Latin America Daily Briefing

Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum named several veteran, political heavyweights to her incoming cabinet — the names indicate continuity with the current administration, but also Sheinbaum’s personal emphasis on technocracy. (Animal Político)

Marcelo Ebrard, former foreign minister under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will be economy minister — a particularly key post ahead of the 2026 review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade pact. He is considered a businesss-friendly pick and the peso rallied after Sheinbaum’s announcement yesterday. (Reuters)

Former U.N. ambassador and former rector of the prestigious National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Juan Ramón de la Fuente will be foreign minister.

Sheinbaum named the current foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena, to head Environment and Natural Resources. Bárcena, who was previously head of ECLAC, is trained as a biologist and has a masters in ecology. Sheinbaum, herself a scientist with a doctorate in environmental engineering, appears to be maintaining her commitment to improve Mexico’s environmental policies. (El País) Bárcena said Mexico must shift from extractivism to sustainability.

Sheinbaum also announced a new cabinet-level ministry: Science, Technology, Humanities and Innovation. It is a significant decision that marks a shift from her predecessor, who has a complicated relationship with Mexico’s academe. The new ministry will be headed by Rosaura Ruiz, who was part of Sheinbaum’s cabinet in Mexico City. Ruiz said her work will be transversal — aimed at introducing knowledge and evidence-based decisions to other policy areas. (Animal Político)

(See more at El País.)

Regional Relations

• “As Mexico’s largest trading partner, Mexico’s biggest investor, and the external actor most invested in stemming the country’s dual security and migration crisis, the U.S. must … have a credible Mexico policy that preserves its interests and seeks cooperation, where possible, with Sheinbaum,” argue Ryan Berg and Connor Pfeiffer in Americas Quarterly.

Venezuela

• Venezuela’s upcoming presidential elections face serious obstacles from the Maduro government: “ In what is sure to be a tense and highly uncertain post-election scenario, independent observers’ critical reporting will be essential for the international community to assess the election’s legitimacy,” writes Tamara Taraciuk Broner in Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• “The international community must help protect the integrity of July’s presidential election and guarantee a peaceful political transition if Maduro loses,” writes Roberto Patiño in Project Syndicate.

Regional

• The Reuters Institute’s newest Digital News Report survey, released this week, showed a continuous drop in public trust in the media across the biggest countries in the region: the portion of people who said that they trust “most news most of the time” fell by 16 percent in Brazil over the last six years. During the same period, that figure dropped by 14 percent in Mexico and 11 percent in Argentina, writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief.
  
  
• The Inter-American Dialogue’s new report, Feeling the Stones: Chinese Development Finance to Latin America and the Caribbean, examines China’s newest development lending to the region, individual country debt scenarios, and the growing importance of other-than-DFI sources of Chinese finance in LAC.
  
  
• Latin American economies have some good news — inflation below OECD levels, for example — but growth is still below potential, according William F. Maloney, Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank told AQ Podcast.

Ecuador

• Jon Lee Anderson profiles Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa’s security crackdown, and asks whether it imperils the democracy it claims to defend — New Yorker.
  
  
• Ecuadorean journalists are fleeing drug related violence: 16 members of the press have fled Ecuador since 2023, according to Quito-based press freedom group Fundamedios. (Committee to Protect Journalists)

Messi

• Will the Copa América be Lionel Messi’s last major tournament wearing Argentina’s jersey? – New York Times

Jordana Timerman / Latin America Daily Briefing
latinamericadailybriefing.blogspot 06 21 2024