The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the future is digital. As a result, it has highlighted the transformative power of technology for Latin America and the Caribbean, and accelerated its digital transformation, not only in leading start-up markets like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, but throughout the entire region.
On Thursday, May 6, an early-morning police raid in a Rio de Janeiro favela left 28 dead, including one officer, sparking allegations of extrajudicial and arbitrary executions and returning Brazil’s brutal history of police violence to the public spotlight.
Vaccine developments at the beginning of 2021 represented a crucial step toward overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, and inaugurating a new era for all of Brazil. Nevertheless, another task remains crucial for the country: the development of an alternative to the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
The ambition and capability of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to affect the political affairs of nations across Latin America and the Caribbean have only grown during the global pandemic. Recent events in Guyana and Paraguay show that COVID-19 vaccines have influenced governments, either directly or indirectly, toward Beijing’s political preferences.
In Colombia this week, demonstrations against a government tax reform proposal evolved into widespread general protests—fueled by the economic and social desperation provoked by the still-raging COVID-19 pandemic—that have been met with brutal repression from state security forces.
Chinese advances in the Dominican Republic that once inspired concern in Washington have gone largely unrealized. For the U.S., the Dominican Republic represents both a fleeting opportunity and challenge in its struggle against China’s expanding presence in the greater Caribbean region.
President Nayib Bukele’s drive to consolidate power represents another test of the international community’s ability to defend democratic principles. With El Salvador’s democracy in grave jeopardy, the stakes for the U.S. and the rest of Central America could not be higher.
A year of lockdowns, high unemployment, and rising poverty rates has provoked social discontent in Colombia. The current wave of protests—while originally triggered by the government’s poorly conceived, strategized, and communicated tax reform proposal—have been further inflamed by police brutality, a tone-deaf government response, and a vacuum of political leadership.
If the United States allows other Caribbean Basin countries to be eligible for components of its ambitious domestic agenda, it could simultaneously increase U.S. competitiveness and provide benefits to the region that far outweigh any traditional foreign assistance programs.
This week, new developments came to light in the decades-long saga of the El Mozote massacre, one of the most high-profile incidents of human rights abuses in modern Central American history.
