technical school in São Paulo, as he could not accept being “ordered around” by women. Silva feels men should be part of the conversation and take action: “A man can say ‘well, I do not do that,’ but he needs to act more strongly, as he is actually part of this constant struggle.”

Artist Juliana Notari points out that the recent cases were not only in Sao Paulo: Highly-publicized cases came from several Brazilian states, and she agrees that Brazil has always been a violent place to women, with statistics being aggravated by race and class. A shocking happened in Recife, where a man provoked a fire and killed his wife and four children. “We had an extremely misogynous far-right president, and the far-right is notorious for its violence, racism and . He validated this type of violence.” Far-right politicians still act in the Congress and Senate, and social media pushed the global swing to the extreme right, but “the same digital platforms that feed red-pilling are also used to push forward .” She urges people to focus on black women, the most common victims, and to push left-wing leaders to better understand the demands of women, as they are still ignoring crucial issues like the right to abortion.

Notari’s 2020 artistic intervention, titled “,” which was exhibited during Bolsonaro’s term and represented historical violences against women and nature, went around the world and incurred the wrath of far-right politicians and bloggers. Olavo de Carvalho used his platform to the artist and make her a target for and harassment. The installation earned and raised important discussions of patriarchalism, gender violence and body autonomy, and how is still uncomfortable with female issues.

Dr. Ana Paula Portella, a sociologist and author of the , Como Morre uma Mulher? (“How Does a Woman Die?”), has been researching violence against women since the 1970s. She sees this new wave of protests to combat violence against women as a very positive step, reminding that this movement has been organized for more than 40 years.

“We have a very solid, very strong social feminist movement, and since before Ângela Diniz’s murder we were organizing in this direction, to denounce patriarchal violence,” Portella says. She explains that despite the last 20 years of governmental support through policies to fight gender-based violence, and an excellent structure to remove women from dangerous situations, society itself offered very little support. “We have seen efficient policies and services at municipal, state and federal levels, but we haven’t seen such massive social support. [The recent cases] were a shock, and I am seeing this popular manifestation for the first time. We had the #MeToo movement in 2015, but it was almost restricted to social media. This time, it spilled over to the streets.”

Portella says that Brazil has been a part of the White Ribbon , a global action movement of men and boys to end male violence against women, for almost 30 years. But only now are men, including the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, publicly that “this struggle is also mine.” It is crucial we make it clear that violence against women is a men’s, not a women’s, problem: “Women are victims of a man’s motion, and to end violence it is necessary to interrupt this motion.” She affirms that men become violent by repeating a set of attitudes, words, thoughts and concepts, which unfortunately are also introjected by some women. Men must take responsibility to stop the violence.

“I see these movements of the last two weeks in a very positive way, if this trend is maintained,” she adds. We need to wait and see if this was a fatuous initiative to gain popularity on social media or a genuine effort. “Men need to stop beating up women, and they won’t stop just because of the threat of 40 years in jail.” This comments refers to the changes in law that increased the sentences for rape, domestic violence and femicide, including the creation of a new criminal classification for such cases. “It is not the punishment that solves the problem: the problem will be solved when men , ‘I will stop.’”

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post To Live Without Fear: Brazilian Protests Denounce Rise in Gender-Based Violence appeared first on 51�Թ�.

That hasn’t kept the Venezuelan dictator from trying. President Nicolás Maduro has already offered Venezuela’s , invited US President Donald Trump to and even serenaded him with a terrible version of John Lennon’s “.” So far, none of that has worked. But kudos to his social media team for those .

Here is one last solution Maduro hasn’t tried: giving Trump a personal peace offering.

Personality diplomacy

Trump’s brand of domestic and international politics is one of personality. He has a big ego and loves to be flattered. Petting Trump’s back is what has helped New York Mayor endear himself, rehabilitated and helped countries and companies like Apple dodge billions of dollars in .��

This approach to foreign policy is tried and true. For millennia, leaders have given each other peace offerings to stop conflicts. More than 3,000 years ago, states sent gold to to maintain good relations. The English did the same with the 25 centuries later. Spain and Portugal members of their monarchies to prevent wars.

Maybe Maduro has a personal reserve of gold bars lying around, or a daughter () to offer Barron? Is turning the Miraflores Palace into a Trump Hotel Caracas in the books? Build Trump the largest-ever statue, or throw him a giant military parade? He also seems to like Venezuelan ladies; Venezuela won the Miss Universe pageant four times when he ran it. Okay, last one: Give him the Isla Margarita as free real estate. In the interest of peace, nothing should be off the table.

An ideology built on ego

The business magnate has very little ideological core. Trump has flipped on most issues (except maybe for ) and has campaigned on both sides of every policy debate. He has campaigned and governed for and against , , , , the and .

What lies at the core of his belief system, however, is his supreme belief . Trump’s only allegiance is to Trump. His ideology is whatever will help bring him power, wealth and, most importantly, attention. The man would do just about anything for his own personal ego — including perhaps for president in the first place.

He bears this quality in common with lots of other leaders with a cult-like following and authoritarian instincts, including President Juan Perón of Argentina, Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Like Trump, these men were also highly susceptible to personal flattery. Perón, whose governing philosophy was similarly incoherent to Trump’s, insisted on being referred to as “El Líder” (“The Leader”) and surrounded himself with innumerable sycophants who would buy into his worship, like his own wife Evita, who called him “Mi General” (“My General”). 

Hussein’s petty idolatry was most epitomized by his obsession with praise and self-portraits at all levels of society, including in schools, hospitals, music and poetry. Kissing the ring was rewarded with political favors, wealth and status, while critics were immediately tortured and killed. Similar to Trump’s , the Madman of Iraq had every government gathering start and end with extolments of his own qualities.��

Mussolini also maintained a tightly curated image as a scrupulous strongman who gets things done, like running the trains on time — which, turns out, quite true — and bearer of a new Golden Age worthy of Caesar. He routinely appeared at plays and sporting events (sound familiar?) and looked on menacingly, seeking idolization. All criticism, no matter how substantive or small, was treated as a direct affront to Il Duce and, thus, to Italy’s Greatness.

Like other charismatic wannabe autocrats, the key to Trump’s mind is through his heart. Flatter him, and you might be rewarded with favors. Cross him, and you will be subjected to the ferocious fire of a thousand suns until you are condemned to the ash heap of history. Maduro might want to give that option a shot if he wants to stay alive long enough to actually learn the lyrics to “Imagine”.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Could Maduro Playing to Trump’s Ego Avoid War? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The have drastically altered the legislative landscape, significantly strengthening Milei’s position. LLA secured 13 of the 24 contested Senate seats and 64 of the 127 lower-house seats. This marks a substantial gain, as before the elections, his party held only six Senate seats and 30 seats in the lower house. Although it does not hold an outright majority, the LLA is now the most powerful minority bloc in Congress.

These gains are relevant because his prior , characterized by radical spending cuts and deregulation, faced various political obstacles, including opposition lawmakers who overturned his vetoes of bills to increase funding for state universities, people with disabilities and children’s healthcare.

The enhanced representation in Congress will make it easier for Milei to push ahead with his controversial program to slash state spending and deregulate the economy. Financial markets rallied following Milei’s victory, seeing it as a sign that his political survival has kept his economic experiment — and crucial — alive. With stronger congressional support, he is likely to implement more radical changes ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

The context of Milei’s endorsement

Milei’s victory in the midterms came two years into his presidency. Radical spending cuts and free-market reforms have defined his administration. He pledged to shrink state spending by taking a to it, and has since cut budgets for education, pensions, health, infrastructure and subsidies, in addition to laying off tens of thousands of public-sector workers.

The support for Milei, even amidst the painful austerity, is rooted in a deep dissatisfaction with previous governments and a desire for an end to decades of economic mismanagement.

The midterm election result shows that many Argentines remain unwilling to return to the model (which called for the state to take a leading role in the economy to ensure cooperation between businesses and labor). Milei blames this model for the country’s long history of economic woes. Before Milei took office, inflation had hit annually, and the country was experiencing a profound economic crisis.

Supporters, including US President Donald Trump, credit Milei with taming inflation, cutting the deficit and restoring investor confidence. The elections were significantly marked by the intervention of Trump, who, in a late-September social media post, publicly conditioned a promised US financial lifeline for Argentina on Milei maintaining political momentum and winning the elections. This threat, wielded against a precarious and heavily indebted economy, served as a powerful form of through financial pressure.

Voters’ apathy helped Milei’s political coalition. The for the election was 67.9%, the lowest in a national election in decades, suggesting widespread apathy toward politicians across the spectrum. Some voters — hardcore Milei libertarians, swing voters seeking stability and anti-Peronist urban professionals — backed Milei reluctantly, believing the country is on the right path to the desired economic stability. 

The painful price of austerity

Milei’s favorable midterm election, however, is not a universal endorsement of his policies, which have come at a heavy cost. Critics argue that the price of his austerity has been high with social hardship, rising debt and threats of cuts in essential services. 

Retirees, people with disabilities and young people are particularly affected by the pension cuts and job losses that Milei’s austerity has inflicted. With budget cuts, the public services, among the best in Latin America, are crumbling.

Concerns exist that essential funding laws for people with disabilities, which Milei previously vetoed, could again be “in danger” with his strengthened position. The vetoes of bills boosting funding for state universities and children’s healthcare have also been contentious. Despite the promise of “financial freedom,” household debt for daily necessities is at a record high, with out of ten Argentine families taking on debt to cover basic necessities. In 2021, this scenario was milder, with out of ten experiencing financial stress.

The question going forward is whether the general population will start to feel better off, or if the ongoing pain of some of his budget cuts will test people’s patience once more. For now, an important proportion of voters have shown they are prepared to give him more time.

Weak opposition

In the midterm election, the Peronists, the left-leaning group that dominated national politics in Argentina since the country’s democratization in the 1980s, under the electoral coalition Fuerza Patria (FP), failed to enlarge their congressional seats in both houses. With almost of the total votes, FP maintained the same number of seats in the Senate, nine seats in total, and reduced their presence in the lower house by three seats, holding a total of 47 seats.

This electoral failure followed a resounding Peronist victory in Buenos Aires’ provincial legislature election in September, where FP won roughly of the vote. This optimistic result for FP proved misleading; metropolitan Buenos Aires, the largest electoral college in the country with 17.5 million voters, does not reflect the national mood. In effect, Milei’s rise to power comes from his large support from the countryside and such as Cordoba and Santa Fe.

FP’s difficulty in resonating with the wide variety of voters in Argentina outside Buenos Aires has weakened the coalition’s opposition to Milei in Congress. With their legislative power diminished, the Peronists’ primary opposition to Milei will now likely shift decisively from Congress to the streets, setting the stage for a period of heightened social conflict alongside radical legislative change.

Known for its mobilizing capacity, Peronists will likely exert further pressure on Milei by protests and strikes. They have already been doing this, but until now, the main opposition was exercised by blocking or striking down Milei’s legislative actions.

A deepening democratic erosion

Milei won because voters prefer painful liberalization to a return to failed Peronist governance, and because international financial pressure and political fragmentation helped sustain his political coalition. But this choice comes at a high price: the acceleration of democratic erosion.

According to the , Argentina has suffered a long-term erosion of democratic checks and balances, with legislative and judicial constraints on the executive weakening since the early 2000s — a decline that began under prior Peronist administrations. Under Milei, however, this trend has sharply accelerated, marked by severe declines in executive oversight and respect for constitutional norms.

His renewed electoral mandate is likely to deepen this deterioration, further strengthening the presidency at the expense of other institutions and hastening the decline of judicial independence and democratic accountability.

This congressional empowerment also arrives as Milei faces a critical test of institutional integrity: that his sister and Chief of Staff, Karina Milei, received kickbacks from a pharmaceutical company. In a climate where economic outcomes dominate political conversations, such ethical dimensions risk being overshadowed, signaling how public institutions can be captured by private interests and deepening the process of democratic decline.

In the current scenario, the 2027 election appears favorable to Milei’s reelection. His radical discourse, disregard for institutional checks and close alignment with Donald Trump strengthen his position against any opposition candidate. If his austerity program succeeds in delivering economic stability, a significant share of Argentines seems willing to tolerate it — even at the cost of further democratic erosion.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Milei’s Midterm Victory: Endorsing Austerity, Eroding Democracy? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Conflict at home

To understand the government’s approach, the domestic context matters. Ecuador’s has framed the security crisis as an “” and decided to advance further domestic militarization. The country’s deep security crisis, which currently claims a day, has ushered in a political reset in the government’s actions.��

As a consequence of the consistent violence, this crisis has secured President Daniel Noboa a backed by a legislative majority and broad electoral support for his tough-on-crime style. The strategy Noboa is deploying borrows from Latin American models built for different threats. Declaring an “internal conflict” mirrors Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s war-like approach in security crisis. Furthermore, the labeling of local gangs as terrorists echoes how Colombia has historically treated guerrilla groups. However, Ecuador is not fighting the same kind of conflict as Colombia and El Salvador.��

Ecuador’s criminal landscape is shaped by fragmented gangs tied to international organized crime. Most Ecuadorian gangs merely operate as logistical partners, to Europe and running tied to foreign networks. Framing these gangs as terrorists in a domestic war ignores the larger source of conflict in Ecuador’s security crisis. Thus, the Ecuadorian government doubles down on a flawed reading of the conflicts. Further, Noboa’s adoption of mano dura has not stopped at Ecuador’s borders; it now defines the country’s foreign policy.

A shift in foreign policy

The shift is already playing out in ways that leave Ecuador’s traditional foreign policy instincts behind. Once sovereignty-first, Ecuador’s diplomacy now functions as a platform to enlist in its war on crime, including moving tooverturn a on foreign military bases. With Ecuador planning to host in Manta and having reached out to Blackwater paramilitary to support Ecuadorian training, the government has paved the way for foreign military presence. Simply put, the government now sees foreign policy as an extension of its domestic mano dura.��

Global relations and the source of the problem

While Ecuador is receiving international aid, the misreading of Ecuador’s situation by its government has important implications for foreign policy and resolving the conflict. By defining a transnational crisis as a domestic war, Ecuador isolates the problem to its borders and forces itself to bear the blame and burden of a crisis it did not create . Rather than shaping a narrative of global responsibility, Ecuador’s government is turning inward and viewing the crisis as a domestic issue. With this perspective, Ecuador is relying on militarized partnerships to control and resolve a conflict within its borders.

The diplomatic cost of how Ecuador’s government presents its situation is not minor. By narrowing the crisis to Ecuador’s borders, the government sidelines the potential cooperative partnerships it needs to lead an internationally coordinated response. 

Among the most critical and most overlooked partnerships are with cocaine-consuming countries like those in Europe and the Americas. Though absent from Noboa’s rhetoric on where the crisis is located, these regions are central to the violence Ecuador faces. The demand in these areas sustains the trade and, by extension, the violence.

Ecuador’s global relationships and next steps

Ecuador has shown no clear interest in building coalitions with consumer countries, specifically holding them accountable for the current security crisis. Since taking office, Noboa has made to Europe and the US, focusing on security cooperation, technology transfer and intelligence sharing, rather than raising the these countries have as consumers.��

In early , the government hosted the mayors of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg (Europe’s key cocaine ports) in Quito, Ecuador. However, the gesture lacked meaningful follow-up from either side as a strategy to build long-lasting coalitions with consumer nations, and next steps were not finalized. Thus, Ecuador’s actions, along with these meetings, will not be able to move beyond symbolism. To fix the transnational issue, consumer countries must be treated not only as enforcement partners but as direct actors in a market that is driving Ecuador’s collapse.

Mano dura has equally undermined Ecuador’s regional coalition-building. In a region where is deeply intertwined with neighboring countries, coordinated Latin American action is essential to confront the cross-border networks that sustain it. Ecuador’s recent actions have done the opposite to support Latin partnerships.

In late 2024, Ecuador hosted the in Cuenca, a biennial meeting where Latin American and Iberian heads of state gather to discuss regional cooperation. This time, none of the Latin American attended. Their absence followed Ecuador’s controversial raid on , which violated international law and drew widespread condemnation.��

While the Latin American boycott from the conference was not officially declared, the message was clear: the Ecuadorian government’s actions eroded regional trust. What could have been a platform for building a shared security strategy became a symbol of diplomatic isolation and a missed opportunity, shaped in part by the same mano dura logic the government applies at home.

What is at stake for Ecuador’s future is the chance to build bridges and strategically position itself on the global stage. Ecuador has an opportunity to lead on a crisis with global roots. But by framing the security crisis as an internal issue and doubling down on militarized partnerships, the government has narrowed down its options to resolve the matter. The current trajectory may deliver a short-term impact, but the government risks long-term stagnation. Furthermore, the Ecuadorian government may miss the chance to reshape policies around the world when countries are willing to support Ecuador.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post All Muscle, Little Friends: Ecuador’s Foreign Policy Problem appeared first on 51�Թ�.

US–Venezuela tensions

Khattar Singh opens by asking what has pushed the standoff into potentially military territory. Vivas situates the crisis in a broader geopolitical context. He argues that Trump is attempting to reshape international rules and create a more compliant strategic space in the Americas, while simultaneously addressing what Washington sees as the growing influence of narcotics trafficking across the region.

Vivas stresses that Venezuela is different from Latin American countries like Colombia or Mexico. There, drug cartels are private organizations. In Venezuela, the state itself links together criminal networks involving narcotics, gold smuggling and armed groups. Senior military figures are embedded in this system, often described as the Cártel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”). Removing Maduro, in this view, would both strike a regional criminal network “in the head” and eliminate its political coordinator.

Conflict around the corner?

The situation has seen dramatic public signaling. Trump has demanded airspace restrictions over Venezuela, while Maduro has staged televised rallies alongside armed civilians. Yet Vivas cautions against assuming that war is inevitable. He describes the Trump administration as a loose coalition: Some actors want full regime change, others are focused narrowly on dismantling criminal networks.

Trump’s negotiating style matters here. Vivas notes that Trump often escalates rhetorically or economically before backing into talks, suggesting the confrontation could still end at the bargaining table. As he puts it, “Every day that goes by tends to reinforce… this possibility that there is no attack.” Simultaneously, negotiations are exceptionally difficult because Maduro cannot safely relinquish power while facing potential International Criminal Court indictments and the absence of reliable international safe havens.

�Ѳ���ܰ���’s options

Khattar Singh presses Vivas on how Maduro is reading the moment. Vivas describes him as a political survivor who has weathered sanctions, diplomatic isolation, the hemisphere’s worst economic collapse in decades and a mass exodus of nearly nine million Venezuelans. �Ѳ���ܰ���’s regional allies are dwindling, but Vivas believes the regime is betting that US pressure is largely a bluff.

According to Vivas, �Ѳ���ܰ���’s core assumption is that Washington will not deploy boots on the ground and that military threats are a “poker face.” That calculation has, for now, reinforced discipline within the armed forces. A coup remains unlikely because the military was deliberately fragmented — an architecture designed with Cuban assistance to prevent coordinated action unless a rupture emerges at the very top.

Rubio’s role

The discussion turns to US domestic politics. Vivas argues that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been unusually influential because he has fused the political case for restoring democracy with the criminal case against Venezuela’s alleged narco-state. In the current institutional turbulence inside Washington, Rubio has the advantage.

Still, kinetic decisions ultimately rest with the military. Rubio is not a soldier, and once planning moves from rhetoric to execution, generals determine what is feasible, how fast it could happen and at what cost. Political pressure may shape intent, but operational realities constrain outcomes.

US military action?

Khattar Singh asks whether limited strikes are plausible. Vivas downplays Venezuela’s military capacity, describing militias as largely symbolic and regular forces as poorly equipped, with aging aircraft and unreliable air defenses. He suggests that targeted actions — such as strikes on illegal gold operations in the south, which generate major off‑the‑books revenue — would be difficult for Venezuela’s capital of Caracas to counter.

Such moves would not require an invasion and could be framed as attacks on criminal infrastructure rather than the country itself. Whether Washington chooses that path depends partly on Trump’s domestic pressures and his need for a visible foreign policy win.

What Venezuelans feel

Vivas believes public sentiment inside Venezuela is bleak but pragmatic. Credible surveys suggest most Venezuelans want Maduro gone and would not view strikes on regime infrastructure as attacks on the nation. After opposition victories were overridden, he argues, the government lost legitimacy in the eyes of many citizens.

The prevailing mood, Vivas says, is cautious resignation rather than mobilization. There is little appetite for defending the regime, and many in the military are in a “wait and see” posture, calculating which way events will break.

What if Maduro is ousted?

If Maduro falls, Vivas warns, the hardest work begins. Venezuela faces enormous debt, nonexistent economic data and shattered institutions. Any stabilization would require reconstructing basic statistics before engaging the International Monetary Fund, preserving parts of the military not implicated in war crimes and negotiating with governors, most of whom remain aligned with chavismo — the political system and ideology established by former Venezuelan President Hugo ���á�����.

Vivas anticipates a transitional government rather than an immediate handover to last year’s elected leadership, followed by complex, multi‑track negotiations over courts, prosecutors, elections and security. Events are moving fast, he concludes, and assessments could change overnight as pressure continues to build.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Venezuela on the Brink — Is Trump Planning a Military Strike on Nicolás Maduro? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

A recent wave of at sea, the directing of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to launch inside Venezuela, the surge of into the Caribbean, the reopening of a long-shuttered in Puerto Rico and the deployment of the aircraft carrier in the region represent striking but not surprising developments. These are little more than the latest expression of an ideological project through which Washington has long sought to shape the hemisphere in ways that would entrench US power further and protect the profits of Western multinationals.

That formal project dates back to at least the 1823 , when the US unilaterally claimed Latin America as its exclusive sphere of influence. Its revival today is unmistakable and . As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth , echoing the language of that two-century-old policy, “The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood, and we will protect it.”

The results of that doctrine have long been : immense profits for the few and violence, political upheaval, social dislocation and economic devastation for the many. While Washington’s imperial desires in the hemisphere have long been met by movements challenging US dominance, these have repeatedly been forced back into the subordinate position assigned to them in a global capitalist order designed to benefit their not-so “good neighbor.”

It’s no accident that, by the mid-1970s, Latin America had been transformed into a hemisphere dominated by US-backed right-wing authoritarian regimes. Entire regions like the became laboratories for repression, as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay formed a coordinated bloc of military juntas. With direct support from Washington, those regimes oversaw what came to be known as , establishing a transnational network of state terror. Its consequences were catastrophic: 50,000 killed, tens of thousands “disappeared” and hundreds of thousands tortured and imprisoned for the so-called crime of harboring real or perceived leftist sympathies.

During that earlier period, Venezuela had been largely spared the brutal excesses of direct US interventionism in the region (due in part to the repressive rule of successive US-supported strongmen and ). That changed in 1998, when , far more popular predecessor, became president and pursued policies of and aimed at ensuring the nation’s vast oil reserves (the in the world) served Venezuelans rather than being siphoned off to enrich foreign corporations. From then on, Venezuela became the of Washington’s efforts to undermine, discipline and ultimately neutralize “troublesome” progressive governments across Latin America.

To fully understand Washington’s current warpath in the region, it’s necessary to revisit earlier episodes in which the US intervened, violently and antidemocratically, to shape the political destinies of countries in the hemisphere. Three cases are especially instructive: Cuba, Guatemala and Chile. Together, they illuminate the long arc of US imperialism in Latin America and clarify the dangers of the present confrontation.

The rise of Plattismo in Cuba

Cuba had long been a crown jewel in Washington’s imperial imagination. By 1823, American political elites were already casting the island as to the future of the United States. President John Quincy Adams, for instance, , then a Spanish colony, as “indispensable” to the country’s “political and commercial interests.” He ominously that, should the island be “forcibly disjointed from its own unnatural connection with Spain and incapable of self-support,” it could “gravitate only towards the North American Union.” Thomas Jefferson that the possession of Cuba was “exactly what is wanting to round out our power as a nation.” In that spirit, during the 1840s and 1850s, Presidents James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce sought to from Spain, overtures that were repeatedly rejected.

Those efforts unfolded during a period of rapid US territorial expansionism, marking a time when Washington regarded continental conquest as both a “” and a political and economic imperative. When ostensibly legal mechanisms like could be invoked, they were embraced. When military force offered a more expedient path to territorial acquisition, as with the that stripped Mexico of half its territory and delivered what became the American Southwest to US control in 1848, it was undertaken with little hesitation.

The opportunity to pursue longstanding ambitions in Cuba and inaugurate the US as an overseas empire arrived with the of 1898. In that conflict, Washington intervened in anticolonial uprisings from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, not to champion genuine liberation but to ensure that any subsequent “independence” would be to US strategic and economic interests. What emerged was a political order deliberately engineered to keep Cuba firmly tethered to the priorities and power of the United States.

That would be codified in the 1901 , which effectively nullified Washington’s earlier assurances of Cuban sovereignty and granted Washington the right to establish military bases (including ), substantial control over the Cuban treasury and the ability to intervene whenever the US deemed it to safeguard its arbitrarily defined notion of what constituted “Cuban independence” or to defend “life, property, and individual liberty.”

In practice, Cuba emerged from the war as a dependent protectorate, not a sovereign nation. That model was soon codified for the entire hemisphere with the to the Monroe Doctrine issued in 1904, which granted the United States a self-appointed mandate to police the region to maintain “order.”

In Cuba, that arrangement would serve Washington’s interests for decades. By 1959, on the eve of the Cuban Revolution, US 90% of the island’s trade, 90% of its public services, 75% of its arable land and 40% of its sugar industry. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Cubans remained landless, disenfranchised and mired in poverty.

By breeding staggering inequality, Washington’s imperialism rendered Cuba ripe for revolution. In 1959, following years in exile, Fidel Castro to the island to overwhelmingly popular support, having launched an armed struggle after attempting to run in the 1952 elections that the Washington-backed Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista . Rather than confront the policies that had produced the revolution, US officials moved to make an example of Castro, waging an to undermine his revolutionary government and punish the population whose support had made his ascent possible.

Washington pursued everything from ill-fated invasions to assassinations, plots that, in October 1962, brought the world to the brink of a . It also imposed a punishing designed to choke the island’s economy, render socialism a stillbirth and deter other nations from challenging US hegemony. Those efforts foreclosed the possibility of constructive engagement, which Castro had initially he was open to, pushing Cuba decisively into the Soviet orbit, and creating the very outcome Washington claimed it had sought to avoid.

The fall of Guatemala

did not return to Cuba alone. He arrived alongside the Argentinian Ernesto , who would become a key ideologue of the revolution, bringing with him a commitment to constructing a global, anti-imperialist movement. The two first met in in Mexico City, where Castro was organizing in exile, and Guevara had resettled after working as a doctor in Guatemala, a country he had entered to support the democratic spring of President .

The democratic experiment in Guatemala was abruptly and violently extinguished in 1954, when a toppled Árbenz. From that experience, Guevara carried with him an indelible lesson about the reach of US power and Washington’s willingness to deploy force in defense of corporate interests, along with the profoundly antidemocratic and destabilizing consequences of US intervention across the hemisphere.

That coup in Guatemala was carried out in service to that country’s real center of authority, the Boston-based . Founded in 1899, United Fruit consolidated its foothold there through a series of preferential corporate arrangements, as successive strongmen ceded vast tracts of land and critical infrastructure to the company in exchange for personal enrichment. In the process, Guatemala was transformed into the archetypal “.”

United Fruit came to Guatemala’s agricultural and industrial sectors, transforming itself into one of the most profitable corporations in the world. It secured extraordinary returns through its monopoly power, wage suppression and the criminalization of labor organizing. Its influence extended into the of Washington. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had represented United Fruit as a senior partner at the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, and his brother, CIA director Allen Dulles, had previously served on that company’s board.

Árbenz regarded United Fruit not just as a threat to Guatemala’s sovereignty but also as an engine of injustice. In a country where 2% of the landholders controlled of all arable land (more than half controlled by United Fruit), much of it left deliberately fallow, he sought to challenge a system that denied millions of peasants access to the land on which their survival depended. His land reform applied only to uncultivated land. The government proposed purchasing idle tracts at their declared tax value (based on the company’s own assessments). Yet because United Fruit had its vast land holdings to evade taxes, the company refused.

Árbenz’s policies, driven by the fact that he was a nationalist (not a communist), were committed to dismantling Guatemala’s imperial dependency. His objective was to , as he put it, “Guatemala from a country bound by a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state, and to make this transformation in a way that will raise the standard of living of the great mass of our people to the highest level.” Yet, in the ideologically charged climate of the early Cold War years, such New Deal-style reforms were recast by Washington as incontrovertible proof that a “” was taking root in Central America.

By 1954, US officials insisted that they had “no choice” but to intervene to prevent the country from “falling” to communism. The relied on an orchestrated propaganda campaign, the financing of a mercenary army and the aerial bombardment of Guatemala City. The combined pressure of all of that coerced Árbenz into resigning. In his , he condemned the attacks “as an act of vengeance by the United Fruit Company” and stepped down in the hope, quickly dashed, that his departure might preserve his reforms.

Power would soon be transferred to the military regime of , while US President Dwight D. Eisenhower that “the people of Guatemala, in a magnificent effort, have liberated themselves from the shackles of international Communist direction.” In reality, United Fruit had expanded its influence, while the country descended into decades of state terror. The that followed claimed more than 200,000 lives, including a against the indigenous Ixil Maya people, carried out with direct .

The crushing of Chilean socialism

If Guatemala exposed Washington’s readiness to destroy a modest social democracy in the name of communism and in defense of corporate power, Chile demonstrated the full, violent maturation of unrepentant Cold War interventionism. When the socialist physician won the presidency in 1970 in a democratic election, Washington immediately went on the , launching a covert, sustained campaign to strangle his government before it could succeed.

Allende sought to expand social welfare and the economy. His program called for the nationalization of strategic industries, the expansion of healthcare and education, the strengthening of organized labor and the dismantling of entrenched monopolistic landholdings. Those initiatives drew support from a broad, multiparty alliance rooted in Chile’s peasants as well as its working and middle classes. Above all, aimed to reclaim the nation’s mineral wealth from foreign capital, especially the US-based copper giant , whose staggering profits bore few meaningful returns for the Chilean population.

President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger found that intolerable and quickly came to regard Allende not just as a symbolic but a to US power in the region. After all, a successful socialist state achieved through the ballot box risked demonstrating that another political and economic path was indeed possible.

What followed was a coordinated campaign of economic, social and political destabilization. The CIA funneled millions to Chile’s opposition parties, business associations and media outlets. It financed strikes and disruptions designed to create and weaponize scarcity, to (in ) “make the economy scream” and erode confidence in Allende’s Popular Unity government. US officials also cultivated ties with reactionary factions in the Chilean military, encouraging coup plots and ultimately directly supporting the of Allende on September 11, 1973.

What emerged was one of the bloodiest dictatorships in the hemisphere in the twentieth century. General regime would carry out widespread torture, disappearances and extrajudicial killings, while US-trained economists radical neoliberal policies (similar to the now being implemented by Javier Milei in Argentina with the help of a US President Donald Trump ) that dismantled social protections and opened Chile’s economy to foreign capital.

Hands off Venezuela

In every instance where the United States intervened in Latin America, leaving tens of thousands dead and entire , it was never really communism that Washington feared. What alarmed policymakers and the corporate interests they served was the prospect that nations in the hemisphere might escape the economic architecture of US dominance.

When Hugo ���á����� completed the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil sector in , he followed a long and perilous trajectory established by regional leaders who dared to confront US power. In doing so, they committed what Washington considered the “cardinal sin” of asserting sovereign control over national resources within a hemisphere it had long treated as its strategic preserve. These leaders demonstrated, however briefly, that it was possible to stand up to the United States, but that such defiance would ultimately be met with overwhelming force.

Independent powers in this hemisphere going their own way were the threat that Washington and Wall Street could never tolerate. It’s the same reason the United States is once again maneuvering toward open conflict in Venezuela. To proceed down such a path will, of course, mean reenacting some of the most catastrophic chapters of US foreign policy. The lesson of such imperial adventurism in Latin America is unmistakable. When Washington interferes in other nations, the outcome is never stability or democracy but their absolute negation.

[ first published this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Trump Corollary: US Imperialism in Latin America From the Monroe Doctrine to Maduro appeared first on 51�Թ�.

While voters will choose between personalities, the real protagonist of Chile’s political is the institutional architecture that survived both the 2019 social uprising and the abortive constitutional rewriting efforts. The independent central bank, the structural fiscal rule, the debt limit and a political culture steeped in technocratic policymaking have collectively constrained what any politician can credibly promise. Economics, not ideology, is now setting the boundaries within which politics operates.

This phenomenon reflects a broader pattern visible in Chile’s long-run indicators: Even as social expectations surged in the 2010s, institutional inertia kept the macroeconomic regime remarkably stable. Political coalitions have shifted, but the guardrails of fiscal prudence and monetary independence have produced what scholars call an equilibrium of constrained divergence — parties rhetorically drift apart while practically converging on the same policy frontier.

The frontier is not defined by electoral preferences, but by institutional constraints — fiscal rules, inflation-targeting mandates, market discipline and the credibility premium embedded in Chile’s economic governance. Thus, administrations of very different ideological profiles end up selecting from the same narrow menu of feasible macroeconomic choices, even when their stated ambitions diverge dramatically.

Institutional anchors after the Estallido Social

Chile forged its current political equilibrium in crisis. The 2019 did not erupt because the country’s institutions were weak, but because expectations had outgrown what the existing model could deliver. Inequality, stagnant wages and frustration with elite governance created a combustible mix. Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s in 2021 reflected this anger as he campaigned on redistribution, gender rights, climate action and a wholesale constitutional rewrite.

But the public’s of two proposed constitutions in 2022 and 2023 brought the country back to a familiar center of gravity. Chileans demanded renewal, not rupture. Boric’s administration, confronted with legislative fragmentation and deteriorating fiscal conditions, pivoted toward the middle — scaling back ambitious tax reforms, abandoning pension nationalization and moderating its climate industrial policy.

Rather than signaling a revolutionary break, Chile’s recent political cycle reflects a recalibration of expectations. After years of mobilization and constitutional ambition, voters ultimately their preference for stability even while demanding reform. The electorate experimented with the outer limits of institutional change. Then, through democratic means, it redirected the political system toward continuity. What emerged is not the collapse of the old order but a post-utopian pragmatism: a recognition that social transformation must occur within, rather than against, Chile’s established democratic structures.

The IMF–PIIE view: a macro framework that resists populism

International observers agree that the resilience of Chile’s macroeconomic institutions has shaped this convergence. According to the International Monetary Fund’s 2024 Article IV , Chile is:

1. lowering inflation faster than most Latin American peers,
2. re-establishing inflation-targeting credibility,
3. strengthening its structural fiscal rule and
4. stabilizing debt under the 45% of GDP limit.

This framework leaves little room for fiscal adventurism. As the IMF notes, Chile’s adjustment path hinges on continued discipline in public spending, prudential independence and credible policy guidance. Deviations have immediate costs: higher spreads, weaker currency and political backlash from a middle class wary of macro instability.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics () reinforces this view, arguing that Chile remains one of the region’s strongest macro performers precisely because its institutions insulate long-term policy from short-term politics. Chile’s central bank is trusted, its fiscal rule transparent and its regulatory regime stable. These fundamentals survived the social uprising and the constitutional turbulence, and now guide electoral behavior.

In this sense, Chile is approaching what some analysts describe as a “macro-technocratic constitutionalism” — a constitutional order in which policy is insulated from electoral swings and where credible-commitment mechanisms and expert-driven rules carry more weight than popular mandates. Populism is not defeated by ideology but neutralized by institutional design.

The left and right have centered

The two leading candidates reflect the power of these economic guardrails.

Jara, despite her longstanding Communist Party affiliation, has ideological ambition. In an with Spanish publication El País, she explicitly states, “No trabajo con lógicas refundacionales.” (“I don’t work with foundational logics.”) She presents a more pragmatic, centrist agenda. An early version of her campaign proposed nationalizing copper and lithium, but this idea has since been dropped. Her early pledge to nationalize copper and lithium has disappeared. Her team now emphasizes industrial policy that creates space for private-sector growth, wage policies that remain within fiscal bounds and housing strategies reliant on blended public–private financing.

Kast, long known for staunch cultural conservatism, has toward security, fiscal prudence and administrative efficiency. His proposal to cut government spending by 1.7% of GDP is framed not as austerity but as rationalization. His pledge to abide by the debt rule reflects political realism: Violating Chile’s fiscal guardrails would doom any conservative government’s credibility.

Both campaigns now accept that the economic model built since the 1990s — that of open markets, macro stability, investment protection and technocratic regulation — cannot be dismantled without enormous economic and political costs.

Candidates have adjusted to the rules, not the rules to the candidates.

The politics of constraint

This convergence is not necessarily a sign of a failing democracy. In fact, it a system where institutions shape political incentives, as stressed by the IMF, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Parliamentary Research Service, which highlight how Chile’s institutional framework constrains policy discretion. But it also exposes a paradox: The same macro stability that secures Chile’s credibility narrows the space for structural transformation.

Chile’s productivity has for over a decade, with national productivity data showing little to no productivity growth since 2012. Its pension system requires modernization, a challenge emphasized repeatedly in policy assessments of Chile’s long-term fiscal and demographic pressures. The lithium sector demands regulatory clarity, with analysts and multilateral institutions noting that uncertainty in governance and concessions has slowed investment. Crime and migration now dominate public concern, overshadowing long-term economic priorities, as US Congressional Research Service show security overtaking economic issues in public opinion.

Yet none of the candidates propose the type of deep institutional modernization — tax redesign, labor reform, innovation strategy — that economists argue is necessary for a new growth cycle. The macro constraints that discipline populism may also discourage ambition. The result is a politics of constrained imagination: parties may signal ideological differences, but their governing space is tightly circumscribed by fiscal rules, regulatory stability and central-bank .

Congressional arithmetic and future governance

Complicating the picture is the likely composition of Congress. Projections from the European Parliamentary Research Service that the center-right and radical right may secure a majority in both chambers. If Kast wins, he would be one of the few post-transition presidents with a legislative majority aligned with his coalition. That would ease security reforms and administrative restructuring, but could also embolden more polarizing factions.

If Jara wins, she faces the opposite problem: negotiating with an unfriendly Congress that will block redistributive or labor reforms. Her presidency would resemble the first years of the Boric administration — ambitious proposals tamed by legislative reality.

Either way, the macroeconomic framework remains intact because no plausible congressional configuration can alter the constitutional or central-bank architecture.

The real battleground: security, migration and state capacity

Security and migration have as pivotal issues in Chile’s 2025 presidential race, especially as rising gang violence and immigrant flows shift public concern from traditional economic issues to law-and-order priorities.

Leading candidate Kast is on mass deportations, fortified border barriers and a tough-on-crime agenda inspired by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Kast’s opponent, Jara, community policing and institutional reform as her crime-control strategy.

Crime is now being treated as an economic variable. A recent study by CLAPES UC, a research center at Chile’s Pontificia Universidad Católica, the country loses around 2.6% of GDP annually to violence and its effects on business. As a result, the electorate increasingly views public order as integral to economic growth rather than separate from it — making security the potential axis for policymaking in the next decade.

A country at a crossroads

Chile’s election may not mark a dramatic pivot between left and right but rather a test of how political competition operates within the country’s long-standing institutional framework. Rather than abrupt ideological swings, Chile’s trajectory is defined by an institutional architecture that disciplines political change and limits sudden policy reversals.

This is Chile’s quiet counterrevolution. It is not a revolt of ideology, but a reaffirmation of a technocratic tradition that began in the late 20th century and has survived crisis after crisis. It is imperfect, constrained and sometimes unimaginative, but it has proven resilient in ways that few democracies can claim today.

Whoever wins the presidency will face a society demanding security, inclusion and better living standards, but neither will dismantle the economic architecture that underpins Chile’s global reputation. Ultimately, the most powerful actor in Chilean politics is not a candidate, but a framework: a set of institutions that has turned economic rationality into political reality.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Chile’s Quiet Counterrevolution: How Institutions Are Governing Politics, Not the Other Way Around appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The key points of Belém were the “joint decision,” the shifting positions of the European Union, the objections of large oil-producing countries and the enormous efforts of Brazilian diplomatic coordination to deliver on implementation of the Paris Agreement. In parallel with the diplomatic conference, Belém welcomed a vigorous presence of civil society, a powerful expression of its commitment to social justice in the fight against climate change.

The decision to join forces: strategy, scope and limits

In the context of the climate negotiations, the Brazilian presidency of the COP created the — a “joint decision” strategy to untangle sensitive issues and stitch together a single package of decisions that included finance, adaptation, just transition, trade, gender and technology. At the end of the conference, this package resulted in the approval of 29 documents that sought to advance on multiple fronts without leaving behind urgent demands from the Global South.

Among the financial measures approved, concrete allocations of to the Adaptation Fund and to adapt the health sector to climate impacts stand out. The presidency also proposed reformulating climate finance reporting, linking it to the New Collective Quantified Goal for Climate Finance (), seeking greater transparency between “provided” and “mobilized” resources.

On the other hand, financial ambition fell short of what was necessary: the task-force proposal foresees adaptation financing by 2035 compared with 2025, but without a clearly defined base value. This gap reflects the historical difficulty of the multilateral system in translating political commitment into measurable financial flows — a challenge that, according to climate finance experts, is reflected in the current adaptation finance gap, estimated at around $340 billion. This amount is forecast to reach $1.35 trillion by 2035.

No binding target was delivered to finance adaptation, and the multilateral ambition to mobilize trillions for clean infrastructure remains without clear accountability mechanisms. The recognition that historical goals have not been met gained space in the final text, but without new and effective structures that guarantee the flow of resources where they are most urgent.

Among other points in the task-force decision, advances were made on information integrity and the fight against climate disinformation — essential to confronting denialism, including promoted by parts of the fossil-fuel industry. There were also developments on carbon markets and discussions on high-integrity rules — a necessary subject for robust accounting of carbon credits, which remains controversial given cases of fraud and technical errors worldwide.

The EU’s position: defensive pragmatism

The European Union played a decisive role in the final design of the “joint decision”. European officials adopted a pragmatic stance: supporting the negotiated package as long as it did not include provisions they considered unfeasible or unsupported, especially those related to the energy transition. In negotiations, European representatives conditioned their greater willingness to finance adaptation on the inclusion — from their point of view — of balanced measures in the energy transition.

This stance produced two key effects: (1) the EU helped ensure approval of the package, avoiding a total impasse; (2) at the same time, its bargaining limited the financial ambition of the final text, contributing to less binding wording on goals and responsibilities. Observers interpreted this strategy as a balance between pro-climate rhetoric and cautious practice — especially relevant after the United States’s direct absence, which altered traditional leadership dynamics.

Objections from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China, India and Russia: blocking the fossil roadmap

One of the most sensitive points in the Belém negotiations was the so‑called “roadmap” for moving away from an economy dependent on fossil fuels — an explicit priority of the Brazilian presidency. Although the initiative gained important political support, especially from the Global South and activist leaders, it did not make it into the final texts due to a lack of consensus. Fossil-fuel-producing countries (notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), as well as major emitters such as China and India, and to a lesser extent, Russia, and even Japan, raised .

These objections ranged from practical issues (timing, socioeconomic impacts and energy security) to geopolitical positions defending industrial and revenue interests. For many of these countries, formal commitments to abandon fossil fuels would entail high political and economic costs, requiring guarantees of finance, technology transfer and just treatment for workers and communities. This bloc managed to bar inclusion of the roadmap in the joint decision, relegating it to a parallel initiative — albeit one that faces growing political pressure.

Brazilian diplomatic leadership: sewing consensus and maintaining the agenda

Brazil, as COP30 president, worked intensively to transform the ���ܳپ���ã�� effort into a political reality. The presidency’s strategy combined multilateral diplomacy (bilateral and multilateral negotiations), global visibility — placing the Amazon at the center of discussions — and bridge-building among groups of countries. The presidency the creation of an international just-transition mechanism, with a draft to be presented by June 2026 and contributions open until March 15, 2026, aiming to establish an instrument to organize finance, technical cooperation and capacity building.

This action produced results: presented new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) during COP30, and a package of decisions elevated just transition as an institutional priority. However, the Brazilian effort coexists with internal contradictions — part of the government promoted a roadmap for renewables even as the state authorized auctions at the mouth of the Amazon, renewed contracts for gas and coal thermal plants through 2040, and faced a Congress about to review vetoes and make environmental licensing more flexible.

These internal tensions erode the policy coherence needed to transform international commitments into robust domestic policies. Even so, the efforts of Brazilian climate leadership deserve attention and recognition.

Colombia–Netherlands initiative: a promising path to the end of fossil fuels

Facing the impasse on including the energy transition roadmap, Colombia and the Netherlands a joint initiative to organize the first international conference on “Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels” in April 2026. This initiative deserves attention and applause for inaugurating an alternative strategic path to the unanimity-based system of UN climate conferences. It points to a promising mobilization of more than 80 countries to address the transition from coal, oil and gas to renewable energies, in parallel with COP processes.

By shifting the debate to a dedicated forum with technical and political focus, the coalition creates space to build operational consensus, finance transition guarantees and design social and labor protections. This parallel path is a necessary complement to global negotiations on the planet’s foremost climate agenda: ending the use of fossil fuels.

Civil society, Indigenous peoples and the pulse of climate democracy

Belém experienced one of the highest levels of civil society participation in COP history after three years of conferences in less receptive environments for public demonstrations. At COP30, more than Indigenous people engaged inside and outside the negotiations, defending territorial rights among many demands; hundreds of parallel events addressed themes related to the Amazon’s socioenvironmental values and standing-forest bioeconomy. The streets were filled with a estimated at 70,000 people — a clear popular demonstration for global climate action. Science was prominent: a scientific pavilion brought climate scientists into direct contact with the COP presidency.

Civil society demanded ambition, integrity of information and climate justice — reinforcing that serious policy must articulate science, human rights and broad social participation. The launch of the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (), which raised nearly $7 billion, was welcomed by some sectors; others criticized its governance and reliance on private funds, reflecting the debate on financing forest protection without offloading public responsibility.

The end of deforestation by is an imperative for Brazil to reach its NDC. Efforts have been made to decrease present deforestation to reasonable levels, which will continue in the coming years. Nevertheless, the TFFF figures and other funding sources suggest that they are below the zero-deforestation ambition needs.

The event also exposed shortcomings in COP infrastructure: thermal discomfort in the Amazon heat and humidity, and a small fire that was quickly controlled but interrupted use of some spaces for an afternoon and led to a few hospital visits without major consequences.

What lies ahead

At the slow pace of consensus-based diplomacy, attention now turns to in Turkey, with Australia chairing negotiations. Key points to watch for a minimally positive meeting include guaranteed and meaningful inclusion of civil society; a real commitment by hosts to halt approval of new coal projects; concrete progress on adaptation finance with numerical targets; operationalization of the just-transition mechanism; and consolidation of technical processes that make the fossil-fuel roadmap a negotiable agenda rather than mere rhetoric. A Pre-COP in the Pacific, responding to the needs of island states threatened by sea-level rise, and the selection of a negotiation president with the capacity to unite interests will be decisive.

COP30 in Belém renewed the political agenda by placing the Amazon at the heart of negotiations and by structuring a joint package of decisions that seeks to reconcile justice, adaptation and transition. At the same time, it made clear that without binding financial commitments, consistent social inclusion and domestic policy coherence, progress will be slow.

The Colombia–Netherlands initiative for a conference dedicated to ending fossil fuels is a promising beacon: it offers a technical-political forum to translate political pressure from Belém into concrete measures. If Brazilian diplomacy and global coalitions can convert the “joint decisions” momentum into operational instruments and real finance, COP30 may be remembered as the starting point of a historic turning point — led, above all, by the civil society that occupied Belém and demonstrated that the world wants, and can, accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

Geopolitical conflicts and multilateral fissures persist, but Brazilian leadership at this COP advanced agendas despite contradictions. The resistance of oil-producing countries and the absence of the United States shaped resistance to consensus-based diplomatic agreements. Still, Belém sent a strong signal from civil society and a considerable coalition of countries willing to pursue the end of fossil fuels — a positive and promising outcome for a polarized world dominated by the capital of the old fossil economy.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post COP30 in Belém: Joint Effort, Tensions and a Path to the End of Fossil Fuels appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Chile’s unique economic landscape

Khattar Singh begins the conversation by asking Geurts to quickly summarize what makes Chile unique. Geurts explains that Chile is an interesting case due to its relatively high development rate, boasting one of the highest GDPs per capita in South America, second only to Uruguay. A significant differentiator is the formal economy: only 30% of the population works in the informal sector, a stark contrast to Peru and Bolivia, where that figure ranges between 70% and 85%. Chile also possesses the best universities in Spanish-speaking South America and a generally good educational system.

However, Geurts notes that Chile shares similarities with other Latin American nations, particularly its reliance on exporting minerals and foodstuffs. Furthermore, Chile is exceptionally dependent on one single mineral — copper — making it the world’s largest copper producer. Critically, despite its economic success, Chile suffers from high unequal income distribution, demonstrated by a high Gini coefficient of 430, which is higher than neighboring countries like Peru, Uruguay or Argentina. While the outside world views Chile as an “economic miracle” with high growth rates, better education and healthcare, Chileans themselves often feel they could be doing better, especially given the high cost of living and the limited opportunities for low-income people.

The frustration of 2019 and political polarization

Khattar Singh steers the conversation toward the drastic political changes since the 2019 mass protests. Geurts details how this social upheaval came unexpectedly while the country was under a conservative center-right president. The protests were triggered by an increase in public transport costs, quickly expanding beyond Santiago to include students, workers, the unemployed and poor people across the countryside. The core issue was widespread frustration and the demand for more from politics.

Historically, Chilean politics had alternated predictably between a center-left bloc (like former President Michelle Bachelet) and a center-right bloc (like former President Sebastián Piñera). Voters grew frustrated because they saw little difference between the two main blocs and felt that their votes led to “nothing happening”. This frustration triggered a kind of polarization, leading people to turn toward extreme political views.

On the left, this brought a “new kid on the block,” Gabriel Boric, a student leader during the upheaval who later became president. On the right, the more liberal center-right shrunk, while a more radical right-wing party, the Republican Party of current presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, gained strength. Geurts also highlights the emergence of even more radical figures, such as Johannes Kaiser, a libertarian who wants to slash the government and crack down on crime.

On the left, while the candidate Jeannette Jara is a communist, Geurts offers a nuanced view, explaining that her track record as a labor minister shows her to be quite moderate. She was highly effective at brokering deals with opposition parties to achieve significant policy goals, such as reducing the workweek from 45 to 40 hours and establishing a basic retirement schedule for poor people.

The 2025 election and mandatory voting

Khattar Singh notes that the 2025 presidential election, which ended its first round on November 16 and will culminate in a runoff on December 14, has fundamentally been shaped by the anger and dissatisfaction following the 2019 mass protests. Geurts explains that voters are “on the move,” seeking more radical options because they believe the center parties have failed to deliver change. Currently, electoral priorities are focused on the crime rate, immigration and unemployment, topics more strongly addressed by the right.

A major factor influencing the results was the introduction of mandatory voting, which was a consequence of the 2019 events. Previously, less than half the population voted, but with mandatory voting, the turnout nearly doubled. Geurts points out that the new voters are often those more alienated from politics, less interested in complex proposals and thus more likely to vote for “simple solutions”.

This environment fostered the rise of third-party candidates like Franco Parisi, a populist who tried to distinguish himself as “neither a communist nor a fascist”. Parisi proposed simple solutions, such as eliminating value-added tax on medicines and lowering politicians’ incomes, and used populist tactics like calling career politicians a “cast”.

Regarding the global perception that Chile has swung structurally to the right, Geurts warns Khattar Singh that news often simplifies complex situations. While the vote currently favors the right due to immediate priorities, Geurts argues that structurally, the center-left and center-right voters are usually balanced (around 50% each), and the vote shifts based on current priorities.

Contrasting visions for Chile’s future

The presidential runoff pits Kast against Jara, offering Chileans a complex choice. Geurts details their sharply contrasting political leanings:

— Jara represents the traditional left, emphasizing protection for the poor, investment in healthcare and education, increased taxes on the wealthy and subsidies for the disadvantaged.

— Kast represents the far right, advocating for a better environment for private enterprise, relaxing labor laws and lowering taxes for companies.

Their approaches also diverge significantly on the critical issues of crime and immigration. Jara proposes more technocratic solutions, such as establishing intelligence services to track the money to reduce crime, acknowledging that these measures take time to bear fruit. Her plans for migration aim to help migrants adapt to Chilean society.

In contrast, Kast proposes radical, immediate and “Trumpian” measures. He wants to significantly reduce migration, proposing 2,000 flights to remove illegal immigrants (who would pay for their own tickets), and suggesting excavating a ditch along the northern border, utilizing the military and police for enforcement. Geurts suggests that if the population seeks immediate, radical solutions, they might favor Kast.

Potential for political deadlock and regional trends

Khattar Singh expresses concern that even if Kast wins, he could face a political deadlock, as his party lacks a congressional majority. Geurts confirms this, noting that Kast and his allies (the center party of Piñera and Kaiser) would fall short of a majority in the House of Representatives and hold only half the seats in the Senate. Kast would need to build coalitions, possibly with Parisi’s party. Geurts views this need for cooperation as beneficial for democracy, noting that former President Boric also had to work with moderate opposition to get things done. However, this necessity prevents major structural changes, risking renewed voter frustration and a vicious cycle of political shifts.

Finally, the discussion turns to why such “drastic changes politically” are occurring across Latin America, citing examples like Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. Geurts argues that domestic factors primarily drive these changes — voters reacting to crises in their own countries, such as Argentina’s deep economic crisis or Bolivia’s lack of dollars and fuel.

Regarding the increasing prominence of “Trump-like figures” in Latin America (such as President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and President Javier Milei in Argentina), Geurts advises caution in using the caricature, noting that figures like Milei and US President Donald Trump differ significantly in power and economic policy. However, he notes that leaders like El Salvador’s Bukele have gained popularity by effectively addressing major problems, such as crime. Geurts concludes that a common frustration pervades reasonably wealthy and democratic Latin American societies: people do not feel progress, witness widespread corruption and see poverty reduction stall. This leads voters to seek radical solutions, sometimes from the populist left but increasingly from the populist right, particularly since many left-wing populists have “messed up with the economy”.

Khattar Singh ends the conversation by emphasizing that the mandatory voting requirement has significantly shaped the outcome and will determine Chile’s future.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Chile’s Political Reset — Mandatory Voting, Economic Crisis and a Right-Wing Wave appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Geurts argues that Paz’s election signals the collapse of a political and economic model that has dominated Bolivia since 2006. But whether the new direction can endure remains an open question.

Rodrigo Paz wins in Bolivia

Geurts begins by describing the election as “definitely a turning point in Bolivia,” not merely a reaction to incumbents or fatigue with the MAS establishment. In his view, the key story is the end of the 21st-century socialist model associated with former Bolivian President Evo Morales and his party. For years, that model relied on centralized control, gas rents and heavy subsidies. As reserves dried up and the Central Bank was used as a political checkbook, the model became exhausted.

Paz’s election victory reflects the public’s desire for a new approach that reopens the country to private enterprise and global markets. The shift will also reshape foreign relations. Bolivia is expected to move away from its alignment with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Now, experts believe it will seek stronger ties with neighbors like Argentina and Chile, as well as the United States to the north.

Paz’s victory, Geurts says, is like a “Cinderella story,” as he was a complete underdog who defied expectations and rose to great heights. In the first round, he trailed badly in the polls but ended up ahead of the field. In the runoff, he defeated former Bolivian President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, a political heavyweight, despite running on a much vaguer economic message. Paz presented himself as the less threatening option, a leader who promised change without the sharp edges of shock therapy.

Fixing Bolivia’s economy

Sworn into office on November 8, Paz has inherited an economy strained by inflation, shrinking gas output, fiscal deficits and a severely overvalued currency. Much of the crisis stems from years of underinvestment in the energy sector and an exchange-rate policy that encouraged imports while stifling private exports.

Paz offered few specifics during his campaign, but he may be forced to make tough choices as president. That includes seeking International Monetary Fund support — something Bolivian voters associate with austerity and foreign interference — and potentially floating the exchange rate. Paz has rejected the idea publicly, favoring a strategy of backtracking. Geurts insists that gradual adjustments do not “solve the issue of overvaluation.”

Despite these challenges, Paz is beginning his term with a sizable parliamentary advantage. His party and two allied pro-business parties together hold more than 80% of seats, giving him the votes needed for structural reform. These alliances are reinforced by personal and political ties: Quiroga has pledged cooperation, and Bolivian politician Samuel Doria Medina — whose party is the third-largest — has lent advisors and political capital to Paz.

Still, the president faces internal complications. His own party grew too quickly to be cohesive or experienced. His vice president, former Bolivian police officer Edmand Lara Montaño, is controversial for the radical way he expresses himself in public, such as stating it is his job to hold Paz accountable and denounce the president if he finds corruption. Implementing an economic overhaul will require discipline across a coalition that was not originally built for governing.

Polarization in Bolivia

Bolivia’s divides are longstanding: highlands versus lowlands, indigenous versus urban, MAS loyalists versus opponents. Roughly 70% of Bolivians now live in cities and are deeply embedded in the national economy. These voters urgently want dollars, fuel and stability; if Paz can deliver those basics, they will likely stay with him.

But the MAS base remains powerful. Morales, who is now breaking with his own party and forming a new movement, Evo Pueblo, still commands intense loyalty in the northern Chapare region. According to Geurts, his supporters there “really see him like a kind of a messiah.” Road blockages, marches toward the Bolivian political capital of La Paz and political agitation could quickly return. Managing Morales will likely be Paz’s primary challenge.

The state bureaucracy provides another hurdle. Key judicial and prosecutorial posts remain filled with MAS appointees. Paz will need to overhaul these institutions carefully to avoid accusations of politicization while still enabling effective governance.

The right-wing’s rise in Latin America

Zooming out, Geurts argues that Paz’s win is part of a broader regional cycle. From President Javier Milei in Argentina to President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and conservative gains in Peru, much of Latin America is turning away from statist economic models and toward leaders promising discipline, security and markets.

Latin American neighbors see Bolivia’s shift as more evidence that the 21st-century socialist wave has crested. Even though left-wing governments in Colombia and Brazil remain in power, they no longer resemble the transformative projects once seen in Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela.

For now, Paz represents a break from Bolivia’s past. His leadership will test whether the region’s new right-leaning cycle can move beyond rhetoric and deliver results.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Bolivia Turns Right — How Rodrigo Paz Ended 20 Years of Left-Wing Rule appeared first on 51�Թ�.

51�Թ�’s Video Producer Rohan Khattar Singh speaks with Pablo Bejar, a country risk analyst with experience at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, about the stunning outcome of Bolivia’s recent presidential election. On October 19, the contest entered a runoff between Senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira and former Bolivian President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga — a social democrat from the Christian Democratic Party and a center-right technocrat, respectively — marking the first center-right face-off in roughly two decades.

For Bejar, this moment signals a profound shift in Bolivia’s political trajectory after years under the rule of the Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, or MAS).

Bolivia demands change

Bejar describes the faceoff as “a unique opportunity,” underscoring the symbolic end of the MAS era. After 20 years of dominance, the socialist movement that rose with former Bolivian President Evo Morales and was governed under his successor now commands only around 8% of the vote across its affiliate parties. Opposition parties have seized control of parliament, and roughly nine in ten Bolivians have expressed a desire for “complete, radical change.”

This discontent was visible long before election day.  Shortages of diesel, gas, hard currency, and the highest inflation levels seen in almost 40 years left citizens exhausted by the economic crisis. Bejar argues that the MAS government rode a long-gone commodity boom and completely failed to sustain its gains. Once Bolivia’s gas fields declined and foreign reserves dwindled, the macroeconomic stability, democratic alternation of power and liberalizing reforms and investments of the 1990s and early 2000s — later harnessed but ultimately squandered by the Morales-Arce MAS governments from 2006 to 2025 — gave way to deep structural economic scars.

The youth vote

Nearly half of all ballots came from young voters who have known no political reality other than MAS rule. Their turnout reflected frustration rather than ideology: They wanted jobs, stability and honest governance. Bejar explains that many of these voters were hoping for change, and their votes tipped the balance against the establishment. The shortages of foreign exchange and basic goods — particularly diesel and gasoline — as well as inflationary pressures, convinced much of the population that the system itself had failed.

Khattar Singh observes that this generational shift carries regional echoes. Latin America’s youth, from Buenos Aires in Argentina to Quito in Ecuador, have grown up skeptical of populist promises. Bejar adds that this sentiment could reshape the continent’s political balance as younger generations favor pragmatic competence over charisma.

Paz vs. Quiroga

Paz and Quiroga offered distinct yet overlapping visions. Paz, the son of former Bolivian President Paz Zamora, served as a mayor and senator but has never led the national government. Bejar says Bolivians consider him “more of a social democrat,” emphasizing his anti-corruption platform. His popular vice-presidential running mate, Edmand Lara Montaño, is a former policeman whose appeal lies with lower-income, less educated and former MAS voters. Quiroga, by contrast, is a veteran figure: He briefly served as president after the death of Bolivian President Hugo Banzer in 2001 and represents the country’s traditional technocratic bloc.

Paz’s campaign was unprepared for its own success. It lacked a full slate of congressional candidates and has now recruited new members — some of them former MAS politicians. A further complication lay in internal divisions: Paz and his running mate appear to hold disparate views on policy, particularly over subsidies and fiscal discipline. Quiroga, Bejar suggests, exploited these contradictions, but it was not enough.

Quiroga’s preliminary advantage

Quiroga’s greatest strength was his experience. With over three decades in politics, he offered voters a sense of stability that contrasted with Paz’s untested optimism. His long association with the pre-MAS era of the 90s could have alienated rural voters, but Bejar argues that his administrative credibility might’ve won over those who prioritize competence over novelty. Moreover, the cordial relationship between the two candidates, rooted in Quiroga’s past service as finance minister under Paz’s father, lent the race an air of civility unusual in Bolivian politics.

The runoff was unpredictable. Bejar believes the outcome hinged on which candidate could better convince voters that he represented real, sustainable change rather than a recycled elite. And in the end, that was Paz — he the runoff with 54.5% of the vote against Quiroga’s 45.5%, confirming that Bolivia’s electorate favored renewal over experience.

Libertarianism on the rise

Khattar Singh closes the discussion by situating Bolivia’s vote within a continental pattern. Across Latin America, libertarian, right-leaning and more pragmatic candidates have recently triumphed in Argentina, Ecuador and El Salvador, respectively, and with a high likelihood of change from the left in the upcoming presidential elections in Chile and Colombia next year. Bejar sees these results as evidence of a broader ideological turn. The victory of Argentinian President Javier Milei — a libertarian — was a major boost to advocates of free markets and lower state interventionism, and a warning to leftist governments across the region and the world. Populations frustrated with high levels of bureaucracy and corruption, and coupled with severe economic mismanagement, are gravitating toward smaller governments, fiscal restraint and lower taxes.

Whether Bolivia’s own rightward movement will produce renewal or relapse remains to be seen. For now, the electorate has spoken clearly: After two decades of one-party leftist rule, Bolivians are ready to follow a different path.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Bolivia Heads to Presidential Runoff as Voters End Two Decades of Left-Wing Politics appeared first on 51�Թ�.

A president falls yet again

Boluarte’s removal marks yet another moment in Peru’s unending cycle of political collapse. Since 2016, the country has cycled through six presidents: Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (July 2016–March 2018), Martín Vizcarra (March 2018–November 2020), Manuel Merino (November 2020), Francisco Sagasti (November 2020–July 2021) and Boluarte (December 2022–October 2025). Each fell to scandal, impeachment or resignation. Boluarte’s downfall followed mounting corruption allegations and her failure to build a functioning coalition in Congress. Her administration, he argues, became defined by paralysis. She lost both legitimacy and leverage as street protests intensified and opposition lawmakers united against her.

The impeachment vote passed overwhelmingly after revelations that Boluarte allegedly accepted undeclared gifts from major business groups. Yet, as Geurts points out, corruption charges in Peru often mask deeper structural tensions. Successive governments have governed on razor-thin mandates, and Congress, which is fragmented among dozens of small parties, wields disproportionate power to unseat presidents. The result is a system built to fail, where institutional weakness becomes a political weapon.

Enter Jerí

Into this vacuum steps Jerí, a relatively unknown centrist congressman who built his career on anti-corruption rhetoric and pragmatic dealmaking. Khattar Singh presses Geurts on whether Jerí’s rise reflects genuine reformist momentum or another tactical reshuffling among elites. Geerts answers that Jerí’s appeal lies in his neutrality. He is neither the street nor the establishment. That ambiguity, Geurts suggests, helped him gain temporary support from both weary voters and opportunistic lawmakers.

Still, Peruvians remain deeply skeptical. Jerí has inherited a nation exhausted by political drama, economic stagnation and protests that have repeatedly paralyzed mining regions — vital to the country’s export economy. Geurts notes that Jerí’s first challenge will be survival itself. Peru’s presidency has become a poisoned chalice, its occupants crushed between an ungovernable Congress and a furious populace demanding change.

A crisis of governance, not just of leaders

Khattar Singh steers the conversation toward institutional decay. Why, he asks, has Peru been unable to produce stable governments despite holding regular elections? Geurts points to a long erosion of party systems dating back to the 1990s, when President Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto dismantled traditional political structures. Since then, Peruvians have voted for personalities rather than parties, giving rise to fragmented parliaments and weak mandates.

Geurts argues that what looks like political instability is really a chronic failure of governance. Presidents lack disciplined coalitions to pass reforms, while Congress thrives on obstruction and short-term dealmaking. Each new administration promises to root out corruption, only to become ensnared in the same web of patronage and impunity. Public trust, already fragile, collapses further with each impeachment. The recurring turmoil, he says, is about the broken state.

Geopolitical ripples

Peru’s domestic turmoil has also attracted the attention of outside powers. The United States views Peru as a key ally in regional stability and mining supply chains, while China remains the largest investor in the country’s infrastructure and mineral sectors. Geurts observes that every leadership crisis in the Peruvian capital of Lima raises questions about where future contracts and loyalties will fall. Washington and Beijing, he points out, compete quietly through loans, trade and diplomatic pressure rather than open confrontation.

Neighboring countries, too, are watching closely. Bolivia, Chile and Brazil all depend on stable cross-border supply networks. Each time Peru’s government collapses, investors grow nervous and capital flees. Khattar Singh notes that this volatility weakens the credibility of democratic governance across the region, reinforcing cynicism about whether elections can deliver real progress.

Can Jerí break the cycle?

As the conversation turns to the future, Khattar Singh and Geurts agree that Jerí faces an impossible balancing act. The new president must rebuild credibility with the public while negotiating with the same Congress that deposed his predecessor. Geurts doubts that any president can govern effectively without systemic reform — reducing Congress’s unchecked power, strengthening political parties and overhauling campaign finance laws. Yet he concedes that even small gestures toward transparency could buy Jerí time.

The interview closes on a sober note. Peru’s turmoil is not the product of one corrupt leader but of decades of institutional erosion. Whether Jerí endures or falls, stability will remain elusive until Peru rebuilds the foundations of democratic trust.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Peru in Crisis — Dina Boluarte Impeached, Controversial José Jeri Takes Power appeared first on 51�Թ�.

We will arrive at COP30 in Belém in Pará, Brazil, this November, with the planetary budget for greenhouse gas emissions rapidly reaching its limit in less than five years. We are rapidly the 2°C limit — a “very uncomfortable” scenario for human life and the survival of countless species. Tipping points are just around the corner, and adaptation, once secondary, has risen to the “A-side” of the climate crisis.

The cost of inaction and the urgency of adaptation

In 30 years of exhaustive COPs, nations have failed to do their mitigation homework. Now, climate adaptation needs to be addressed first, and this is happening in a context of renewed climate denialism, in favor of an economy still dependent on fossil fuels. The costs of neglecting mitigation, transition and adaptation have escalated dramatically.

In 2008, the renowned Stern Report estimated the need for just over $500 billion annually for mitigation and a few billion for adaptation. Almost 17 years later, the costs exceed $9 trillion per year, with $5.4 trillion for mitigation, $3.4 trillion for climate transition and “only” $300 billion for adaptation — a figure that, according to experts, will be $1.35 trillion annually by 2035.

We missed a historic opportunity to pay a “payable bill” 15 years ago. Today, climate costs, especially for adaptation, fall on governments. Who will invest in renovations and construction to accommodate billions of people in scorching temperatures? Who will pay for coastal fortifications against rising sea levels? Who will bear the exponentially increasing damage from “climate disasters”? How can we invest in infrastructure without a financial return?

The introduction of the Green Climate Fund () and other funds is commendable, but they fall far short of what is needed. If the oil industry, with its net worth of over $100 trillion in reserves, had contributed significantly in 2008, the drama of climate finance would be much less. We would be at COP30 celebrating a world below 1.5°C.

Brazil and COP30: a decisive moment

COP30 in Brazil emerges as a crucial turning point. Adaptation takes center stage in climate negotiations. Those who understand and work toward this idea will adapt more easily to the world that awaits us. We need to understand the interest-bearing nature of governments and appropriate the best knowledge from the risk industry and multilateral funds.

Capitalism, especially neoliberal capitalism, demands returns, even if they are patient and combined with philanthropy. The basic assumption is always profitability. So who will invest in retaining walls, rebuilding public roads and repairing flood damage? Governments. But financial markets demand austerity, and public debts, such as Brazil’s, already commit a large part of budgets to honoring financial commitments. 

We have a paradox: governments need to allocate more resources to adaptation, but their debts and climate costs continue to grow. There is no money today, much less tomorrow, for climate adaptation needs.

Given the scarcity of resources, climate financing must be structured with a view to risk avoidance, prioritizing costly and scarce public and private efforts over remediation in the future. Investments in prevention and the construction of resilient structures are much cheaper than paying the bill after the damage has been done. Insurance experts that prevention today costs five times less than repair. This ratio may soon be 15 times more expensive, given the exponential increase in climate events.

Modeling future scenarios can no longer be based solely on the past. The climate events ahead are unknown. Climate science has competently predicted a 1.5°C increase as a viable ceiling for a decent life, but it also warns that increases above 3°C will not allow human life on Earth, except perhaps for a billionaire elite.

The challenges of climate finance have become the main item in the negotiations. The viability of our life on the planet requires a commitment to remain between 1.5°C and 2°C at most. The deadline for this is eight years or less. If denialist governments and industries continue to generate high emissions and invest minimally in sustainable solutions, we will see an increase in inequality and unpredictable impacts on the living conditions of the majority.

In another fifteen years, we will have a world that is financially rich in the hands of a few, but poor in biodiversity, with nature and ecosystems devastated, under indebted governments incapable of caring for their people. This is not the climate adaptation scenario I hope for our home, Planet Earth.

I still believe that global rentier capital can understand that adaptation is for everyone. An environmentally and socially possible world is challenged in its resilience by every tenth of a degree increase in temperature. Adaptation must come first and foremost as a chance for future generations to live a possible life here on Earth.

The paths are still possible. They involve understanding the need to make investments now and forever, with less profitability and an unconditional love for the lives of all planetary beings. There can only be one side of life for everyone on Earth. It is “Side A” of climate adaptation.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Belém, the Climate Crossroads: The “A Side” of Adaptation for the Global Future appeared first on 51�Թ�.

From aristocrat to activist

Vivas was stunned to learn Machado had won the Nobel Peace Prize. The award recognizes her as the leading figure in Venezuela’s long fight for democracy and freedom. For over 20 years, she has challenged authoritarian power — first under Venezuelan President Hugo ���á�����, then under Maduro — in a country that, in Vivas’s words, has spent the past decade under “a very crude dictatorship.”

Born into privilege, Machado turned toward public service early in life. Under ���á�����’s rule, the government expropriated her father’s metalworking empire. Her mother, a national tennis champion, inspired her commitment to social causes. Machado founded nonprofits for abandoned children and later established Súmate, a group promoting electoral transparency. When she ran for Congress, she won the highest vote share in the nation, solidifying her reputation as one of the government’s most forceful critics.

A new hope and a dangerous victory

By 2023, her image began to shift from right-wing hardliner to unifying reformer. In opposition primaries that year, she captured an overwhelming 92% of the vote, igniting a sense of hope Venezuela had not felt since ���á�����’s early years. Her campaign promise — to bring home the nearly nine million Venezuelans living abroad — resonated deeply across the country.

Though barred from running in the general election, Machado helped rally support for veteran diplomat Edmundo �ҴDzԳ�á�����, who won roughly 70% of the vote in a contest the Maduro government refused to recognize. �ҴDzԳ�á����� fled to Spain after �Ѳ���ܰ���’s administration jailed his son-in-law. Machado went underground, continuing to coordinate the opposition from hiding.

The Nobel effect

Machado’s Nobel Prize thrust her into the global spotlight and, paradoxically, offered her a measure of safety. Vivas believes the award shields her from arrest, since targeting her now would deepen �Ѳ���ܰ���’s diplomatic isolation. More importantly, it restores legitimacy to a fractured opposition, transforming what was once a two-sided standoff between Washington and the Venezuelan capital of Caracas into a three-way dynamic that includes the Venezuelan democratic movement itself.

Across Venezuela, the news of the award felt, Vivas says, like “fresh air.” It revived hope and renewed attention from abroad. While Maduro dismissed the Nobel Prize as a political ploy, international solidarity grew: Spanish and American musicians wrote songs in her honor, and democratic activists across Latin America rallied to her cause.

Critics, allies and the Trump connection

Machado’s critics accuse her of being too close to the United States, citing her ties with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and her viral conversation with Donald Trump Jr. about privatizing Venezuela’s oil sector. Vivas rejects these charges, noting that US policy toward Venezuela has long been bipartisan. Both parties, he argues, see the country’s crisis through the lens of democracy and human rights rather than partisan interest.

He also insists that her call for privatization is not ideological but practical. Venezuela’s once-mighty oil industry — which produced more than three million barrels per day before collapsing under corruption and debt — cannot recover without private investment. Rebuilding, he says, requires rational policy, not political purity.

Critics condemn Machado for her open support of Israel, even during the ongoing Gaza conflict. Vivas reminds listeners that Venezuela historically maintained close ties with Israel and that Machado has not endorsed any particular military action.

After winning the Nobel Prize, Machado phoned US President Donald Trump to dedicate the award to both the Venezuelan people and to him. Vivas interprets the gesture as a calculated act meant to secure continued US backing. In his view, Venezuela’s democratic transition won’t happen without US support.

What’s next for Venezuela?

The Nobel Prize has rekindled international interest in Venezuela’s fate. With �ҴDzԳ�á����� in exile and Machado in hiding, the opposition now operates through dispersed networks and quiet acts of defiance — from university campaigns to movements demanding the release of political prisoners.

Vivas argues that lasting change depends on two forces working together: readiness inside the country and sustained external pressure from democratic allies. The challenge, he warns, is to keep the movement alive under relentless repression.

Khattar Singh concludes that this is no ordinary peace prize. It has turned a persecuted dissident into a global symbol and returned Venezuela’s struggle for freedom to the world’s attention.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Maria Corina Machado — The Nobel Peace Prize Winner Forced Into Hiding appeared first on 51�Թ�.

US–Venezuela tensions

Relations between Washington and the Venezuelan capital of Caracas have been tense for decades. The conflict deepened after the rise of former Venezuelan President Hugo ���á����� and deteriorated further under Maduro. As Vivas explains, the early Trump administration pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign designed to remove Maduro from power. Yet over time, that posture shifted. The administration’s rhetoric now emphasizes national security over regime change — a pivot that reflects both declining enthusiasm within the Republican Party and an attempt to frame the Venezuelan issue for a domestic audience.

The new narrative links Venezuela to terrorism and narcotrafficking, particularly through the “cartel of the suns,” a network of military and political insiders accused of running drug operations from within the state. These allegations justified a naval deployment to the Caribbean involving warships, stealth jets in Puerto Rico, and a nuclear submarine. While Pentagon statements warned that any aggression from �Ѳ���ܰ���’s forces would be met in kind, Vivas stresses that a full invasion is “totally out of the picture.” Venezuela, he notes, is far too large, and such a move would dwarf the 1989 Panama invasion that required 25,000 troops.

Cartels or oil?

Khattar Singh asks whether the focus on cartels conceals a more traditional motivation: access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Vivas rejects the theory outright, pointing out that the industry is in “pretty bad shape.” Production has collapsed from over three million barrels per day to roughly half that figure, and much of Venezuela’s heavy crude requires expensive refining technology that few facilities possess.

Vivas concludes that oil can no longer drive US policy. Instead, he suspects the security narrative helps Washington sell its approach internally. Behind the public rhetoric may lie other objectives — pressuring Caracas to cooperate on deportations or creating leverage to push Maduro toward negotiations.

Who supports Maduro

�Ѳ���ܰ���’s survival has baffled outside observers. Vivas explains that the regime functions as a coalition of vested interests, centered on the military. With Cuban assistance, the armed forces were restructured to make coups nearly impossible. Security agencies monitor officers and politicians alike, ensuring loyalty through surveillance and lucrative side deals.

As oil wealth declined, illicit economies replaced ideology as the main source of cohesion. Drug trafficking, gold smuggling and corruption now underpin the system. Vivas recounts a case near the Colombian border where a landowner was jailed after refusing to sell land coveted for drug operations, highlighting how criminal networks and state actors intertwine. Colombian insurgents such as the National Liberation Army also operate freely inside Venezuela, sustaining this hybrid order.

Maduro, Vivas says, serves as the cement holding it all together. His fall would shatter the current structure. While democracy’s return would face immense obstacles — the regime dominates the courts, media and oil sector — Vivas doubts that the coalition could survive without its central figure.

What Venezuelans feel

Khattar Singh turns the conversation to public sentiment. Vivas believes most Venezuelans have lost faith in elections after the July 28 contest, when the opposition’s clear victory was nullified by the government. For many, it proved that ballots alone cannot end authoritarian rule.

The despair extends to the diaspora. Around 800,000 Venezuelans live in the US under temporary protection, asylum or refugee status. Many risk deportation yet cannot return to a country suffering hyperinflation, chronic power outages and institutional decay. Vivas suggests that, despite their disillusionment, many quietly welcome American pressure as a potential catalyst for change.

Gen Z in Venezuela

Asked about the younger generation, Vivas compares Venezuela to Nepal, where youth movements recently drove political reform. He argues that Venezuelans have not surrendered completely. The country’s 40 years of 20th-century democracy left a collective memory of freedom that resists authoritarian normalization. Nonetheless, frustration is intense. Young people, seeing few prospects at home, increasingly choose emigration over activism.

�Ѳ���ܰ���’s allies

Internationally, Maduro stands more isolated than ever. “Nobody wants to take […] a selfie with Maduro,” Vivas jokes. His only dependable allies remain Cuba and Nicaragua, while former regional partners now keep their distance. The regime further alienated neighbors by reviving claims to annex the Essequibo region between Venezuela and Guyana, provoking Brazil to deploy troops along its northern border. Even Cuba, despite its alliance, has sided with Guyana on this dispute.

For Vivas, this combination of diplomatic isolation, economic collapse and creeping military pressure leaves Maduro in his weakest position yet. Still, he cautions, the Venezuelan regime has repeatedly shown a remarkable capacity to adapt — and its end, however near it may seem, is far from guaranteed.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Will the Trump Administration Deploy Troops in Venezuela to Remove Maduro? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Following his speech, he a gathering of pro-Palestinian protesters and journalists outside the UN building using a megaphone, where he urged US soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump’s orders. His exact words were:

The people united will never be defeated. We are going to present a resolution ordering the United Nations to form an army to save the world, whose first task will be to liberate Palestine. From here, from New York, I ask all soldiers in the US Army not to point their guns at humanity. Disobey Trump’s orders, obey the orders of humanity.

Washington responds: visa revocation and diplomatic fallout

In response, the US State Department announced on that it was Petro’s visa due to his “reckless and incendiary actions.” This is the second time a Colombian president has had his visa revoked by the US. The first was during former US President Bill Clinton’s first term in 1996, due to his alleged connection to the Cali drug cartel and Colombia’s refusal to extradite drug traffickers. In August 2025, Arturo Arias, the ex-president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, that the US had canceled his visa after he voiced his criticism of Trump on the internet.��

Petro’s visa cancellation appears to have added him to the list of current or former presidents banned from entering the US. This list also includes Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, who was unable to attend the UN assembly for this .

A fractured relationship: Colombia and the United States through history

The revocation of Petro’s visa is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the United States’ decades-long challenging relationship with Colombia, a pivotal nation in the South American political landscape. This relationship is typically portrayed by endeavors to combat drug trafficking, the contradictory romanticization of figures like Pablo Escobar by popular culture — as depicted in the Netflix series Narcos — and the cloaking of the shared history of North and South American decolonial struggles for independence and the contributions of figures like Gabriel García Márquez (the Colombian Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1982 and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude [1967]).

More specifically, setting aside magical realism, the relationship between Petro and Trump has been brief yet intense, and it has been defined by a series of mutual accusations that began in January of this year. 

Petro initially rejected two planes carrying Colombian deportees, arguing that they were not receiving dignified treatment. However, the two countries later reached an amid threats of tariffs.

Petro’s rhetoric of resistance and the echo of Bolívar

Petro chose to address the US president directly. In this missive, which begins with a confessional tone, he writes:

Trump, I don’t really like traveling to the US. It’s boring, but I must admit that there are some good things about it … I don’t like your oil, Trump. You’re going to destroy the human race because of your greed. Maybe someday, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this. But it’s difficult because you consider me inferior, and I’m not, nor is any Colombian.

In his lengthy letter, Petro suggests taking a historical journey and recalls the against Chilean President Salvador Allende, which elevated Augusto Pinochet to power. He appears to be defending Colombia’s global standing, highlighting aspects such as “Colombia is the heart of the world, and you misunderstood that. This is the land of yellow butterflies, the land of Remedios’ beauty,” drawing a literary parallel to one of the most stunning scenes in One Hundred Years of Solitude.��

Among other references to the past struggles of the US civil rights movement, Petro contradicts his willingness to share a whiskey with Trump when he adds, “I do not shake hands with white slave owners. I shake hands with white libertarians, the heirs of Lincoln, and black and white peasant boys of the United States.”

In this X message, Petro uses the plural form of “Americas,” making it clear that Colombia will no longer look northward. He also mentions Venezuelan statesman and military officer Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), the hero of South American independence — also known as El Libertador, “the liberator” — highlighting the shared, collective and plurinational history of the Americas, which he believes Trump does not represent. 

He draws attention to Trump’s immigrant past and lack of Native American ancestry, referring to him as an “immigrant” as well: “I raise a flag and, as Gaitán said, even if I am alone, it will continue to fly with Latin American dignity, which is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, but mine did, Mr. President, immigrant in the United States.”

Although several months had passed and the scenario was different, Petro maintained the core sentiment of his aforementioned X epistle when he addressed the UN General Assembly. was equally assertive and combative.

Climate, conflict and calls for a new world order

He addressed made by the US government one week prior to the assembly, in which they claimed that neither Venezuela nor Colombia was cooperating in the fight against drug trafficking.��

These statements were made amid the involving the US troops’ launch of a missile at a small boat in Caribbean waters in early September. The US alleged that the ship was trafficking drugs. Standing before the UN, Petro that an investigation was underway to determine if Colombian civilians were aboard the boat. He stressed the importance of initiating due process against the US officials who ordered the missile strike.��

From the podium, Petro provocatively proposed that “Drug traffickers live elsewhere. They live in New York, a few blocks away, and in Miami. They make deals with the DEA. They live in luxury, not poverty. Not in the Caribbean or Gaza.”

The Colombian President also devoted much of his speech to discussing the climate crisis and clean energies, such as green hydrogen and decarbonization. He praised the “enormous absorbent sponge of the Amazon rainforest”. He also accused the “most powerful government in the world” of not believing in science: “That is called irrationalism, and it was that same irrationalism that filled Hitler’s Germany.”

When it was his turn, Trump devoted a significant portion of to the UNGA to criticizing renewable energy and rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change. He claimed that clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power, are less effective and more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives.

Speaking from the UN podium, Petro adopted the tone of the Latin American independence heroes he mentioned in his January letter when he proposed the creation of a UN armed force. He made statements such as, “There is no superior race, gentlemen. There are no chosen people of God. Neither the United States nor Israel are chosen by God. Ignorant fundamentalists of the extreme right think that way. The chosen people of God are all of humanity.”

After this, he added that diplomacy had run its course and urged the UN to establish an armed force to protect the lives of Palestinians: “Words are no longer enough. It is time for Bolívar’s sword of liberty or death because they are not only going to bomb Gaza and the Caribbean, they already are, they are attacking humanity, which cries out for freedom.”

From Bolívar’s dream to a divided continent

In addition to his defiant tone toward Trump and his call for the US military to rebel against him, Petro’s recent public statements are notable for their repeated mention of Bolívar. During his visit to New York, he granted an to the BBC News World based in Manhattan. The words chosen for the headline of the interview’s video were “Trump has failed to understand that Bolívar’s children are not subordinates.”

Bolívar, the “Liberator of America,” fought against the Spanish crown for 20 years to achieve independence for Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Born in Caracas to a family of Creole nobility, Bolívar received a European education. He then brought what he had learned about liberation in France to the other side of the ocean.��

In August 1819, Bolívar crossed the Andes mountain range and defeated Spanish troops in the , achieving independence for the region of New Granada, now Colombia. Interestingly, in 1691, Palenque, located in present-day Colombia, was the first colonial settlement to African slaves, who became the first officially freed black slaves anywhere in the Americas.

One of Bolívar’s greatest hopes was a grand confederation of all the former Spanish colonies in America, inspired by the United States’ model. To this end, in 1826, he convened the to organize a confederation of American nations that would support and cooperate with each other for the common good. However, as we know, he did not achieve his goal.��

Nowadays, the differences among countries in the region continue. In the current state of affairs, Trump is favored by Ecuadorian President and Argentine President ,who distance themselves from other regional leaders, such as Chilean President and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who oppose US interventionism.��

Domestic backlash and regional uncertainty

2026 will be a pivotal year for South American politics, with upcoming presidential elections in countries such as Peru, Brazil and Colombia. A map that has always been of strategic imperial interest to the United States, as evidenced by its long history of interventions in regime changes. According to the , “In the slightly less than a hundred years from 1898 to 1994, the US government has intervened successfully to change governments in Latin America a total of at least 41 times.”

Since the late 20th century, the international relations between Colombia and the United States have been marked by bilateral efforts against drug trafficking, such as the , signed in 1999 between the administrations of Colombian President Andrés Pastrana Arango and Clinton, who signed it into US law as an approval of an aid package to both keep drugs outside the US shores and “help Colombia promote peace and prosperity and deepen its democracy.”

A fundamental aspect of the Plan Colombia was indeed supporting of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s largest insurgent group, founded in the 1960s, and the National Liberation Army (ELN), both designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department.��

Álvaro Uribe, elected Colombian president in 2010, began formal peace talks with the FARC in 2012. It �ɲ�����’t until US President and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s terms that the peace process actually reached its culmination in Colombia, after only four rounds of negotiations, and with the governments of Chile, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela as hosts, mediators and observers.��

The peace agreement called for the guerrillas to hand over their weapons to a UN commission. It also contemplated that international aid, especially from the United States, would be needed to invest in neglected rural areas and create economic alternatives to drug trafficking.

Unlike the FARC, remains active, particularly along the Colombia-Venezuela border. During his presidency, Petro has pursued the idea of achieving “” by disarming the ELN. However, negotiations in July after the ELN attacked civilians in the Catatumbo border region.��

Due to its involvement in , peasant agriculture and the centuries-long indigenous struggle for land sovereignty, it seems that the ELN continues to hold significant .

Returning to Petro’s controversial visit to New York, during the BBC News World interview, journalist Tom Bateman asked Petro, “Are you concerned that taking this approach of resisting the US administration risks further isolating your country?” Petro responded that he believes it is President Trump who is isolating himself from the world regarding his position on the Palestinian genocide. 

However, a quick review of mainstream Colombian media shows the opposite: the president is facing fierce opposition in his own country. Journalist Daniel Coronell that Petro is “building his pedestal as a martyr” and “dragging Colombia down with him.”��

Former Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón the Colombian media outlet Semana, “This country does not need clowns.” Pinzón, who is presenting himself as a potential presidential candidate and former ambassador to the United States, also said, “We will resolve the issue with Israel immediately.” The newspaper ran the headline, “Petro without a visa but with a megaphone.”

Francia Márquez, the current Vice President and representative of the Afro-Colombian community, is a prominent figure on the left in Colombia. However, in recent months, her relationship with Petro has been filled with , despite their cordial appearance together at the UN. Adding to the political tension, Manuel Uribe, a future Colombian presidential candidate, was shot and earlier this year. US Secretary Marco Rubio Petro’s inflammatory rhetoric for the assassination.��

Colombia clearly has its own internal and historical struggles to tackle. Only time will tell how Petro’s continued antagonism toward the United States will affect the Colombian general elections next year and how the region’s new leaders in 2026 will align with or oppose the United States’ imperialistic endeavors.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post US Revokes Colombian President’s Visa: The Volatile Relationship Between North and South America appeared first on 51�Թ�.

While Central American countries rely on remittances to boost their economies and keep families afloat, this dependency undermines future economic development and comes with a devastating human toll. 

The importance of remittances and why they’re here to stay��

In recent years, the importance and quantity of remittances sent to Central America have continued to increase. In, remittances sent to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras accounted for $45 billion, making up 23% of the region’s total GDP.

Remittances fill the gap of inadequate government-provided welfare and employment programs capable of providing sustainable wages. Remittances also what local wages cannot, and are used to afford basic necessities, including food, rent, medicine and school supplies. With an insufficient amount of work and low wages available in Central American countries, people are often forced to leave for places where they can make over �� the amount they would at home to better provide for their families.��

The human cost of emigration��

The decision to leave home in search of work doesn’t only come with the cost of leaving everything one knows behind, but also puts one’s life in . The most common route migrants choose to take while searching for suitable wages is north through Central America, to Mexico, and across the US-Mexico border.��

Three major natural obstacles: the jungle, desert and rivers all contribute to casualties for migrants in unfamiliar environments due to starvation, heat exhaustion and dehydration. Crossing through cartel-dominated areas in Mexico is extremely perilous, and migrants face the constant threat of being abducted, beaten or killed. In total, migrants from Central American countries accounted for almost 500 migrant deaths or disappearances in .

On top of the human cost that often comes with making the journey, many families suffer from the burdens of migration back home. Women often have to work harder to raise their children when their male family members leave. Families become separated and lose contact due to deportations, and children are sometimes left to fend for themselves.��

Many families gather all they have to pay Coyotes to assist in their journey across the border, which can be an insurmountable financial burden for some. Despite all the trouble and danger migration threatens, families take the risk out of necessity. 

A never-ending cycle of dependency��

The more countries continue to on remittances, the fewer resources and incentives they have to reform their economy. Qualified laborers, such as engineers, nurses and teachers, are especially likely to leave because of the lack of job opportunities and the opportunity to multiply their wages abroad. This movement of skilled labor creates a “” that weakens the domestic labor force.��

Although the current extent of the economic damage caused by the absence of skilled labor in Central American countries is unclear, the long-term effects of declining skilled labor bode ominously for these countries’ future economies. 

Young people are more likely to leave, cutting into the next generation of workers needed to grow a weak economy. Brain drain itself can be more harmful than the economic benefits of remittances, leaving little potential for growth in affected countries. 

The cycle of remittance dependency begins when an insufficient number of quality jobs encourages people to leave to support their families. This emigration hinders the absorption of skilled young workers into local labor markets. This labor vacuum discourages investment in new jobs and opportunities, prohibiting sustainable work and further encouraging families to seek international support. The lack of jobs makes emigration all the more necessary, continuing the cycle and intensifying an economy’s reliance on remittances.

Furthermore, caused by remittance-dependent economies can drive up local prices for people left behind without foreign support. People who can’t afford the cost or the sacrifice of migrating are affected by these inflated prices, which cause local wages to become even less valuable. This vicious cycle plagues Central America, making a sustainable shift away from dependency on remittances an increasingly difficult goal to accomplish.��

The US’s role

The United States plays a key part. As the most popular destination for Central American migrants, US�� immigration enforcement policies have a large impact on remittance patterns. Remittances from Central Americans grew in as a result of harsher deportation threats, causing migrants to send more money back home.��

Additionally, proposals to tax remittances in the United States could weaken vulnerable economies and harm families in Central America. The US’s proposed on remittances, effective January 1, 2026, would cost Guatemala $200 million. While such a small levy on paper, it will drastically affect families who will have less support than they need to live on.

The movement towards increased enforcement and taxation of remittances would disproportionately harm the most vulnerable and likely fuel even more migration. The United States’ most effective option for mitigating immigration is to invest in the growth of local infrastructure and job markets, thereby decreasing the need to migrate from countries in the first place. As long as local economies remain unstable, people will be forced to leave to support their loved ones back home, despite any attempts to close off borders. 

Looking ahead

Generally, people don’t want to leave home. They are forced to do so out of financial necessity. People who commit to leaving everything behind to embark on a costly and dangerous journey often don’t feel they have any other choice. 

This situation in Central American countries leaves their economies unsustainable and incapable of supporting themselves without remittances. The dependency on emigration benefits no one, and to shift away from it, significant investment in domestic infrastructure is imperative to create lasting jobs.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Central America’s Economic Growth Trap: The Dilemma Of Emigration appeared first on 51�Թ�.

These phenomena are consistent with Minsky’s financial fragility , which emphasizes how cycles of excessive risk-taking and leverage generate recurrent financial instability. The comparative perspective underscores that recurring sovereign crises are rarely random; rather, they reflect the interaction of structural vulnerabilities, policy missteps and endogenous financial dynamics — crisis cycles driven by forces within the economy itself rather than external shocks.

The serial defaulter

A serial defaulter is a sovereign borrower, typically a country, that has a history of repeatedly failing to meet its debt payment obligations in a timely manner, often experiencing multiple default spells over time. Few countries illustrate this term better than Argentina. Since gaining in 1816, the nation has defaulted on its sovereign debt , most recently in 2020. Each episode follows a familiar rhythm: optimism and capital inflows during commodity booms, excessive borrowing to finance fiscal expansion and an eventual collapse as global conditions tighten or domestic credibility erodes.

The 2001–2002 economic and financial , among the most dramatic in modern financial history, saw GDP contract by over 10%, unemployment surge to 25% and poverty rates exceed 50%. Two decades later, Argentina once again unsustainable debt and inflation surpassing 95%. These recurrent crises are not mere cyclical misfortune — they reflect systemic failures embedded in institutional and financial structures.

At the core lies fiscal dominance, the subordination of monetary policy to government financing needs. Argentina’s Treasury has historically relied on central bank credit to cover persistent primary deficits, undermining central bank credibility, fueling inflation expectations and discouraging demand for Argentine peso-denominated assets.

compounds the problem. Distrust of the domestic currency leads Argentines to save and price assets in US dollars, limiting monetary policy effectiveness and creating balance-sheet mismatches — when debts are in one currency and assets in another. When the peso depreciates, dollar-denominated liabilities surge, amplifying crisis dynamics.

These vulnerabilities are reinforced by institutional fragility — weak fiscal rules, politicized policymaking and unpredictable regulatory frameworks. In such an environment, even carefully designed reforms struggle to gain traction.

The 2001 crisis and its aftershocks

The 1990s opened with cautious optimism. Under the of 1991, Argentina pegged the peso one-to-one to the US dollar to end hyperinflation and restore credibility. At first, this plan yielded striking results: Inflation collapsed, capital inflows surged and investor confidence returned. Yet the system rested on fragile foundations — continuous external financing and strict fiscal discipline — that proved impossible to sustain.

Global shocks soon exposed these weaknesses. The Russian and Brazilian crises of the late 1990s Argentina’s export competitiveness and triggered capital flight. Growth stalled, debt dynamics turned explosive and International Monetary Fund (IMF) support proved insufficient to bridge the widening gap between fixed exchange rates and fiscal laxity. In December 2001, Argentina defaulted on in sovereign debt; this was the then-largest default in history. The collapse left enduring scars on public trust in both domestic institutions and the international financial system.

After abandoning the currency board — a system that fixes the domestic currency’s value to another — in 2002, Argentina’s economy rebounded sharply. A global commodity boom and a newly competitive exchange rate fueled growth averaging between 2003 and 2008. The administrations of Presidents Néstor and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner pursued expansionary fiscal policies focused on redistribution and domestic demand.

But the recovery masked familiar vulnerabilities. Public spending and subsidies soared, inflation data became increasingly opaque and the central bank once again financed fiscal deficits. Capital controls distorted investment incentives, and by the mid-2010s, inflation expectations were entrenched while foreign reserves dwindled. The foundations of macroeconomic instability had quietly reemerged.

When President Mauricio Macri took office in 2015, he pledged to restore credibility through liberalization and fiscal reform. Early market enthusiasm was palpable: by 2017, Argentina had issued a , symbolizing renewed investor confidence. Yet fiscal consolidation, or the reduction of government deficits and debt accumulation, lagged. Inflation remained stubbornly high and rising external debt deepened the country’s exposure to global volatility.

By 2018, sudden capital outflows forced Argentina to seek another IMF rescue — this time a record program. Despite temporary stabilization, the plan suffered from overoptimistic assumptions, limited domestic ownership and politically costly austerity. Recession returned, social tensions escalated and Macri’s government was voted out in 2019.

President Alberto Fernández inherited an economy already under strain. In 2020, Argentina restructured about of debt, but the pandemic soon reignited crisis dynamics. Emergency fiscal spending, financed largely through monetary expansion, drove inflation into triple digits even as reserves dwindled under a maze of multiple exchange rates and import restrictions.

The IMF’s 2022 Extended Fund (EFF) aimed to promote gradual fiscal consolidation and tighter monetary control. Yet structural weaknesses — fragmented governance, inconsistent implementation, and eroding credibility — undermined progress. By the mid-2020s, Argentina once again stood at the intersection of economic fragility and political fatigue. Its recurring crises served as a reminder of the enduring tension between sovereignty, populism and macroeconomic discipline.

The 2025 bailout and emerging fault lines

By mid-2025, Argentina once again stood on the brink of financial collapse. President Javier Milei’s administration secured an emergency stabilization package jointly backed by the IMF and the US Treasury. The arrangement combines short-term liquidity, policy conditionality and bilateral support designed to restore market confidence and avert a full-blown balance-of-payments — a severe economic emergency in which a country cannot fulfill its payment duties.

US President Donald Trump, who regards Milei as a kindred ideological ally, has stepped in to Argentina’s stabilization effort. This September, Washington agreed to extend a $20 billion Federal Reserve to Argentina and expressed readiness to purchase Argentine sovereign bonds in secondary markets. This extraordinary gesture underscores both geopolitical and financial stakes.

Simultaneously, the IMF Executive Board approved a 48-month EFF valued at (479% of quota). It came with an immediate $12 billion disbursement and a first review scheduled for June 2025, tied to an additional $2 billion tranche. The program is intended to catalyze further multilateral and bilateral financing and facilitate Argentina’s gradual reentry into international capital markets.

Despite this unprecedented support, the stabilization effort remains precarious. Equity markets have tumbled, capital outflows have intensified and the peso faces relentless depreciation pressures. The central bank, while nominally independent, has intervened heavily in currency markets to contain volatility that threatens to unravel early disinflation gains. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that “all options” remained on the table, signaling Washington’s commitment but also its growing anxiety over Argentina’s policy credibility.

Structurally, Argentina’s economy remains both diverse and constrained. Agriculture and natural resources account for roughly of GDP and generate more than 60% of export revenue — around $35 billion in 2024, led by soybeans, corn and beef. Despite the currency collapse, export volumes remain near record highs, sustaining a large trade surplus. Services, including finance, logistics and tourism, represent approximately 60% of GDP, while manufacturing, food processing, automotive production and mining contribute the remaining 25%.

Yet the country’s external position — what Argentina earns from abroad versus what it owes — remains chronically fragile. Total external debt, estimated at around $400 billion, imposes an annual interest burden exceeding $10–15 billion. This drains hard currency and undermines the current account. The paradox persists: Argentina earns dollars through strong exports yet remains starved of liquidity — a reflection not of trade weakness but of deep-seated credibility deficits and recurring policy reversals.

Why reforms rarely last

Argentina’s crises are as much institutional as economic. Short political horizons, fragmented coalitions and public distrust generate time-inconsistent policies. Each government inherits imbalances, implements partial stabilization and then succumbs to electoral pressures.

The inflation-tax mechanism — which erodes debt through rising prices — creates incentives for short-termism. IMF programs often act as temporary stopgaps rather than durable solutions. Credibility, once lost, is hard to regain. As Columbia University Professor Guillermo Calvo , even orthodox policies fail if agents anticipate reversal.

Breaking Argentina’s debt loop requires credible fiscal and monetary institutions. Independent fiscal councils, binding expenditure rules and inflation targeting insulated from political interference are essential.

Dedollarization, which aims to reduce the country’s reliance on the US dollar, demands restoring trust in the peso through consistent policy and transparent governance. Fiscal and inflation data must be reliable to rebuild confidence. Equally important is fostering broad political consensus: Durable stabilization requires institutions that outlast administrations, as seen in .

Toward a credibility-based framework

Argentina’s economic history reads like a laboratory of macroeconomic dysfunction, where short-term imperatives repeatedly override long-term credibility. Fiscal dominance and dollarization persist not through ignorance but as a balance of mistrust among citizens, markets and the state.

Breaking this equilibrium requires a new contract of credibility: monetary institutions insulated from fiscal capture, fiscal rules that survive electoral cycles and data transparency that earns trust. Credibility is not declared — it is accumulated through consistent policy.

Argentina’s challenge is entanglement, not isolation. Its fragility mirrors, on a smaller scale, the credibility dilemmas confronting advanced economies. The difference lies in degree, not kind: When trust erodes — whether in pesos or treasuries — the cost of restoration multiplies.

Stabilization, therefore, is not about inventing new policies but sustaining consistent ones long enough to reanchor expectations. The real challenge is political, not technical: transforming credibility from a temporary byproduct of crisis management into a durable public asset.

Only by achieving this can Argentina escape its chronic oscillation between hope and disappointment, turning macroeconomic stability from an exception into the norm.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Argentina’s Endless Cycle: Why Sovereign Debt Crises Keep Returning appeared first on 51�Թ�.

US–Venezuela tensions

Singh notes “quite a bit of escalation” in recent weeks. US forces have carried out multiple strikes on Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying narcotics bound for the US, the latest (at time of recording) on September 15, 2025. The Pentagon has also moved aircraft and naval assets into the Caribbean, prompting speculation about preparations for war.

Moran characterizes the American strategy as one of “maximum pressure and minimum coherence.” While Washington tightens sanctions, it still allows Chevron Corporation to operate oil wells in Venezuela. The policy makes little sense because Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the state-owned giant, controls all exports and has even blocked shipments over unpaid fees. Since Chevron cannot pay in dollars, it compensates the regime in crude oil — effectively free oil for Maduro. Pursuing this policy while increasing military pressure, Moran argues, demonstrates the inconsistency at the heart of US strategy.

Trump wants war?

The US buildup includes Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jets in Puerto Rico and Navy destroyers near Venezuelan waters. Washington calls the attacks anti-narcotics operations, while Maduro claims they hit civilians. Moran believes a full invasion is unlikely, but intermediate military actions remain possible.

He argues that Maduro “has had a terrible track record” and accuses him of aiding drug networks like Cartellis de Solas and Tren Aragua. Moran agrees with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s condemnations, viewing the regime’s narco-terrorism links as a financial lifeline amid cash shortages. He predicts growing military escalation in the region.

Can Maduro respond?

Maduro claims to have mobilized eight million militia volunteers, but Moran says intelligence suggests the move is largely symbolic. He doubts Venezuela’s ability to counter modern US operations, arguing that its forces would struggle severely.

Moran sees the regime’s show of unity as political theater: Maduro must project national cohesion, yet the ground reality is very different. Once richer than many European countries, Venezuela now faces extreme poverty, food shortages and hyperinflation. Moran expresses sympathy for ordinary citizens and says the regime’s loss of legitimacy is “hard to overstate.”

Drugs or oil?

Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves, but sanctions restrict sales mostly to China, India and Iran. The US has recently resumed small-scale purchases, a move Moran criticizes. When Singh asks whether this conflict is about oil or drugs, Moran replies that “the simple answer to that is it’s about the drugs.”

Moran labels the renewed oil purchases a “very bad misstep” akin to the era of US President Joe Biden, forced by high energy prices. The administration of US President Donald Trump both revoked and later restored oil licenses, undercutting its own maximum pressure campaign. Such policy swings, he says, expose Washington’s strategic incoherence.

China and Russia

Over ten million Venezuelans have fled abroad, destabilizing neighbors like Colombia. Moran highlights the territorial dispute over the Essequibo region with Guyana, calling Venezuela’s annexation threat an “existential threat to […] Guyana.” Guyana is firmly aligned with the US, while Brazilian President Lula da Silva performs a “delicate balancing act” — opposing war but sympathetic to Maduro.

Among global patrons, Moran believes China wields far greater influence than Russia. He rejects the claim that US drilling deters Chinese dominance, calling it “a fever dream” designed to justify Chevron’s presence. The oil output gains from this policy, he adds, are extremely unfortunate.

Will tensions spike?

Moran predicts further action against the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. He foresees strikes stronger than recent boat attacks but short of invasion. Moran insists Trump is “not a war hawk” yet “not an isolationist.” He will use force if he deems it in the national interest.

Given deployments, Moran does not see this conflict simply disappearing, though he stops short of predicting regime change. If US forces down Venezuelan aircraft, Maduro will face a dilemma: retaliate and risk collapse, or stand down and appear weak. “If he starts bombing or really messing around with US military personnel,” Moran warns, “this is going to end badly for him.”

Moran concludes that a decisive attack would end �Ѳ���ܰ���’s regime, but limited conflict now seems more likely than peace.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Venezuela’s Maduro Rallies His Supporters as Tensions With US Escalate appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Unlike the ELN, FARC was a predominantly rural guerrilla group, focusing on agrarian reform and social rights. Up until the 2016 between FARC and the Colombian government, FARC remained steadfastly devoted to communist ideology with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the Colombian government and a communist-agrarian state. This differs significantly from the ELN, which despite originally forming as a result of leftist ideology, its viewpoints over time.

Evolution of the ELN

The early days of the ELN were heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology, particularly Foco theory, created by the Argentine-Cuban Marxist revolutionary . The theory depended on guerrilla centers to spark revolutionary sentiment, as well as liberation theology to the group by radical priests. By 1965, the ELN had published the “Simacoto Manifesto,” their goals. 

The ELN continued to rely on Foco theory, which is rooted in the experiences of several of its leaders, including Fabio Vásquez Castaño, one of the founders of the ELN. The ELN began to from its original ideology in the 1980s and 1990s. As the group reached its peak of nearly 5,000 fighters, it began into new geographical territories beyond its original municipality of San Vicente de Chucurí, not only throughout Colombia but also into Venezuela. 

New territorial control meant that the group could no longer rely on outside funding for support, at which point it began engaging in drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping to its operations. Major attacks targeted government infrastructure, particularly in the energy sector, as ELN became increasingly frustrated with the Colombian government’s decision to its natural resources to foreign companies. Despite significant efforts by the Colombian government to a deal, the 2016 Peace Agreement excluded the ELN. 

Instead, the ELN used this as an opportunity to its operations into former FARC territories. Coinciding with this rise is the ELN’s presence in Venezuela, where the group allegedly controls upwards of . Both the and administrations have allegedly offered the ELN various forms of backing — ranging from economic aid to political and military support. In return, the ELN has provided combatants for government-backed militant activities and loyalty to both Venezuelan regimes, signaling the emergence of a new kind of mercenary force.

Is the ELN a Mercenary Force? 

To assess whether the ELN qualifies as a mercenary force under international law, it is necessary to examine the group against the six cumulative criteria outlined in Article 47(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. of the Additional Protocol defines a mercenary as:

Any person who: (1) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; (2) does in fact take a direct part in the hostilities; (c) is motivated to take part in hostilities essentially for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party; (d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict; (e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and (f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

Despite the ELN’s initial ideology-driven recruitment efforts, recent intelligence reports indicate the Venezuelan government contracted the group to violent missions on its behalf — including operations against Colombian state forces and rival armed groups such as FARC dissidents. This would arguably satisfy the first and second requirements of the definition of a mercenary, as this would involve recruitment for an armed conflict taking place in Colombia and would involve the ELN’s direct participation in hostilities.

Furthermore, the ELN would noticeably satisfy the third requirement, given that the motivation for involvement in hostilities has in recent years shifted from donations to support the mission to donations for criminal activities. The ELN’s of lucrative drug trafficking routes and high-producing coca cultivation zones near the border with Venezuela means it can offer significantly higher salaries to its members than they would receive in the armed forces.

Moreover, to satisfy the fourth requirement, members must neither be nationals of a party to the conflict nor residents of territory controlled by such a party. This a challenge, as many ELN members are Colombian nationals and reside in Colombia, a party to the conflict. However, evidence that some foreign fighters and actors with external affiliations are involved, further complicating the classification. 

The fifth requirement includes demonstrating that members are not a part of the armed forces of a party to the conflict. In this respect, the ELN clearly meets the criteria. Lastly, the ELN must not have been sent by a non-party State on official duty as members of its armed forces. This criterion also appears to be satisfied, as any involvement by other States — such as Venezuela — seems to the ELN acting more as a proxy or non-state contractor, rather than as a formal member of that State’s armed forces.

The Future of the ELN 

While the ELN may not meet all six legal criteria to be classified as a mercenary force under international law, there is a compelling argument that elements of the group now as de facto mercenaries, serving the strategic and economic interests of external actors such as the Venezuelan state and transnational criminal networks. 

It is reported that Mexican cartels like Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) have developed partnerships with the ELN to the flow of illicit substances throughout Latin America and beyond. Similarly, the Russian mafia has been developing ties with Venezuela and the ELN, rifles and ammunition. 

These external actors contribute to the permissive environment in which the ELN operates, enabling the group to the strategic and economic interests of foreign stakeholders rather than its original ideological objectives. This of state and non-state interests carries significant implications for regional stability and the future of the ELN.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How the National Liberation Army Resembles a Mercenary Force appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In one event, supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro called for amnesty for the “rioters” of the attack, those who invaded and vandalized the buildings of the Three Powers in the capital, Brasília, in an attempted coup d’état.

In another instance, defenders of democracy, in a more organic and subtle manner, demonstrated against this same amnesty and a Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) that would shield politicians from investigations, showing that organized civil society is attentive to regressive movements.

The difference between the two groups, however, is deeper than simple political disagreement; it is rooted in a historical distortion that echoes the nation’s darkest times.

Reversed history

The main banner of Bolsonaro’s supporters is amnesty for those who participated in the January 8th protests — particularly Bolsonaro, who was to 27 years in prison for attacks on democracy. The narrative propagated is that they deserve the same pardon that was granted to political prisoners and exiles during the (1964–1985).

This comparison is not only fallacious but dangerously distorted. In 1979, the was a historic achievement of social movements and the opposition. Pardon was granted to those who fought for freedom and against the oppression of an authoritarian regime. They were the victims of the state, the defenders of democracy.

The amnesty was, therefore, a victory for civil society against dictatorial power. Today, the request for amnesty is for the invaders and coup plotters, for those who attacked democratic institutions. It is the exact opposite. It is not about forgiving those who fought for freedom, but about absolving those who tried to destroy it.

To understand the gravity of the situation, one must look beyond the headlines. The pro-amnesty demonstration, led by the former president, took place on September 7, the date that celebrates Brazil’s independence from Portugal.

However, in a scene that shocked many Brazilians, a giant was unfurled in the middle of the crowd. This act, more than a mere show of support, is a glaring contradiction. The search for help and identification with a foreign superpower on the day of national independence reflects a departure from any real patriotism, suggesting loyalty to external ideals that do not align with Brazil’s sovereignty.

In contrast, the demonstration against amnesty, which gathered to defend democracy, proudly displayed the Brazilian flag, symbolizing the defense of the nation and its institutions. It was a milestone for a country that has become divided, especially due to the actions of former President Jair Bolsonaro in recent years.

The desperate movement

In the theater of global politics, few scenes are as strange and revealing as that of a Brazilian congressman seeking diplomatic help in Washington. Recently, in an unprecedented move, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro to the United States in an attempt to pressure the American government to intervene in the legal situation of his father, Jair Bolsonaro.��

The goal was clear and bold: to avoid the former president’s conviction and force political amnesty through the veiled intimidation of American figures such as President Donald Trump. But what this strategy ultimately revealed was the fragility of a political movement and the resilience of Brazil’s democratic institutions.

The being promoted is that Jair Bolsonaro is a victim of political persecution. The argument, repeated ad nauseam, is that he deserves the same amnesty granted to opponents of Brazil’s 1964 military dictatorship. This historical farce that the congressman tried to export has already been explained above. The attempt to equate the two scenarios does not hold up in any court of reason or history. Eduardo Bolsonaro’s trip was merely an attempt to give international weight to a fallacious narrative, presenting his father not as a defendant, but as a political martyr.

Eduardo Bolsonaro’s plan was simple but naive: to pressure the Brazilian judicial system through Donald Trump’s influence. The congressman participated in closed-door meetings, made public appearances and gave interviews in the hope that the weight of US conservative politics would intimidate Brazilian institutions. But the plan, in practice, fell apart. 

Brazil’s legal and judicial system, in a demonstration of its independence and strength, followed its course. The Supreme Court and judicial bodies did not allow themselves to be influenced by external pressures, whether they came from demonstrations on Paulista Avenue or from political corridors in Washington. The condemnation of Jair Bolsonaro for his anti-democratic acts is clear proof that this strategy failed.

Eduardo Bolsonaro’s bold move to seek the support of a foreign leader in an attempt to reverse an internal Brazilian decision evaporated on Tuesday (September 23) during the UN General Assembly, when Trump said that the Brazilian president is “a nice guy” and that the two leaders should meet soon, without specifying how or where. 

Current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva responded that he hopes the possible meeting will take place “soon,” “like two civilized human beings,” and without “room for jokes.” Responding to a question from Brasil about whether he fears any kind of “embarrassment,” Lula said he is “very optimistic about the meeting.” “Trump turns 80 in June next year. I turn 80 in October this year. There is no reason for joking around in a relationship between two 80-year-old men. I will treat him with the respect he deserves as president of the United States, and he will certainly treat me with the respect I deserve as president of the Federative Republic of Brazil.”

Democracy in turmoil

It served as a reminder of how fragile some views of sovereignty can be. By seeking the intervention of a leader from another country, Eduardo Bolsonaro not only exposed the weakness of his own movement but also disrespected the principle that Brazil should resolve its own problems according to its own laws.

In the end, the trip and the attempts at intimidation did not result in amnesty or acquittal for his father. Instead, they served to demonstrate the strength of Brazilian democracy, which remained steadfast. This lesson, both for Brazil and the rest of the world, is a reminder that justice and the law must prevail over show diplomacy and blind family loyalty.

The coup movement, despite not being immediately successful, left deep scars. The attempt to delegitimize the elections, constant political instability and the denial of scientific and historical facts are symptoms of a broader crisis. 

Economically, the climate of uncertainty drives away investment and undermines stability. Socially, the fabric of the nation is frayed, with families and friends divided by political lines that seem insurmountable. The current struggle is not only for freedom, but for a basic understanding of what reality is and respect for the rules of the democratic game. 

The approval of an amnesty would be a dangerous signal, a testament that impunity for anti-democratic acts is possible, opening the door to future coup attempts.

Brazil in 2025 is at a crucial moment. Resistance to amnesty is not just a reaction to an act of violence, but an active defense of the future. Civil society, the independent press and democratic institutions, such as the Supreme Court, are being tested. 

The lesson that Brazil can offer the world is that democracy is not something that can be taken for granted. It needs to be defended, valued and, above all, understood. The history of 1979 shows us that forgiveness is for those who fight for freedom, not for those who try to imprison it.

Today’s battle is to ensure that history does not repeat itself in reverse, with the executioners being treated as heroes and the defenders of the law as enemies. It is a global call for vigilance.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Brazil at a Crossroads: The Farce of Amnesty and the Battle for Democracy appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Brazil witnessed for the first time the trial of the architects of a plan to destabilize institutions and the democratic rule of law. The seriousness of the charges and the importance of the verdict for the country’s future reflect the unprecedented nature of the case.

Bolsonaro is the tenth head of state to be punished for this crime in the world, and the first in Brazil’s history. The newspaper conducted a survey of leaders convicted since 1946 and identified a total of 186 convictions of 128 heads of government in 69 countries. Most of these convictions, however, were for corruption crimes, not attempted coups.

Brazil has experienced at least or coup attempts since the end of the monarchy in 1889. The most infamous and damaging was the seizure of power by force in , when a military uprising overthrew President João Goulart, ushering in a 21-year dictatorship.

Jair Bolsonaro this stance throughout his political career, since the 1980s, and refused to call the regime that was imposed a dictatorship, classifying it as a period of “order and progress” (which is the motto written on the Brazilian national flag).

When he voted of the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, he dedicated his vote to Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, “the terror of Dilma Rousseff,” in his words — Ustra had tortured the president during the dictatorial regime.

The decision and the sentences

The final decision was four votes to one. Justices Alexandre de Moraes (rapporteur), Flávio Dino, Cármen Lúcia and Cristiano Zanin voted for conviction, while Luiz Fux voted for acquittal. The sentences, based on evidence such as notes, live videos, use of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) for espionage and draft coup documents, were established as follows:

Jair Bolsonaro: Sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison, to be served in a closed regime, in addition to a fine of more than Brazilian Real (about $80,000). The former president and the other defendants were sentenced to ineligibility for eight years, added to the eight years already determined by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in 2023. The reporting minister, de Moraes, pointed to Bolsonaro as the leader of an armed criminal organization that sought the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

Other defendants: Walter Braga Netto (general and former minister), Almir Garnier (admiral and former Navy commander), Anderson Torres (former Minister of Justice), Augusto Heleno (general and former Minister of Institutional Security), Paulo Sérgio Nogueira (general and former Minister of Defense) and Alexandre Ramagem (federal deputy and former director of Abin) were also convicted, with prison sentences ranging from 16 to 26 years. Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, received a two-year open prison sentence, benefiting from a plea bargain.

The defendants were convicted of various crimes related to the attempted coup, including armed criminal organization, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, aggravated damage to federal property and deterioration of listed heritage sites.

Context: The chronology of the alleged coup

What led Brazil to this decisive point was a series of events that, according to investigations by the Federal Police (PF) and allegations by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), form the basis of the indictment.

According to the complaint, the plot began in March 2021, when the STF former President Lula’s convictions, and his release from prison made him eligible to run for office. From then on, Jair Bolsonaro’s support group allegedly began a campaign to question the electoral system and delegitimize the possible victory of an opponent. In , the PGR and the PF indicated that a criminal organization had been structured with plans to interfere in the elections.

After Bolsonaro’s by Lula in the presidential election in October 2022, the movement allegedly became more radical, with supporters camping in front of Army barracks calling for military intervention. Investigations revealed the existence of a , the “Green and Yellow Dagger,” which was reportedly presented to military commanders in December 2022 but was rejected by the Army and Air Force leadership. The complaint points to the existence of a “coup decree,” which provided for the annulment of the elections and the arrest of Supreme Court ministers.

The crisis reached its peak on , 2023, with the invasion and destruction of the headquarters of the Three Powers in Brasília, in acts that investigations by the PF and the Joint Congressional Investigating Committee (CPMI) concluded were part of a planned and financed mobilization. In July 2023, the investigation also a draft decree on Law and Order at the home of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, which would confirm plans to arrest Minister Alexandre de Moraes and annul the election.

The culmination of this investigation occurred in November 2024, when the PF Bolsonaro and 36 other individuals. The PGR formalized the complaint to the STF in February 2025, and the court accepted the request in March 2025, turning the accused into defendants.

Trump on the scene: the international dimension

The trial took on a complex international dimension. The lawsuit is a domestic matter, but the shadow of US President Donald Trump looms over the case with profound political and diplomatic consequences.

According to analysts, the relationship between Brazil and the US is experiencing a deepening crisis, with Washington tariffs on Brazilian products and sanctions against members of the Supreme Court. These measures are seen as a direct reaction by the Trump administration in support of Bolsonaro. 

The strategy of rapprochement with the US was articulated by federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president, who to the country to ask for international support and seek “fair punishment” for de Moraes and the Federal Police.

Trump’s support for Bolsonaro was not limited to statements. The American president spoke out against the legal proceedings, calling them a “witch hunt,” and imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian products. The US government then announced sanctions against de Moraes, revoking his visa and those of his family members, and opened a trade investigation against Brazil, accusing the judiciary of “censoring” American technology companies. Experts believe that these acts of intimidation and bullying reflect Trump’s personal affinity with Bolsonaro, as both have been of attempting to overturn election results and incite their supporters.

The political and diplomatic consequences of this interference are notable. US pressure has worn down Brazilian public opinion and, according to , has reinforced the perception that Bolsonaro participated in the coup plot. However, this interference does not seem to have changed the opinion of his most loyal supporters. In the political arena, the growth of about Bolsonaro had led parties to rethink the costs of a strong defense of the former president.

The protagonists and the next steps

The progress of the process reflects the actions of two key figures: Alexandre de Moraes and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

As rapporteur for the investigations, de Moraes has become the main face of the judicial response. His have been marked by conducting investigations, authorizing searches and seizures, and now, by reporting on the trial, with a vote that points out that the defendants not only planned but also initiated concrete actions to discredit democracy.

For his part, Lula has taken on the role of defender of the rule of law, vehemently the acts of January 8 and defending the work of the PF and the judiciary. His stance has reinforced the autonomy of institutions and the country’s democratic legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.

The defendants’ defense can still appeal the decision, which prevents immediate imprisonment. Bolsonaro is currently under provisional , and the final decision on where he will serve his sentence will be made after all appeals have been exhausted. The loss of the convicted men’s military rank will be reviewed by the Superior Military Court (STM) after the final judgment.

This trial was not just an isolated case. It served as a global reminder that democracy, even in consolidated nations, is not immune to internal (and external) threats. The way Brazil dealt with this plot determined the strength of its institutions and its reputation as a nation that, above all, submits to the law and the Constitution.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Trial of Jair Bolsonaro: The Future of Brazilian Democracy appeared first on 51�Թ�.

You’ll never know me, so my sincerity here could not be greater. I’m from the country you recently tried to impose a barrier over, even though your nation has had a trade surplus over us , and this year, , reaching $1.7 billion. I’m from Brazil, the fifth-largest country and the economy in the world. It wouldn’t surprise me if you don’t know anything about us, since your only visit here was for a in Rio, with your former wife Ivana, in 1989.

I’m one of the millions of Brazilians who were historically seduced by the greatest soft power of your nation over the last decades. And you got huge profits from it. Brazil has the fourth most users of , the third of and fourth of . From 2004 to 2024, we jumped from the 11th to most frequent visitors of your country. Hollywood has earned an incalculable fortune with us. From 2009 to 2019, in Brazil was 77%, against 13% from national movies and only 1% from China. We are the second with the most subscribers of , the largest VOD market in Latin America and one of the biggest globally, reaching subscriptions by 2027.

Millions of us also felt your government’s hard power in different ways in recent history, like when the US supported the 1964 that led to 21 years of military dictatorship, secretly supporting opposition leaders and police training to overthrow the democratically elected president João Goulart during Brazil’s best attempt at deepening reforms, like the long-awaited agrarian reform. Ironically, the US provided support to the dictatorship through , which you recently . Over those two decades, we witnessed deaths, human rights abuses, censorship and political repression under the dictatorship your government supported. In fact, it resembles what we are watching in your streets now.

But the reason for this letter is to express my shock at how fast you are melting US soft power in all areas, except, maybe, sports. Diplomacy, science, arts, entertainment and political values were all pillars of soft power that the US was admired for by other nations and cultures for almost a century are going down the drain faster than the hair on your head.

And if you think about it, soft power is the only long-term power the US can rely on after World War II, which, by the way, was the last war your nation had won in traditional terms, followed by the loss of Vietnam war, the mess left in the Gulf War, the false pretext of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction that led to a new war and hundreds of thousands of since the 2003 invasion and the shameful withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.

I know you love bombs just like Putin and your other role models in Doctor Strangelove. But deep down, you know you can never rely on nuclear weapons as hard power. Those weapons, tested by your government over civilians 80 years ago in Japan, triggered a worldwide race for the same device and initiated the Cold War, making the world a more dangerous place with weapons that can eliminate civilization in the hands of countries like North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and, of course, your own. No one can use it; otherwise, your golf club, hotels, mansions and family lifestyle will turn into dust.

And then there is China. The second-richest nation on Earth is learning to use soft power as fast as you melt yours. First, diplomacy: China has Israeli actions in Gaza and has a better relationship with Russia for a possible mediation over Ukraine. Although Beijing only stands on for peace, Xi Jinping uses diplomacy rather than blunting imposing tariffs or sabre-rattling with nuclear power to get his way.

Second, science. China has become a scientific superpower faster than any other country. , Chang’E 6 returned soil samples from the far side of the moon for the first time; developed the first primitive-based vision processor with complementary pathways, the first optical storage device with petabit capacity; a new approach in helium-free cryogenic technology and a treatment with genetically engineered CAR T cells for refractory autoimmune diseases.

Third by arts and entertainment. China’s domestic films are thriving. ‘’ became the only movie in history to reach $1 billion at the box office in just one market and the only non-Hollywood film to cross $2 billion globally. China’s music economy became the fifth-largest recorded music market in the world in 2023, with growth, making it the fastest in the world, with cultural policies emphasizing international competitiveness and developing talents by formal education and independent labels.

At last, there is social media. Since you got back to power, Chinese influencers flooded TikTok with very popular videos showing how fast and modern their cities became; one , with perfect English, has gone viral with a bold critique on how America killed its middle class and guys like you blame China; there’s even , called Chinese Trump, with the exact same voice, showing the beauties of Chinese culture and habits.

We Brazilians will survive your random tariffs. We’ve been through worse with previous US administrations. As you read in the , it’s pointless to distortedly use the Magnitsky law over our Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes and cut his credit card as a veiled pretext to save your friend, former extreme-right president Jair Bolsonaro, now in house arrest for supposedly leading a coup after the 2022 presidential election.

After 44 years, and half my life researching cultural soft power, I found myself divorcing Mickey Mouse and flirting with pandas. Which, by the way, is a Chinese tool of diplomacy and wildlife conservation since 1941. Soft power.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Doctor Strangelove: Or How I Said Goodbye To Mickey Mouse And Now Love Pandas appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Rohan Khattar Singh, 51�Թ�’s Video Producer & Social Media Manager, talks with Leonardo Vivas, professor of political economy at Leslie University in Massachusetts, about Bolivia’s presidential election. It had its first round of votes on August 17 and will have a run-off vote on October 19. This conversation examines why these elections matter, the collapse of the long-dominant Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, or MAS), the weakened roles of former Bolivian President Evo Morales and incumbent Bolivian President Luis Arce, and more.

Why Bolivia matters

Vivas begins by noting that Bolivia, a small landlocked country, might seem peripheral to global politics, but its elections reflect important regional dynamics. In Latin America, most conflicts in recent decades have been resolved through democratic institutions rather than violence, with the exceptions of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and increasingly El Salvador. He argues Bolivia is likely to continue this democratic pattern: There will be a clear winner, and institutions will accept the outcome.

The second reason for global attention is the apparent “demise” of MAS, the party founded by Morales in the 1990s and dominant for nearly 30 years. Vivas believes its decline could reshape local geopolitics, breaking one of the region’s longest political hegemonies.

The race and the MAS collapse

The field of candidates reflects MAS’s diminished standing. Morales’s former protégé, Arce, opted not to run again due to poor approval ratings. Two MAS candidates competed — Senate president Andronico Rodriguez and Arce’s former interior minister — but both polled poorly and will not continue to the second round of the vote.

The opposition appears stronger. Samuel Doria Medina, a wealthy businessman, campaigned as a moderate, aiming to unify the country. His rival, former Bolivian President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, takes a harder right stance, promising IMF-backed reforms and economic stabilization. Vivas frames the contest as a struggle between a fading MAS and a reenergized right.

In the first round of the vote, Senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira, a centrist from the Christian Democratic Party, and Quiroga, a conservative, in first and second place, respectively.

Morales, Arce and the end of an era

For much of the 2000s, Morales oversaw what could be called a “Bolivian miracle.” Gas exports funded poverty reduction and indigenous inclusion, with then-Finance Minister Arce shaping the economic boom. Yet the model collapsed as state-owned gas firms faltered, revenues plunged and exchange-rate pressures deepened.

Today, Arce faces a financial crisis marked by exchange controls and slowing growth. With his political support underwater, he chose not to seek reelection. Morales, once a towering figure, is now legally and politically sidelined. A constitutional court ruling bars him from running; his recent protest calls fell flat and he faces prosecution for statutory rape, further eroding his influence.

Morales has refused to endorse MAS’s current candidates and has instead called for new elections, further fragmenting the movement he once embodied.

The army on the sidelines

Military involvement in Bolivian politics has long been a concern, especially after Morales’s 2019 departure under army pressure. But Vivas stresses that today’s army plays little role. A supposed coup attempt last year proved hollow; General Juan José Zúñiga acted alone and was quickly rejected by both society and the president. Some even suspect the episode was staged to boost Arce’s legitimacy.

Compared to 2019, when the military simply facilitated a constitutional transfer of power, today’s officers remain firmly in the barracks. Vivas does not foresee the army influencing this year’s election.

Economy and the younger vote

The central issue now is the economy. During Morales’s rise, indigenous identity and social inclusion drove politics. After decades of reform, indigenous participation is normalized. Economic hardship — falling gas revenues, high inflation and slow growth — has replaced identity as the defining theme.

The generational shift is also decisive. Younger Bolivians, more urban and educated, care less about old ideological battles and more about future prospects. Many no longer rally behind Morales or MAS, instead leaning toward opposition candidates. Vivas highlights that MAS, as the architect of the current crisis, cannot credibly present itself as the solution.

Indigenous voting patterns reflect this shift: Morales still retains support in the highlands, but lowland communities lean right, accelerating MAS’s decline.

Round two is inevitable

Vivas correctly assumes that the election will head to a runoff. He believes it is possible, though not guaranteed, that both right-wing candidates advance to the second round. Much depends on whether MAS’s residual support materializes late in the race.

Based on pre-election information, Vivas sees the likely outcome as a right-wing victory. This would normalize Bolivian politics, making it resemble Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador, where power alternates between left and right. For him, that normalization marks Bolivia’s reintegration into regional democratic trends.

External players: US, China and Brazil

Vivas also considers the international angle. The United States has lost much of its regional influence, supplanted by China’s growing role. Washington’s attention has shifted to global crises, leaving Latin America low on the agenda. Vivas sees US President Donald Trump’s current administration as “playing wait and see” while expecting right-wing gains across the region.

China’s involvement is more cautious. Burned by its unpaid investments in Venezuela, Beijing is wary of Bolivia’s struggling state-owned companies and is unlikely to engage deeply if MAS wins. Still, China maintains strong trade links, regardless of ideology.

Brazil, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, could prove more active. As interim head of BRICS, Lula has suggested BRICS could replace the IMF as a source of financing for Bolivia. But such programs remain untested, and Vivas doubts they would materialize unless Bolivia’s government aligns with BRICS priorities.

Cautious optimism

Despite crises, Vivas ends on a hopeful note. He believes Bolivia has a real chance, no matter who wins, to reset its politics and rebuild its economy. For him, the 2025 election could mark both the end of an era dominated by MAS and the beginning of a more balanced, democratic cycle with wider implications for Latin America.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Bolivia — Fuel and Economic Crisis Lead to Widespread Support for the Right appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The — named after the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Trajani — introduced the citizenship restrictions, which have now been converted into law (Law 36/2025). The new rules limit the principle of jure sanguinis (“right of blood”) to descendants within two generations (parent or grandparent). In contrast, the previous legislation imposed no generational limits on ancestry for citizenship claims.

These changes mark a sharp break with the broader Italian diaspora that played a formative role in shaping nations and national identities in countries across the Western Hemisphere. Many descendants trace their lineage to great-grandparents or more distant ancestors who emigrated from Italy during the major waves of migration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

South America: The land of unlimited opportunities

Although the Italian dream of “L’A�����������” is often linked to the United States for millions of Italians, Argentina, Brazil and other South American countries were the true lands of opportunity.

For the first generation of immigrants, Italy remained a vivid memory, shaping constant comparisons between past and present. Yet, as these communities prospered abroad, life in Italy gradually became a more distant part of their identity.

Today, Italian descendants make up a of the population in several South American countries. Argentina has the highest percentage, with approximately 62% of its population claiming Italian heritage. Uruguay and Paraguay follow, with 44% and 37%, respectively. Venezuela ranks fourth with 16%, followed by Brazil with 15% and Colombia with 4%.

The connection of these large immigrant communities to Italy evolved with the birth of new generations in South America. Personal memories gave way to a romanticized, inherited imagination that continues to shape the identities of many who wear their Italian heritage with pride. This enduring bond reflects the resilience of a people who, while forging a new future, chose to reimagine rather than abandon their past.

Meloni’s motivations

The Meloni government has defended the new citizenship law as a necessary measure to curb abuses of the system and manage the overwhelming number of applications that have inundated Italian consulates in South America. Officials have argued that many applicants sought an Italian passport for the convenience of European Union access without having substantial cultural or linguistic ties to Italy. Indeed, the number of Italians residing abroad increased from 2014 to 2024, mainly due to the granting of citizenship in Brazil and Argentina. In 2024 alone, Italian authorities granted citizenship to approximately Brazilians.

In addition to generational limits, the new law introduces the requirement of an “effective bond” with Italy, meaning that having a distant ancestor alone is no longer sufficient for citizenship. Applications submitted before March 28, 2025, will be evaluated under the previous, more inclusive rules, prompting a surge in filings and creating legal uncertainty for incomplete cases. The government has also centralized application processing, citing efficiency and fraud prevention.

The reaction from Italian communities in Brazil and Argentina has been one of shock and anger. Many families have spent years and significant financial resources gathering the necessary documents to prove their lineage. Community leaders and legal experts have condemned the law as a “betrayal” that severs a vital link between Italy and its global diaspora.

Legal challenges are rising as plaintiffs argue that the new law is unconstitutional and violates the principle of non-retroactivity, asserting that individuals acquire the right to citizenship at birth. The Italian Supreme Court has been to the law initiated by the lower court in Turin. The legal battles’ full impact remains to be seen.

At a Supreme Court hearing in Rome on June 6, 2025, lawyer Monica Lis Restanio that citizenship is a birthright that cannot be arbitrarily revoked. Representing the associations challenging the law (Avvocati Uniti per la Cittadinanza Italiana [AUCI] and Associazione Giuristi Iure Sanguinis [AGIS]), she emphasized that Italian citizenship is a familial bond passed down through generations and only the individual’s voluntary renunciation can sever it, not administrative discretion.��

Italian immigration and its lasting influences

Italian immigrants brought with them regional cultural diversity and skills shaped by early 20th-century industrialization. Their human capital enriched the racial and social fabric of South American societies, adding complexity to nations seeking to modernize and forge new national identities.

In the vibrant neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and São Paulo, entire communities pulsed with the energy of Italian immigrants whose presence would leave a lasting mark in these cities. It was in the slang of the streets, the Lunfardo of Buenos Aires and the Cocoliche of its theaters, where Italian words were into the very fabric of the local language, creating a new, hybrid vernacular. Far beyond the local influence, Italians shaped the Brazilian Portuguese in such a way that words in the national language are estimated to be of Italian origin.

The cultural impact of Italian immigrants endures to this day in the national life of these countries. In Argentina and Uruguay, the passion for football is a mirror of the Italian .��

In Brazil, particularly in the South, the legacy of Italian agricultural colonies is deeply embedded in the landscape. The introduction of winemaking and new culinary traditions has left a lasting imprint, significantly shaping the country’s national cuisine.

Alongside technical skills, Italian immigrants brought a shared sense of entrepreneurial vision that helped drive social change. like Matarazzo and Crespi played key roles in developing Brazil’s food and textile industries, as the Bardella, Dedini and Romi families meaningfully shaped the country’s equipment and heavy industrial sectors.

Italian immigration played a key role in shaping early 20th-century social and labor movements in South America. Many immigrants arrived already influenced by anarchist and communist ideas, which they shared with local workers. In 1900, Italians made up of São Paulo’s factory and office workforce. Their newspaper (1902–1908) was Brazil’s first formal socialist leaning publication, highlighting their political impact.��

The boundless identities of Italian descendants

The new Italian citizenship law is a significant turning point in Italy’s relationship with its descendants abroad. It is moving from a policy of open ancestral recognition to a more restrictive approach that prioritizes a closer and more recent connection to the Italian nation-state.

At the heart of Meloni’s citizenship approach lies a Manichean and homogenizing vision of “Italianess,” rooted in a narrow idea of social cohesion. This perspective overlooks the rich mosaic of local cultures that have defined Italy since its unification in the late 19th century, in a world shaped by imagined communities and evolving identities.

Thankfully, the Italian Supreme Court appears to support the view that defining “Italian identity” is inherently complex and that politically or ideologically driven concepts should not be the basis for citizenship rights.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Citizenship Lost: How Giorgia Meloni Closed Italy’s Door to Millions appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The diplomatic blackmail is explicit. Bolsonaro is a central figure in into an attempted coup d’état, the formation and leadership of a criminal organization and the massive dissemination of fake news. He has become the pivot of an unprecedented international crisis that mixes politics, economics and national sovereignty in a way never before seen in more than 200 years of diplomatic relations between the countries. However, behind Trump’s inflammatory statements lies a complex web of economic and geopolitical interests, where tech giants emerge as crucial players, capitalizing on the instability to carve out their own paths.

Eduardo Bolsonaro’s role and the shock of the threat

The news of Donald Trump’s intention to impose a 50% surcharge on Brazil came as a surprise, just as it had with China earlier this year. The difference is that, in the Brazilian case, the justification presented was an arm-wrestling match against the Judiciary, represented by one of its 11 ministers, . To understand Trump’s real motivations, it is necessary to take a step back in the chronology of the crisis and delve deeper into the murky waters from which the threat emerged.

In of this year, the third of Jair Bolsonaro’s five children, Eduardo Bolsonaro — who became the most active in the political arena and his father’s defense — emigrated to the US, took a leave of absence from his position as a federal deputy and justified the trip and stay by claiming “political persecution.” In North America, he began the government to secure amnesty for Jair, who was close to being arrested, for the crimes he was accused of.

However, he — nor the entire right-wing and far-right base that gained strength during Bolsonaro’s term (2019-2022) — did not expect Trump to the economic threat letter three months later. Eduardo as if he had scored a goal in the World Cup final and felt as if he had held a knife to the Brazilian judiciary’s throat, intensifying his threats against Supreme Court ministers and the Federal Police as a whole. The rest of the right-wing political group unanimously condemned Trump’s threat, unwilling to associate themselves with a measure that was clearly detrimental to Brazil. However, the Supreme Court did not give in.

Days later, former President Bolsonaro’s residence was and seized, and he was taken to the Federal Police, where he was fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet to monitor his movements and prevent his possible escape. He was ordered not to leave his home between 7:00 PM and 6:00 AM. He was also prohibited from communicating via social media with others under investigation in the operation, as well as with ambassadors and consular officials from other countries.

Pix, Big Tech and the economic motive behind the threat

From the US perspective, behind the superficial political justifications for the threat lies a lobby of major technology firms, especially regarding the , which has transformed electronic payments in Brazil since 2020 and has become a global success. In just five years, the Central Bank’s system has reached more than users, surpassing other forms of payment due to its being free for individuals and its instantaneous nature.

This popularity, however, represents an obstacle for large technology companies (Big Techs) such as Google, Apple and Meta. They see Pix as a threat to their business models. , for example, has already tried to launch payment solutions, such as WhatsApp Pay, that have been blocked in Brazil. By offering an efficient and free payment platform, Pix reduces the need for third-party services that monetize transactions and collect data.

Lobbyists for these Big Tech companies have been the Trump administration, arguing that Pix “limits the development of private solutions” and “prevents the full adoption of global digital wallets.” In fact, the “barrier to innovation” for these companies is the absence of a “toll” that they could charge in a market that Pix has made free and efficient.

“Pix is a disruption that big tech companies did not foresee and are not comfortable with,” commented a financial market analyst, who asked not to be identified. “For them, the widespread adoption of an efficient and free payment system, controlled by the Central Bank, reduces the need for their own solutions and prevents the collection of valuable data for monetization.”

obtained by Brazilian media outlets reveal that lobby groups hired by these companies have been meeting frequently with Trump’s advisers. “They want a bigger slice of the transaction pie. Pix takes that away from them,” explained a source in the payments industry who has been closely following these discussions.��

Epstein scandal as a potential diversion

In addition, there is suspicion that Trump’s statement is an attempt to create a smokescreen, as allegations about his connection to sex offender , who was arrested and committed suicide in 2019, have reached a peak of controversy and investigation. During his 2024 campaign, Trump to reveal all classified documents related to the Epstein case. However, he has been criticized by part of his own base, which accuses him of covering up the case due to alleged involvement. Trump publicly his supporters for demanding the release of “Epstein files”, which he claims are fabricated by his Democratic opponents.

One of the first women to report Epstein for sexual abuse, , reported that she alerted the FBI about Donald Trump as early as 1996. She described an episode in 1995 at Epstein’s office where Trump was present and allegedly made a comment about her.��

Lawrence Visoski, Epstein’s longtime pilot, in 2021 that Trump flew on Epstein’s private plane several times. Trump denies this. But the relationship between the two is longstanding, dating back to the , when both were part of elite social circles in New York and Florida. In 2002, Trump was quoted in a magazine describing Epstein as “fantastic” and “a lot of fun.”

The connection between Bolsonaro’s legal situation and Trump’s trade threats is not random, and he may be attempting to strategically remove three (or more) problems with one fell stroke. Sources close to the Trump campaign, who preferred anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, revealed that Bolsonaro’s defense has become a point of honor for the former US president. “Trump sees Bolsonaro as an ideological ally and a martyr of the political ‘persecution’ that he himself claims to suffer,” explained a Republican strategist. For Trump, Bolsonaro’s amnesty would not only be a “trophy” for the global right, but a sign of strength and influence in his return to the international stage.

The damage of a “Tariff War”: A crisis scenario for both

The 50% tariffs would be a devastating blow to Brazil’s trade balance, affecting vital sectors such as agribusiness and industry. In 2024, Brazil exported more than in goods to the US, becoming one of its main trading partners. The escalation of this rhetoric has already sent shivers through the Ministry of Finance in Brasilia and among exporters. “This is a very serious situation that requires caution and diplomatic firmness. We cannot give in to external pressures that violate our sovereignty and our judicial system,” said a senior official at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

If Donald Trump’s threats materialize and the 50% tariff is imposed, the scenario for the economies and populations of both countries is one of severe instability and significant losses. A trade war of this magnitude has no winners, creating a wave of shocks that spreads globally.

Negative impacts on Brazil

For Brazil, the effects would be immediate and profound, striking at the heart of its export economy and the daily lives of its population.

Agribusiness in Crisis: The US is one of the of Brazilian agricultural products, including coffee, meat (beef, pork, and poultry), forest products, orange juice and ethanol. With a 50% tariff, these products would be unviable in the US market, resulting in a decline in exports. We already have concrete examples: meatpacking plants are order cancellations and shipment suspensions, and companies such as BrasPine, in Paraná, have already collective vacations to 700 employees due to the downturn.

Manufacturing Industry Impacted: Sectors such as steel (iron and steel), oil and derivatives and aircraft would be hit hard. Furniture companies and the fish sector (which has the US as its main destination, absorbing about of exports) would face downturn and uncertainty.

Mass Unemployment: The drastic drop in exports would result in the closure of industries and farms, leading to large-scale layoffs in various sectors. The National Confederation of Industry (CNI) has already warned that the “tarifaço” would directly compromise job creation.

Devaluation of the Real: Economic uncertainty and the outflow of foreign investment would lead to a sharp devaluation of the Real against the US Dollar.

Increased Import Costs: With a more expensive dollar, the importation of essential goods, industrial inputs and even some foods would become more costly. This increase would be passed on to the end consumer, raising inflation and eroding the purchasing power of families.

A by Atlas Intel already indicated that 70% of Brazilians believe that Trump’s tariffs will raise inflation in Brazil, and more than 70% believe that economic growth will slow down. Additionally, XP analysts that US tariffs could reduce Brazilian GDP growth by 0.30 percentage points in 2025 and up to 0.50 percentage points in 2026, if the measures are implemented. The perception of risk for foreign investors would increase dramatically, leading to capital flight, which would weaken the country’s national financial system and hinder new investments.

Although Brazil may seek other markets, the volume and absorption capacity of a partner like the US are difficult to replace in the short and medium terms. Diversification requires time and adaptation of production.

Negative impacts in the US

Although tariffs are designed to “protect” the US economy, they would also have adverse effects in the United States.

More expensive products: US importers would have to pay 50% more for Brazilian products, and this additional cost would be passed on directly to the end consumer. Items such as coffee, beef, orange juice and other food products, as well as footwear and everyday industrial goods, would become significantly more expensive on US shelves, contributing to domestic inflation and reducing purchasing power. , director-general of the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé), has already pointed out that US coffee consumers would be burdened.

Affected Supply Chains: Many American industries on inputs and raw materials from Brazil. The increased cost of these products could raise production costs in the US, hurting competitiveness and, in some cases, leading to job cuts.

Retaliation and Market Loss: If Brazil retaliates with tariffs on US products, US exports to Brazil would also be affected, hurting US export sectors and their workers. Although Brazil has had a with the US since 2009, the impact would be felt.

The unilateral measure could generate tension in international relations and trigger a series of trade retaliations from other countries. This would, in turn, destabilize global trade and harm American companies that rely on international trade.

Brazil’s dilemma: sovereignty or economy?

Brazil is at a crossroads. Granting amnesty to Bolsonaro, who is involved in grave accusations, would set a dangerous precedent for democracy and the rule of law. On the other hand, Trump’s 50% tariff could plunge the country into an economic crisis, with a direct impact on employment and inflation.

The Brazilian government has so far maintained a firm stance on legal sovereignty. In a statement to the press, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva : “Our institutions work, and justice will take its course, regardless of external pressures. Brazil is a sovereign nation.”

The outcome of this saga is uncertain. Will Brazil maintain its legal integrity, bearing the brunt of possible economic retaliation? Or will Trump’s pressure, orchestrated in part by the tech lobby, be too much to bear, forcing concessions in the name of financial stability? The answer lies in the next moves of a geopolitical chess game where the board is the fate of a nation and the pieces are the sovereignty and prosperity of its people. 

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Trump’s Gordian Knot: Brazil is Under Threat Thanks to Bolsonaro and Big Tech Lobbying appeared first on 51�Թ�.

On October 9, 1861, Napoleon III to his Ambassador in London, Count Flahaut, that if Mexico could be regenerated under the influence of France, they would have erected an insurmountable barrier against the encroachments of the United States. On July 5, 1862, he a letter to General Elie Frederic Forey, emphasizing that France had a historic mission to restore the strength and prestige of the Latin race that lived on the other side of the Atlantic.��

Napoleon’s Pan-Latin project

The aims, barriers and Latin strength mentioned earlier represented two sides of the same coin. They laid the groundwork for Napoleon’s project in the Americas. One aim was to counterbalance the rising Anglo-Protestant power by strengthening the influence of Latin Catholicism. A Latin power, of course, remained under the tutelage of France.��

The nature of the Latin connection between France and the Hispanic part of the Americas stemmed from their shared Roman heritage, a heritage also shared by Brazil. However, although Brazil is considered a fundamental part of “Latin America,” it represented a completely different proposition in terms of France’s imperial ambitions. With an Emperor from the Royal House of Braganza ruling that country and Great Britain leading its international trade, Brazil was beyond the reach of Napoleon’s .��

Such a common heritage dates back to ancient times. The original Latins inhabited central Italy in what is now the region of Lazio. Through conquests led by their dominant city-state, , the rest of Italy became “Latinized.” In other words, the term Latin lost its specific ethnic meaning and gained a political and cultural one. As Roman power expanded to what would later become France, Spain and Portugal (among others), these regions also became Latin spaces. Roman law, traditions, architecture and the Latin language were imposed upon them.

Circa 313 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine , promoting its rise, which would shortly thereafter become the official religion of the Roman Empire. Thus, this marks the origins of the Roman-Catholic Church.��

, in its context, was the language spoken by ordinary citizens of the Roman Empire, distinct from the cultivated form of Classical Latin. It encompassed the vernacular dialects that later evolved into the so-called Romance languages. These include languages like Italian, French, Spanish or Portuguese.

The Pan-Latin thesis that emerged during Napoleon III’s reign aimed to highlight the shared traits between the “Latin Race” of the Americas and Europe. Both groups, on either side of the Atlantic, shared religion, culture and Romance languages. As a result, the Latins of the Americas were encouraged to become natural allies of Latin Europe in their cultural struggle not only against the Anglo-Saxon world but also against Teutonic and Slavic Europe. 

Of course, Mexico was just the first step in Napoleon’s plan to establish other French satellite monarchies in the region. But how did Napoleon’s ambitions over Mexico materialize? To answer this, some background information is required.

How did Napoleon’s ambitions materialize?

Since its independence from Spain, Mexico’s Conservatives had always aspired to a monarchical system of government under a European prince of royal blood. Time and again, this idea tended to re-emerge among their most notorious representatives, particularly . This became more urgent for them after a weak Mexico faced the loss of half of its territory to a much stronger United States.

In the 1850s, however, the gained control of Mexico and began passing a series of reform laws aimed at reducing the power of the Church and the Army. This process culminated with the enactment of the , which triggered a military revolt by the increasingly marginalized Conservatives. It was known as the .

By December 1860, the Liberals had won this war, and in March 1861, , who led this faction as Provisional President, was officially elected President of Mexico. The defeated Conservatives saw the possibility of a monarchical regime, under a European prince of royal blood, as the only remaining solution to their problems.��

Thus, they proceeded to (some of their members had been doing so since the beginning of the civil war) Emperor Napoleon III. Their objective was that a European prince, under his stewardship and with military support, would become the monarch of Mexico.

This proposal was music to Napoleon’s ears, who, after his country’s military success in , aimed to expand his empire. Not surprisingly, he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his famous uncle of the same name, who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had controlled Europe for a decade and a half.��

Significantly, the gates of Mexico and Hispanic America had just opened to European infiltration. Indeed, in , seven southern states seceded from the United States, forming a new country called the Confederate States of America. The war between the two parties resulted in a sudden halt to the enforcement of the . This doctrine, issued in 1823 by President James Monroe, formally warned European monarchies that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or the creation of tributary monarchies in the Americas.

Furthermore, Napoleon III that the South would win such a war, implying that Mexico’s northern neighbor would not be a strong United States, but a weakened Confederate States of America. A new country in need of France’s recognition and support. In other words, ambition and opportunity aligned perfectly. As a result, in 1861, France Mexico.��

Maximilian of Habsburg, brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, was the designated French puppet to become the Emperor of Mexico. In Napoleon’s words:

The Prince who may mount the Mexican throne will always be forced to act in the interests of France, not only from gratitude but even more because his country’s interest will be in accordance with ours, and he will not be able to maintain himself without our influence.

After consolidating the conquest of most of the country by French troops and relegating President Benito Juarez to its fringes, the crown was offered to the Austrian prince on July 10, 1863. According to the , signed between Maximilian and the French Empire, the future Mexican Empire was required to cover all military costs associated with the French invasion and presence in Mexico. Maximilian was finally enthroned in May 1864. However, it was to be a short-lived and tragic reign.��

Surviving defeat

A combination of factors brought this adventure to an end. First, Napoleon III underestimated the stubborn resistance of the Mexican forces under Juarez. Second, choosing Maximilian was unsuitable, as his liberal ideas more closely with those of Benito Juarez than with those of his Mexican Conservative allies. Third, the American Civil War with the Confederacy’s defeat on June 2, 1865, which not only re-established the Monroe Doctrine but also created conditions for war with the United States, which began sending surplus weapons and ammunition to Juarez’s troops. Fourth, France itself started to feel threatened by the rising power of under Bismarck’s capable leadership. The 40,000 French troops stationed in Mexico became increasingly needed in France.

On February 5, 1867, the last French troops Mexico City. Although Maximilian was advised to withdraw with them, he chose to stay in Mexico, supported by the Mexican Conservatives. However, this poorly matched alliance could not withstand the growing strength of Juarez’s forces, now aided by American arms. On May 15 of that year, Emperor Maximilian was captured, and after a court-martial, he was on June 19. Two reasons motivated his execution: the atrocities committed by the French troops and a message to deter future invaders.����

Maximilian’s patron, Napoleon III, would also suffer a crushing defeat three years later. Overwhelmed by the strength of the Prussian military in a war between the two countries, and captured at the battlefield of Sedan, Napoleon’s regime was by his own citizens on September 4, 1870.��

Curiously, the term survived the defeats of the American Confederation, the Maximilian monarchy and the Napoleonic Empire itself. Furthermore, it was accepted as a sign of identity by the very people it was supposed to be imposed upon as an imperialistic project.������

Given this final connotation, how can we explain the effortless adoption of the term by Hispanic and Portuguese (Iberian) Americans themselves?  

How to explain the success of the term

An initial assumption might be that the Pan-Latin thesis is opposed to the US, especially since a few decades earlier, the United States had forcefully taken of Mexico’s territory. However, that was not the case, as admiration for the US political system and entrepreneurial ingenuity remained high among Iberian American elites of that time.��

The answer lay in rejecting Spain and everything Spanish, which was common among Hispanic American and the so-called Positivists who gained power in most of the region after them. Although both Liberals and Positivists rejected the French invasion, they rejected even more the heritage left by Spain, which they saw as a heavy burden on their efforts to modernize their countries.��

The answer could also be found in the fascination that the Iberian American elites of the time felt towards French culture and civilization. Indeed, once the invading troops had been forced to withdraw in humiliation, there was no reason to reject the flattery of being considered the transatlantic cousins of the French. 

As the well-known Mexican intellectual remarked:��

Where could we have looked at in search of models and inspiration? Nineteenth-century Latin America found its immediate answer in France and in the city that Baudelaire called ‘the capital of the XIX Century’. Parisian influence was felt everywhere from The Hague to Algiers, from St. Petersburg to Cairo. Nonetheless, in Mexico, Bogotá or Buenos Aires, it filled up the deep void left by Spain. Repudiating Spain meant accepting France as a new temple of freedom, good taste, romanticism, and all the good things that life had to offer. 

Redeeming the Western credentials of the region while bypassing Spain was well-received by the elites of the day. Especially so, if the country they admired the most became their bridge to the Western world. It was thus that a notion born with imperialistic designs ended up being gladly accepted by those upon whom it was supposed to be imposed. Hence, the paradoxical nature of the notion of Latin America. 

[The ideas expressed in this piece can also be found in Alfredo Toro Hardy’s book “”]

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Latin America: A French Idea That Outlived Its Empire appeared first on 51�Թ�.

My usual answer was José “El Pepe” Mujica. Alas, no more — he died on May 13 at age 89. There was much to admire in this son of a florist and smallholder.

First, his . He lived his principles. As Uruguay’s president from 2010 to 2015, he rejected the presidential residence and remained on his farm in a three-room farmhouse, where he had lived most of his life. He refused the presidential limousine, continued to drive an old VW Beetle, lunched in everyday bars in Montevideo and gave away most of his salary.

This was refreshing in an era of MP expenses scandals, fishy mega-PPE contracts during COVID, dodgy crypto launches attached to presidents, lavish gifts such as private jets and lucrative post-office speaking circuits.

Second, his commitment to democracy. He viewed the trappings of high office as anathema to democracy, which he defined above all as egalitarian. As a republican (note the small “r”) from the UK, I find this accurate. Though he had a revolutionary past, he was a pragmatist. Politically, this meant a commitment to liberal democracy. In policy terms, it meant charting a middle path between a growth-only agenda that concentrates capital and a “distribute quickly” agenda that stifles investment and growth in the medium and long term. During his administration, Uruguay saw reduced and . He strengthened economic and social rights and . He , and . When Uruguayan courts declared some of his other reforms unlawful, he accepted their rulings without criticism.

This stands in contrast to many of today’s politicians, who aim to destroy institutions, rewrite rules, or even re-found their country. Consider UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s proroguing of Parliament, US President Donald Trump’s contempt for the Constitution, or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “illiberal democracy.”

Third, Mujica had a modest yet inspiring vision. He saw politics as a fight — no doubt connected to his past as a Tupamaros guerrilla. After spending fourteen years in prison, ten of them in solitary confinement (two at the bottom of a well), he shifted that fight toward democracy. Its greatest advantage, he believed, was that “it doesn’t believe itself to be finished or perfect.” At the end of his term he said, “.” He mistrusted extreme positions. He saw them as offering overly simplistic answers to difficult problems. Lasting egalitarian change required changing cultural attitudes. This was slow and difficult. But he believed that the democratic process — open, transparent, respectful, wary of extremes — was essential to creating the cultural values needed to build a more egalitarian society.

Again, compare this with the visions of other politicians today. From “” to the so-called “” of the UK, apocalyptic language justifies bypassing institutions in favor of majoritarian rule. Others have no vision at all; after a year in office, the shape and form of Starmerism remain unclear.

Fourth, his foreign relations. On foreign investment, he . This was politically difficult in Latin America, given the region’s colonial past with Spain and semi-colonial relationship with the US. But Mujica saw the need to change Uruguayans’ cultural attitudes toward historical grievances about foreign capital. Doing so would support the long-term growth needed to fund redistribution and deliver real egalitarian gains. In foreign policy he was discreet, incremental and conciliatory. He even served as an between Cuban President Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama during their rapprochement.

A modest, self-deprecating democrat who lived the values he espoused. Perhaps there was nothing remarkable about Mujica — I’m sure he would agree. But in the world of 2025, this unassuming parliamentarian, who welcomed disagreement as essential to progress, was someone truly worthy of admiration. Perhaps now all those who can truly understand — and practice — Hegel have actually died.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Last Hegelian? Former Uruguayan President José Mujica Passes Away appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Looking more deeply into how AI performs, the models currently exploited across the world’s diverse cultures have been trained on data sourced within the smaller populations of the world. Moreover, by authors such as Lisa Gitelman and Antoinette Rouvroy lead us to the conclusion not only that the concept of “raw” or unbiased data simply does not exist but also that data is always contextualized for certain pragmatic ends.

The Global North has an unfair advantage with regard to the development and implementation of AI systems. Furthermore, the developed datasets on which these systems rely are obviously biased towards European and North American cultures. We need to acknowledge the emergence of a new form of colonialism that, according to Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias, exploits AI systems and data as “ for exploiting human life for power and for capital.” They make the specific point that because of the commercial culture of techno-platforms that focus on behavioral prediction, data colonialism repeats the traditional colonial framework of extraction for profit, but with data itself as the extractable commodity.

Reacting to the ChatGPT revolution

Since late 2022, AI has taken the world by storm, leading to a global media and regulatory frenzy. It has begun to dominate the economic logic of multiple sectors of industry. But even before the ChatGPT revolution, the question of how AI would influence society, the economy, ethics, human cultures and human identity has been an object of vibrant contradictory debate. We are only beginning to seek to understand how the explosion of activity based on AI will affect the field of decolonial studies.

Like most facets of modernity since the advent of the industrial revolution, AI is not immune to the remnants of colonialist logic and culture. The work of semiotician Walter Mignolo on the theme of can offer some guidance. In his discussion on coloniality and decolonization, Mignolo raises pertinent points that may serve as a backdrop to continuing decolonial analysis of AI. We can start by acknowledging the epistemic and lifeworld-shaping agendas behind colonial praxes. Mignolo insists that the assumptions and regulations of Western systems of thought must be challenged if we hope to move past colonial models of thought.��

AI as it exists today clearly diminishes what anthropologists and ethnologists recognize as Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). These include indigenous perceptual and interpretative frameworks for understanding the world. The development and integration of IKS is a high priority of decolonizing practices, which AI models do not overtly reflect. Consequently, the dominant model of AI’s algorithmic intelligence currently available reifies and perpetuates a Eurocentric methodology and unconsciously imposes it on the diversity of human cultures.

Mignolo’s work discusses how coloniality forms the dark undercurrent of modernity. Mignolo’s most striking claim, however, is that coloniality was instrumental to the development of modernity. We may similarly claim that the dark undercurrent of AI technologies is reflected in the global infrastructure driving AI, and the unequal relationships that people from various countries form with it. Just as coloniality was instrumental to modernity, certain infrastructural inequalities were also instrumental to these systems. AI systems require a lot of data to train, and this data is often to white or white-passing individuals. Additionally, early AI systems have classified black people as , and failed to black skin tones on cameras. This misrepresentation of minorities by technologies reflects invisible biases that manifest themselves into AI technologies.

The hidden workforce powering AI

Behind every sleek AI model or chatbot lies a global network of human labor that remains largely invisible and underpaid. While AI’s intellectual development is centered in the tech hubs of the Global North, much of the work that makes these systems function is carried out by people in the Global South. This includes the often traumatic job of labeling harmful or explicit content so AI models know what to avoid.

In early 2023, emerged that OpenAI had outsourced content moderation tasks for ChatGPT to data workers in Kenya. Their job? Sift through deeply disturbing material — ranging from hate speech and racial slurs to graphic descriptions of sexual violence — to help train the AI not to produce it. These workers reported experiencing psychological distress and burnout, all while earning less than $2 an hour. Similar have come out of Asia and Latin America, where data annotators far from the public eye — and even further from the legal protections and workplace rights enjoyed by workers in Silicon Valley.

This isn’t a glitch in the system. It’s part of the system. The same logic that once drove colonial extraction of raw materials is now driving the extraction of cognitive and emotional labor from vulnerable populations. Cheap labor, lack of regulation and economic precarity make the Global South an ideal backend for the data-hungry engines of AI.

A growing number of low-profile digital jobs — called “microwork” — involve breaking down massive tasks into tiny, repetitive actions. From image tagging to audio transcription, this work feeds the AI economy but offers little in return. In Venezuela, for instance, even highly educated engineers have turned to after the country’s economic collapse left few other options.

This kind of digital piecework is precarious by design. Workers often don’t know who they’re working for, can be dropped without warning and have little recourse to challenge unfair conditions. Yet their contributions are essential. Without them, the AI models powering search engines, language tools and image generators couldn’t function.

Technology is not neutral

AI systems, like the societies that produce them, are shaped by their histories and biases. The assumption that data is neutral — or that machines can somehow rise above human prejudices — is a dangerous myth. Historically, some of the most egregious algorithmic failures have disproportionately affected people of color. For example, facial recognition software has struggled to identify non-white faces. A policing algorithm used in the United States, COMPAS, was found to unfairly black individuals as higher-risk for reoffending.

These aren’t accidents — they’re symptoms of systems built on biased data and narrow perspectives. As AI is trained on past behaviors, texts, and imagery, it can unintentionally reinforce stereotypes. Ask a generative AI to produce an image of an “Indian,” and you’re more likely to see clichés like turbans and outdated depictions of traditional clothing. This happens because the data used to train the model often reflects the assumptions and priorities of developers in the Global North.

Even the architectural design of early infrastructure, as scholar Langdon Winner once , can encode social bias — like a bridge built too low for buses, effectively excluding poor and minority communities. The same logic holds for AI. The algorithms may be new, but the exclusions through representation along the lines of race, gender and religion are familiar.

Whose AI, and for whom? A call for decolonial AI

As countries around the world race to lead in AI development, national policies are shaping the way the technology is designed, adopted and governed. These strategies are often couched in language about ethics and innovation — but who actually benefits? As Mignolo reminds us, coloniality isn’t just about economics or politics. It’s about control over knowledge, meaning and representation. And AI — built on data, driven by algorithms and shaped by policy — is now one of the most powerful tools for that control.

If AI is to serve a truly global population, we must confront the deep-rooted inequities in how it is built, maintained and deployed. This means recognizing the hidden labor behind it. It means building models that reflect the diversity of human experience, not just those privileged by history. And it means creating new spaces — both intellectual and institutional — for voices from the Global South to join and impactfully contribute to the conversation.

Because until we address the colonial legacies embedded in AI, the future it promises will remain unequally distributed.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial��policy.

The post Outside the Box: Why Artificial Intelligence Needs Decolonial Studies appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Among those, former Uruguayan President , who passed away on Tuesday, May 13, following a battle with esophageal cancer, and his partner, former Vice President Lucía Topolansky shine with a particular kind of light — weathered, quiet, undramatic. Their paths didn’t cross in academia or think tanks but in prison and the underground. They were guerrillas, members of the who resisted Uruguay’s authoritarian turn in the 1960s and 70s. Authorities captured them, tortured them and disappeared them from public life for over a decade. Their love didn’t grow from comfort or shared leisure. It grew in silence, resilience and coded messages smuggled past prison guards. What they built together �ɲ�����’t romantic in the conventional sense. It was revolutionary in the truest one.

They eventually emerged from that darkness not as martyrs or bitter survivors, but as political leaders — deeply human ones. Mujica and Topolansky believed in coherence: between what one says and how one lives. Few heads of state have lived with that kind of integrity. Mujica and Topolansky chose a leaking roof, the company of dogs, shared chores and local soil over pomp and protocol. They treated collective struggle not as a slogan but as daily practice. They could have chosen comfort and applause. Instead, they stuck with dignity and mud.

Mujica made political power serve lived ethics, not personal ambition.

Mujica served as president from 2010 to 2015. He is remembered for progressive policies such as legalizing same-sex marriage and marijuana, decriminalizing abortion and expanding social programs. But what struck me most was how he did it: without grandeur, without selling his soul. He refused to live in the presidential palace, donated most of his salary and kept working his land.

Topolansky served in both houses of parliament and made history as Uruguay’s first female vice president. She was not a decoration but a strategist, negotiator and force. She never leaned on the title “First Lady.” She was never just the wife of Mujica. She was always Lucía.

Their influence reached far beyond Uruguay. Mujica’s speeches — especially the one at the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development () — went viral before we used that term. “We have invented a mountain of superfluous needs,” he warned, “and it’s our lives we are squandering.” You could hear his tired love for humanity. He didn’t want to dominate the world. He wanted us to slow down and be less cruel to it — and to ourselves. Some called him “the world’s humblest president,” but that’s too simplistic. He was grounded, coherent and very aware of the cameras.

Topolansky was less quoted, less meme-ified. But she worked. She focused on housing, education, gender equity and rural development. She negotiated across lines and kept things moving when others got stuck in rhetoric. In a political era so flooded with noise, she remained attuned to reality — the ground under her feet, the people in her district. She didn’t posture. She acted.

And then, of course, there was — the three-legged dog who limped across their flower farm and occasionally onto presidential carpets. A farming accident had left her with only three legs, but they never replaced her with a more “appropriate” pet. She was family. She snored through interviews, sniffed microphones and ignored ceremony with perfect timing. Mujica once said Manuela taught him more about loyalty and presence than most humans. In some quiet way, she was the final member of their small republic: love, resistance and imperfection on four — or three — legs.

I don’t know what comes next for Uruguay. Or for the rest of us, for that matter. But I do know this: whenever I feel the fog of cynicism rolling in, I remember that Mujica and Topolansky existed. They shared a home, a cause, a field of flowers and the belief that politics, when rooted in life and not spectacle, might still serve something more than power.

To Lucìa Topolansky, compañera in the truest sense of the word: I offer a rose and a quiet hug.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial��policy.

The post Former Uruguayan President José Mujica (2010–2015) Passed This Week at 89 appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Tariffs will harm America’s film industry

Although the announced tariffs harm companies that sell goods, specialists it could cause an economic recession that would lead to lower advertising spending by companies and, therefore, less consumption of media and entertainment.

They also harm Hollywood on the supply side, because studios buy goods like lumber from Canada to build sets, as well as steel, wardrobe and specialized lights and microphones from other countries. Gift items made in China, like the $90 Stranger Things sherpa jacket, may now become more .

This week, Trump announced he would talk to Hollywood executives and may hit with 100% tariffs. That could cause a hit back from other countries by raising tariffs on Hollywood movies abroad, which could harm the entertainment industry even more.

China is a second problem. For decades, Hollywood has tried to increase its market share in China, a country with 1.4 billion potential consumers and the second-largest movie industry in the world. The expiration of the US–China Film Agreement in 2017, which guaranteed only 34 US films per year in China, didn’t help studios increase their . Trump’s trade war with China had already begun in his first term. As an indirect result, only one Hollywood movie topped $200 million in China in 2019, while Chinese film Ne Zha 2 $1 billion domestically and another billion overseas. With the escalation of tensions between the two countries, the Chinese government retaliated by restricting the number of Hollywood films.

Trump’s administration may last only four years, and the next government can reverse his tariffs. But there’s more serious long-term harm for the entertainment industry: the erosion of Hollywood soft power — the ability to seduce, rather than coerce, shaping the preferences of the world. For decades, American administrations made strategic alliances with movie studios to reach their goals abroad. Walt Disney produced a series of animations and characters, like Zé Carioca, as government efforts to keep Latin America close to US demands of goods and commodities during World War II. When US President Ronald Reagan watched First Blood Part II during his presidency, he , “Boy, after seeing Rambo last night, I know what to do next time this [hostage crisis] happens.” US President George W. Bush was so pleased with Universal Pictures’ United 93 that he a special screening at the White House for families and crew. Experts said the script was almost completely faithful to the 9/11 Commission Report.

American film could lose ground

Soft power is about perception. Hollywood’s soft power was built over decades, and it made the American movie industry the most profitable in the world. It also strengthened the worldwide perception that the Academy Award is the most prestigious film festival in the world, even though it historically favors Hollywood films in the most important categories. But perception can shift under political influence.

The Canadian government is mandatory labeling of products sold in the country with their origin, stating the address of the foreign manufacturer and the address of the Canadian company that imported them. The European Union is to impose tariffs on over 400 US products and 1,300 items with steep import taxes. This may affect US entertainment products. If perception changes, international audiences may choose to buy domestic tickets in multiplexes instead of Hollywood’s. When Paul Greengrass’s United 93 and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker were released, most international audiences saw the US as a victim of terrible attacks. But now, with Trump raising more domestic and commercial barriers, those kinds of movies may not enjoy the same favorable perception abroad.

Instead, Hollywood movies that may succeed internationally are those that go against Trump’s ideal of a great nation. Alex Garland’s A24 film Civil War (2024) shows a despotic federal government and secessionist movements in a broken, authoritarian US. Garland’s new release, Warfare (2025), shows soldiers’ fragility in a claustrophobic apartment surrounded by al-Qaeda, rather than romanticizing their mission in Iraq. But those productions may become less frequent during Trump’s second term. Economic recession and federal government threats against dissent may force studios to choose safer projects, like successful franchises or remakes. Also, some tech companies whose CEOs stood behind Trump’s inauguration speech are now forming a new oligopoly in Hollywood, changing the traditional movie industry.

The international trade war may be the perfect political setting to boost domestic entertainment industries. This month, the Brazilian National Congress a report on regulating streaming services. It proposes mandatory payments of Condecine (Contribution for the Development of the National Movie Industry) by platforms, requires quotas for national products and mandates that platforms invest 10% of their gross revenue in national productions. Advisors recommend passing the regulation “as fast as possible.”

One studio executive , “I can see all of this animosity toward the US increasing the likelihood of greater local content spend requirements for streaming.”

In the 1990s, after the US won the Cold War, high-budget blockbusters like Saving Private Ryan and Titanic showed Hollywood’s power abroad. Still, in 1995, Danish filmmakers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg the Dogme 95 movement to “take back power for directors as artists” in opposition to studio control. Now, with Trump making prejudicial remarks against foreign nations and confronting the Supreme Court by expelling legal immigrants, Hollywood may take a long-term hit. With less money and weaker global acceptance of American heroes and dreams, the foreign film industry may finally win the hearts and minds of the world.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial��policy.

The post Trump’s Tariffs Undermine Hollywood’s Soft Power and Boost Foreign Film Industries appeared first on 51�Թ�.

From the start of his pontificate, Francis changed the tone of the papacy. He chose the name Francis — the first new papal name since Pope Lando (913–914). Many noticed that, by invoking St. Francis of Assisi, he was emphasizing mercy and compassion. They may also have noted the saint’s peculiar attachment to the virtues of poverty. What often gets missed, though, in glib discussions of St. Francis is that this emphasis on poverty �ɲ�����’t proto-socialism, but a fundamentally evangelical outlook: “ are the poor” — and not just metaphorically poor, but the actually poor — because they don’t have riches to distract them from God.

Ultimately, Francis’s whole papacy aimed to lead the church and the world closer to the love of God, not to turn the church into a political influence organization — although, of course, loving God and one’s neighbor, if one really means it, will always have political implications.

Political commentators love to reduce everything to interests and parties. “Pope Francis is a leftist, so he’s doing this to support…” “He’s doing that because he opposes…” But the church doesn’t work that way. It’s not an adversarial Westminster system, designed to generate passionate, sometimes productive, opposition between factions.Where there is love, there are no factions, though there may still be struggles. And Francis had his share of struggles. But through everything, animated all that he did:

“Let us ask the Lord to help us understand the law of love. How good it is to have this law! How much good it does us to love one another, in spite of everything. Yes, in spite of everything!”

A “left-wing” pope

In the United States, both conservative firebrands like radio host and supportive commentators like Vermont Senator called Pope Francis a “socialist” for preaching a gospel of justice for the poor. The world loves easy titles for what it cannot understand — and, it seems, it understands few things more poorly than the Christian church.

Francis came from the continent that spawned liberation theology — an attempt to harness the revolutionary impulse of Marxism while avoiding its atheistic materialism, but retaining its concern for justice for the poor. At this, the movement was only partially successful. Too often, it drifted into something more like a reskinned Marxism than a vision truly transformed by the Gospel. In practice, liberation theology was frequently little more than Marxist-Leninism with Bibles, openly praising the Soviet Union and Cuba and even receiving direct support from them.

The church’s concern for spiritual things forms her concern for material things. When Christians invert that order, they descend into worldly political struggles. Any political victory, however fruitful, remains ultimately temporary. To tie the church’s fortunes to those of a political party is as practically foolish as it is spiritually misguided.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis pushed back against this tendency. He steered the church between the Scylla of collaboration with the right and the Charybdis of identification with the left. This led a good portion of the Argentinean left to him as the enemy, while at the other end of the spectrum, Argentinean President Javier Milei would call Francis “a filthy leftist.”

To be hated by both left and right, so much the better. Still, plenty of rank-and-file Catholics who had grown up with Bibles Cuba as the promised land were relieved to hear the archbishop strike a different tone. So were a of cardinals in the 2013 conclave that elected Francis.

How quick we all are to brand someone as being on the opposite side the moment they disagree with us. If Francis doesn’t want my socialist party to win the next election, he must be a capitalist pig. And if he doesn’t want to bless a system that gives tax breaks to billionaires while working the poor to the bone, why, he must be a commie.

Let’s listen to the man’s own instead:

“The dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good are concerns which ought to shape all economic policies. At times, however, they seem to be a mere addendum imported from without in order to fill out a political discourse lacking in perspectives or plans for true and integral development. How many words prove irksome to this system! It is irksome when the question of ethics is raised, when global solidarity is invoked, when the distribution of goods is mentioned, when reference is made to protecting labour and defending the dignity of the powerless, when allusion is made to a God who demands a commitment to justice. At other times these issues are exploited by a rhetoric which cheapens them. Casual indifference in the face of such questions empties our lives and our words of all meaning. Business is a vocation, and a noble vocation, provided that those engaged in it see themselves challenged by a greater meaning in life; this will enable them truly to serve the common good by striving to increase the goods of this world and to make them more accessible to all.”

“We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality. I am far from proposing an irresponsible populism, but the economy can no longer turn to remedies that are a new poison, such as attempting to increase profits by reducing the work force and thereby adding to the ranks of the excluded.”

Francis the antipope

Of course, the church is not free of parties either. Like any human society, it suffers from selfishness and dissension, and so it has factions. In heaven, there is no partisanship — save for .

Non-Catholic readers may not be aware that there is a growing community of people who are attached to an older form of the Roman Rite. The Roman Rite is the liturgy used by the majority of Catholics worldwide, excluding communities that follow other ancient liturgies, such as the Greek Catholics — including the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church — and others, like the Copts. Until Pope St. Paul VI published the current revision in 1970, the Roman Rite was celebrated almost exclusively in Latin.

Many harbor a mostly aesthetic and cultural attachment to the older form: the language, the bells and smells to which they or their ancestors were accustomed before the Second Vatican Council. For others, however, the Latin liturgy represents a bulwark against everything wrong with the world and the modern church — an antidote to the priestly worldliness and quiet atheism which they detect at the heart of today’s Catholicism.

This latter, dissident faction divides into two further groups. For some, loyalty to the Latin mass and to Catholic tradition requires disobedience to the pope. This is the position of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), the largest dissident group. Others go further still, rejecting Pope Francis’s legitimacy altogether. They regard him not only as a false pope but as a false Catholic. This position, known as sedevacantism, has been growing especially in online communities.

Pope Benedict XVI tried to reach out to these groups of Christians by allowing the older Latin liturgy to be used as an “extraordinary form” of the Roman Rite, while the 1970 Missal — still officially in Latin, though almost always celebrated in the vernacular — remained the ordinary form. This move helped ease tensions and enabled individual priests and laypeople to break away from groups like the SSPX and return to full communion with the Roman church.

After his election, however, Francis saw the Latin mass community morph into a full-scale internal opposition party to his papacy. This was especially true in the US, which has long taken an independent tack in its relationship with Rome — a tendency once condemned as the heresy of . Prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the US was a center of theological liberalism, often resisting the perceived dogmatic rigidity of the Vatican. Now that the Vatican has become more open to modern currents of thought and has expanded the liturgy into the vernacular, the roles have, in some respects, reversed. In 2018, Francis that some of the most virulent attacks against him were coming from America.

Francis provokes these “traditionalist” Catholics because of his attempts to soften certain practices — something they regard as unsound or even heretical. Note that in principle, the doctrines of the church cannot change, because they come from Jesus — not from the authority of the popes, who could later revise what they had previously decided. Yet the application of doctrine to pastoral practice leaves many secondary decisions open to the pope.

One example case to illustrate this principle is the male-only priesthood. Jesus ordained only men as apostles. Ancient tradition maintains that the church has no more power to confer the sacrament of holy orders on women than it does to celebrate the Eucharist with rice cakes instead of wheat, or to baptize with beer instead of water. (Both of these have, in fact, been attempted at different times in church history.) This is a matter of divine law — which sometimes does deal in details this fine, because it is positive law.

But there is no divine law against allowing women to hold positions of authority in the Roman Curia. These roles, while traditionally filled by priests, do not inherently require priestly ordination. In 2022, Francis laypeople (and thus, women) to head offices within the Vatican bureaucracy. In this way, he sought to open up the church in the ways it could be fruitfully opened — and made more equal — without compromising a jot or tittle of divine law.

Does that sound like a difficult task? Of course. But so is every task that requires balancing two things that are both real values — rather than caring only about one and giving lip service to the other.

Francis earned a lot of suspicion from the Latin mass crowd for putting women in positions of power. Likewise, he earned their ire for a range of other decisions, including:

• , under certain circumstances, divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
• for the decriminalization of homosexuality.
• priests to say a prayer of blessing over gay couples.
• for the abolition of the death penalty.
• that the existence of non-Christian religions may be positively willed by God.

At its most extreme, traditionalist rhetoric branded the pope as approving adultery and sodomy, rejecting the moral teaching of the church and even denying the truth of Christianity itself.

I think my fellow Catholics who are rightly concerned with doctrinal orthodoxy need to take a deep breath, perhaps log off of social media for a while and ask themselves: Is the Pope Catholic?

And yes, bears do still poop in the woods.

In reality — and much to the dismay of liberals who would have liked to see the church’s stance on these things changed — Francis consistently taught:

• That the church does not have the power to redefine .
• That the church does not have the power to redefine .
• That both individuals and states may, in some cases, use when the protection of human life demands it.
• That Christians have a duty to with the whole world.

As Francis a somewhat disappointed gathering of representatives of nuns who had hoped he would open the door to ordaining women deacons: “We cannot go beyond revelation and dogmatic expressions … We are Catholics.”

Francis’s thirst for justice for the poor and forgotten defined his papacy. So too did mercy toward those who — like all of us — fall short of the Gospel’s demands. The that “truth is an inseparable companion of justice and mercy” grounded his ministry. Francis never compromised on the truth, even as he sought every possible way to meet people where they were and “ all things to all people.” In doing so, he embodied the so beloved by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Pope John Paul II’s doctoral supervisor:

“The church is intolerant in principle because she believes, and tolerant in practice because she loves; the enemies of the church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe, and intolerant in practice because they do not love.”

For the first seven years of his pontificate, Francis continued Benedict’s policy of forbearance toward these traditionalist groups, even as they attacked him for extending mercy to others. In 2020, he consulted bishops around the world by letter, and from their responses, he concluded that the policy had failed. Given an inch, activists within the traditionalist movement had taken a mile, and the older form of the mass had become, in many places, a hotbed of agitation against not only Francis’s leadership but the Second Vatican Council itself.

Francis was forced to take repressive to forestall this growing schism. He prohibited diocesan priests from celebrating the older form of the mass without explicit permission from their bishop and from the Vatican, and he directed bishops not to authorize new groups devoted exclusively to the form. In addition, he required existing groups to use designated chapels rather than parish churches. These measures, while necessary, unfortunately caused a great deal of pain to a number of faithful Catholics.

Francis did not live to see the end of this new brand of Catholicism — a movement that, in truth, functions as a form of Protestantism. It has adopted a kind of sola scriptura hermeneutic that locates tradition in the texts and decrees of dead popes (to be interpreted, in the end, by the private reader) rather than in the living magisterium of the Apostolic See.

To the world, Latin-mass Catholics — both dissident and obedient — may seem like an extreme minority to be dismissed rather than encountered. Yet I recall how Francis, during the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2016, even to the SSPX. He allowed their priests to validly hear confessions and, later, to witness marriages — a conferral of sacramental jurisdiction that Rome had long withheld.

That gesture did not immediately produce reconciliation. But it has not been forgotten. Perhaps some future pope will preside over the full reconciliation of the SSPX and other dissident traditionalist groups with the Roman church — hopefully soon.

Putin’s Pope

The principled mildness of Pope Francis ruffled far more feathers than just those of traditionalist Catholics. Never was this more obvious than when, in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Francis to take sides in the way many expected. He the invasion — even to express his displeasure to the Russian ambassador directly — but he also declined to reduce the conflict to a morality play or to cheerlead the Ukrainian war effort, even as nearly every other voice in the West seemed eager to do.

They called him “” for not calling for more killing.

According to Catholic just war doctrine, a defensive war can be waged — but only under very strict conditions. The infinite value of human life necessitates that fighting be permitted only in the most extreme circumstances. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

• The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.
• All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.
• There must be serious prospects of success.
• The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

​Ukraine may well have had reasonable prospects for a partial success in the spring of 2022, when the nation was riding high after repelling the twin Russian assaults on Kyiv and Kharkiv. But once the hopelessness of driving the invaders out of Kherson Oblast became apparent that autumn — and especially after it became clear that the promised 2023 summer offensives would yield only blood and mud — the moral calculus changed. 

In a February 2024 interview, Francis committed political heresy by on Ukraine to display the “courage of the white flag:”

“The word “negotiate” is a courageous word. When you see that you have been defeated, that things are not going well — having the courage to negotiate. And you are ashamed, but if you continue like this, how many dead will there be then? And it will end up even worse … Negotiation is never a surrender. It is the courage not to bring the country to suicide.”

It took courage just to say it. Francis knew full well what the would be. Ukrainian and European leaders accused him of betrayal, of cowardice, of moral blindness. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, insisted: “Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail.” Poland’s foreign minister scoffed: “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army?”

Events came to prove Francis right. Russia proved far more economically resistant than Western sanction hawks had hoped. Its autarkic economy might not be booming, but it is now certain that Russia is capable of maintaining its war effort far longer than Ukraine or NATO can stand. As 51�Թ�’s Atul Singh and Glenn Carle noted at the time, the scales were already tipping quite heavily by the end of 2023. Yet most Western leaders and pundits kept their heads in the sand well after that point.

It was Francis’s moral clarity that allowed him to see the truth early, and his Christian fortitude that enabled him not to join his voice with the greatest and loudest number.

In 2024, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was still that it was in Washington’s “cold, hard, American interests” to “degrade the military of a major adversary without committing American lives to the effort.” That’s a lovely euphemism for “the more Russians die, the better for us.” A good proportion of the educated public believed that.

Of course, that means a similar number of Ukrainians dying — or far more, if you count civilians. Russian and Ukrainian lives are both cheap to McConnell. They’re both cheap to Putin. But they weren’t cheap to Francis, who begged, bled and wept for every single one of them. That’s the kind of man he was.

Just as he refused to sanctify political violence abroad, Francis refused to let the church become a proxy battlefield in the culture wars at home. Whether speaking to nations at war, to the disillusioned poor or to the self-styled defenders of orthodoxy, he told the same truth. The world is now so much the poorer for want of his apostolic guidance and steadfast witness.

I pray that the widowhood of the church will be short and that Francis will enjoy a worthy successor sooner rather than later. I have very little to say in speculation about who that might be or what name he might take. But I do know that then, as even now, Jesus will watch over His church and inspire the whole world with His example of love — a love that “ insist on its own way” but “bears all things,” that finds its victory in patient suffering, and yet conquers all.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Pope Francis Was a Misunderstood Visionary appeared first on 51�Թ�.

To understand just how strained relations have become, consider a recent Toronto Raptors game where Canadian spectators during the playing of the American national anthem. This behavior is highly unusual for Canadians, who are often stereotyped as overly polite. The boos reflected widespread frustration and resentment over how the US government is treating its northern neighbor. This sentiment underscores how deeply these tariffs and related policies affect economies and international relationships.

The mechanics of tariffs

A tariff is essentially a tax on imported goods. When the US government imposes a tariff, it makes foreign products more expensive for American importers. These importers often pass the increased costs onto consumers in the form of higher prices. For instance, a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian goods means that products like fruits, vegetables, and automobiles from these countries could see significant price hikes on US shelves.

Beyond the immediate effect on grocery bills, these tariffs could have a ripple effect throughout the economy. Higher costs for raw materials and components can lead to increased production costs for US manufacturers, which may then be passed on to consumers. Industries such as automotive and electronics, which rely heavily on parts from Mexico and Canada, could see production costs rise, leading to higher prices for consumers. Additionally, retaliatory tariffs from Mexico and Canada on US goods could American exporters, potentially leading to job losses in affected industries.��

The case of crude oil

One often overlooked consequence of tariffs on Canada and Mexico is their impact on crude oil imports. Canada is the supplier of crude oil to the US, followed by Mexico. Together, they far exceed crude oil imported from all OPEC countries combined. Imposing tariffs on this critical energy supply could significantly raise fuel costs for American consumers, affecting everything from transportation expenses to heating bills. This added cost would ripple through the economy, increasing the price of goods and services that rely on fuel for production and distribution.

Crude oil reaches US refineries through several transportation : pipelines, tankers, barges, and trucks. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), pipelines are the dominant mode of transportation, especially for Canadian crude, due to an extensive cross-border pipeline . Most Canadian oil pipelines deliver crude directly to US refineries in the Midwest, highlighting Canadian crude’s critical role in sustaining these operations. Pipelines like the Enbridge Mainline and Keystone system transport medium-heavy sour crude, which is essential for producing diesel and other heavy products. Disrupting this flow with tariffs could severely impact refinery output in this region, leading to broader supply chain issues.��

Mexican crude, on the other hand, is primarily shipped via tankers to US Gulf Coast refineries. Tariffs on Canadian and Mexican crude could disrupt these efficient, cost-effective supply chains, forcing reliance on pricier alternatives and driving up fuel costs domestically. ()

Crude oil isn’t one-size-fits-all. It varies in sulfur content and density, as sweet or sour and light or heavy. Sweet crude has low sulfur and is easier to refine into products like gasoline, while sour crude has higher sulfur content, requiring more complex processing. Light crude flows easily and is best for fuels like gasoline and naphtha, whereas heavy crude is thicker and better suited for products like diesel and heating oil.

The US shale industry produces around 9 million barrels per day (Mb/d) of light sweet crude, which is ideal for gasoline, lighter fluid, and natural gas liquids (NGL). However, US refiners only use a portion of this output, leading to exports of approximately 4 Mb/d. Expanding shale production will only yield more light sweet crude, which cannot replace the medium-heavy sour crude imported from Canada. The US imports about 6–7 Mb/d of mostly medium-heavy sour crude, driven by the demand for diesel and heavier products. Of this, approximately 4 Mb/d comes from Canada. These imports are irreplaceable in the short term, as US production cannot meet the specific quality and volume requirements.

Only Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq could potentially replace some of the Canadian crude, but the US has aimed for decades to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

The broader fallout of tariffs

The situation might even be more difficult for Canada, as the US accounts for a staggering 77% of all exports. Among hydrocarbons, America’s share is close to 90%. If Canada wanted to redirect crude oil towards other markets, new pipelines and export infrastructure must be built first. Canada might hence be forced to lower its prices to compensate for tariffs. This might cushion the blow for US consumers but devastate Canadian profit margins.

While one of the motivations for these tariffs is to address issues like drug trafficking, it’s worth noting that Canada has already pledged to act on fentanyl in 2024. The Canadian government plans to strengthen border security and enhance its immigration system to curb the illegal flow of substances. This initiative questions the necessity of punitive economic measures like tariffs when cooperative solutions are already in progress. The declaration of an ‘emergency’ was used to circumvent following normal procedure for the introduction of tariffs, which would have taken some time.

The cumulative effect of these tariffs could be substantial for American households. Estimates suggest that the typical US household could face additional costs exceeding $1,200 annually due to increased prices stemming from the tariffs. () This added financial burden could strain budgets further for families already grappling with inflation and stagnant real wages.

Concerns from the business community further underscore the risks of these tariffs. According to the January ISM Report on Business, correspondents expressed concern over rising prices and potential supply chain disruptions. Tariffs on key trade partners like Canada and Mexico could exacerbate input costs and slow supplier deliveries, hindering sustained growth and stability. ()

A German pharmaceutical CEO complained to me that the threat of tariffs absorbed management attention, as contingency plans had to be devised. 

My contact at a family-owned American importer of household goods from China admitted to having purchased one year’s worth of supplies in anticipation of tariffs. Sudden increases in orders lead to overtime work and strained capacities at supplies, only to see a sharp fall-off in orders once tariffs are enacted. 

Large swings in orders and capacity use lead to decreased margins and possibly to forced labor reductions. Companies are unlikely to hire additional staff during times of high uncertainty. The threat of tariffs might, therefore, cool the labor market.

America’s northern and southern neighbors won’t forget how they were treated. Burned once, companies might look for alternative markets to reduce dependence on the US market. Once regarded as a strong proponent of free trade, the US might not be considered a reliable trading partner going forward. Speaking loudly and carrying a big stick might end up being a shot in one’s own foot.

[ and edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial��policy.

The post Trump’s Canada and Mexico Tariffs Are a Magnificent Own Goal appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Changing global market dynamics have led to an increasing demand for lithium. A critical field of ongoing development is battery power storage technology, which is vital to everything from mobile devices to electric vehicles. Lithium batteries are lightweight and can store energy efficiently. These batteries will be critical in the transition to green energy. Thus, the price of lithium has rocketed.

Chile possesses large quantities of lithium, with the northern Andes region holding significant deposits. In fact, the country boasts, over one-third of the world total.

One cost-effective technique for extracting the metal involves evaporating brine. Northern Chile’s Atacama Salt Flat accounts for of global output in terms of lithium extracted from brines.

The changing dynamics of Chile’s copper industry

This is not the first time Chile has been a mining powerhouse. Throughout its modern history, Chile has relied on a sizeable copper mining industry, which spurred Chile to become the middle-income economy it is today. Chile now produces nearly a quarter of the world’s copper, and the industry contributes around 10% of the country’s GDP. in the Atacama Desert is one of the world’s largest open-pit copper mines.

The National Copper of Chile (CODELCO), founded in 1976, oversaw the mining boom. CODELCO is still a state-owned copper company today.

Chile’s copper industry has witnessed a recent decline in production due to aging mines, declining ore grades and increasing production costs. Despite dominating the national economy and world supply, the copper industry does not provide a suitable environment for foreign investment.

The national lithium strategy

Lithium is now replacing copper as the most attractive investment destination in Chile.

Chile has been keen to take full advantage of its natural resources and has accordingly prepared a. The Chilean government website describes the strategy “to incorporate capital, technology, sustainability and value addition, in harmony with local communities.” At the moment, production is concentrated in the hands of limited companies, but the state is looking forward to expanding the sector.

The strategy aims to focus on public-private partnership, allowing a newly formed to guarantee a stake for the state whilst allowing private companies to contribute technological know-how and expertise.

The National Lithium Company will eventually retain control over all projects in the country, but there is plenty of space for private sector actors to work with them and reap the rewards. State copper company and state mining company will be interim state representatives while the National Lithium Company is created. Although copper remains largely controlled by the state, Santiago will allow more private competition in the lithium market.

Downstream benefits

Abundant lithium in Chile, makes it well placed to benefit from all the tech opportunities at its doorstep. The country has a solid manufacturing base that could pivot towards either battery production or electric vehicle assembly. It has incredible potential for both photovoltaic solar and wind energy, due to near-constant sunny conditions in northern Chile and plenty of elevated areas with significantly windy conditions. This means that increased battery production in-country can be immediately put to good use.

The country has an excellent educational system by regional standards and a highly innovative business environment. Chile has a strong pool of engineers and skilled workers. Chile’s number of graduates exceeds the number of job openings, resulting in a competitively priced workforce.

What happens next?

The future of the Chilean market appears bright. The country is blessed with an enormous reserve of the world’s third most in-demand metal. Lithium industries in Chile are growing rapidly as a diversification option to provide extra security for the economy. The industry will not only have robust exports but also incubate new sectors and energy supplies.

For canny investors with an eye to the future, the lithium sector in Chile is deemed to be profitable in the future. Rewards are practically guaranteed in the short to medium term. Longer-term prospects also look extremely reliable. The experience and continuing success of CODELCO indicates how the state will behave in the lithium sector. The government looks to retain control over the direction and environment of the sector while allowing private enterprises to invest, compete and profit.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How Can Lithium Help Chile Escape the Middle-Income Trap? appeared first on 51�Թ�.