Regional Relations

• “A top-ranking Honduran military official and U.S. partner in joint drug war operations, has been tied to a Honduran drug trafficker, according to a U.S. Justice Department filing, and a private security company accused of assassinating land rights activists, according to eyewitness testimony and documents obtained by The Intercept. (Via Latin America Risk Report)
  
  
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Latin American left and the long history of US intervention in the region. — The Dig
  
  
• Guatemalan president-elect Bernardo Arévalo faces significant challenges moving forward. “In spite of all the reasons for pessimism, this is a success story that the entire hemisphere should embrace. Arévalo can succeed if the world pays attention,” argues James Bosworth in World Politics Review.
  
  
• Lack of other financing options has pushed many Latin American countries to accept corrosive capital: financing, whether state or private, that lackstransparency, accountability, and market orientation. “Since it isself-promoting, corrosive capital is a vicious cycle that is difficultto break.” — Center for International Private Enterprise
  
  
• Venezuela’s economic collapse precedes international sanctions against Nicolás Maduro’s government. But it will be difficult for the country to recover without their removal, reports El País.

Brazil

• Brazil state-run oil company Petrobras plans to create a Chinese subsidiary, reports Reuters. An official “said the move would help efforts to triple its share of China’s oil imports in the next couple decades, while contributing to warmer Brazil-China ties under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.”

Colombia

• A year into Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan, the policy is “neither a total failure nor a total success,” write Will Freeman and Steven Holmes at the Council of Foreign Relations. “Colombia has hit an inflection point. Even if Total Peace doesn’t resolve Colombia’s violent armed conflicts, it’s already leading to a reconfiguration.”
  
  
• Petro is perennially late to appointments — when he shows up — leading critics to question whether there is a hidden health problem, reports El País.

El Salvador

• El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele could comfortably win the 2024 elections with 68.4% of the votes, according to a poll released this week by the Center for Citizen Studies at the Francisco Gavidia University. (Reuters)
  
  
• Google Cloud and the government of El Salvador announced a multi-year agreement that will establish an office and deliver Google Distributed Cloud services in the country, reports Reuters.

Argentina

• Argentina’s debt crisis has pushed the IMF international lending model to the breaking point, writes the Economist. “Through their desperation to avoid default, the fund’s officials are putting up with naked disobedience from Argentina, which may set a bad example for other countries.”

Mexico

• Lime growers in western Mexico are facing mass threats and extortion that impacts their ability to get crops to market, reports the Associated Press. Agricultural producers in the region carried out an armed uprising against cartels ten years ago, in response to extorsion.

Caribbean

• Caribbean marine ecosystems are under threat from “a cascade of interconnected crises, from the excessive use of land and sea to climate change … Without drastic international, regional, and national efforts, entire ecosystems will collapse, posing a significant risk to the Caribbean region’s economy, security, and bio-natural heritage,” writes Alejandro Trenchi in Global Americans. (Via Latin America Risk Report)

Bermuda

• The remnants of Hurricane Idalia were forecast to regain strength and become a tropical storm again over the weekend as it approached Bermuda, reports the New York Times.

Nicaragua

• Nicarguan author “Sergio Ramírez has been forced into exile twice; once for his role in a revolution and once after writing, in a work of fiction, about what that revolution became. One thing he’s learned in the interim: Dictators lack imagination.” — New York Times

Culture Corner

• Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín’s new satire portrays dictator Augusto Pinochet as a vampire, analyzing his ongoing legacy in Chile. (Guardian, El País)

Jordana Timerman / Latin America Daily Briefing
http://latinamericadailybriefing.blogspot