Chile targets Tren de Aragua

Jan. 24, 2025

Chilean officials said testimony accused Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister and Nicolás Maduro’s right-hand-man, of ordering the assassination of a political dissident Ronald Ojeda in Santiago last year. The accusations come after Chilean police carried out a major raid in the Santiago area, aimed at dismantling Tren de Aragua’s operations in the area, reports the Associated Press. (See also El País.)

Authorities said witnesses told them Cabello ordered and paid for the hit, which was allegedly carried out by Venezuelan transnational gang Tren de Aragua, a demonstration of Maduro’s ability to strike opponents across borders, reports the Wall Street Journal. (See also Infobae.)

Chile’s interior minister, Carolina Toha, said that if this is confirmed, Chile would resort to the International Criminal Court. (El País)

U.S. President Donald Trump promised to classify international criminal groups, like Tren de Aragua, as terrorist organizations. Since then Venezuela’s attorney general Tarek William Saab said his country’s government has dismantled the gang and asked for Tren de Aragua detainees in other countries be extradited to Venezuela to face justice.

Analysts say Venezuela’s move is a response to Trump’s threats: “It does seem the Venezuelan government is nervous,” said Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst for the International Crisis Group told the Wall Street Journal.

More Venezuela

• As Nicolás Maduro starts a new phase of government, José Natanson argues, in The Ideas Letter, that Venezuela’s regime exemplifies a distinct and chaotic form of authoritarianism, characterized by disorganized decision-making, internal power struggles, and pervasive corruption.

• U.S. oil licenses are a lifeline for Maduro, the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues in a new report that the Trump administration should move rapidly to revoke them. “Venezuela’s democratic opposition has estimated that Maduro has raked in billions operating joint ventures—in the ballpark of $500 million per month. This is real money that Maduro can use to pay off regime insiders and maintain power.”

• Bloomberg found that Chevron “filed tax returns worth about $300 million with the Venezuelan government last year, raising questions about how much President Nicolás Maduro is benefiting from the US company’s oil production.”

• Brazil said Venezuela unilaterally closed the border between the two countries on Wednesday for military exercises. (Infobae)

Guatemala

• Guatemala’s fragile democracy, led by President Bernardo Arévalo, has a chance to pull through, but it needs U.S. support, argues Benjamin Gedan in World Politics Review.

• However, “the intentions of the incoming US administration remain to be seen. President-elect Trump has made it clear that his top priority is to reduce immigration to the US. Guatemala’s history indicates that the most effective way to do this in the long term is to help Arévalo strengthen the rule of law within the country, which would improve the government’s ability to offer basic services and encourage private investment and development,” write Aryeh Neier and Amrit Singh in New York Review of Books.

• “Working with Arévalo would also support Trump’s objectives in the short term: in his first year in office, Arévalo increased cooperation with the US on migration, and the aggregate number of undocumented immigrants from Guatemala to the US dropped.” (New York Review of Books)

Cuba

• Cuba’s government paused the release of political prisoners and kicked off military exercises following Trump’s first-day decision to put the country back on the list of nations that sponsor terrorism, reports the Miami Herald.

Regional Relations

• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will make his first official trip abroad next week to Central America. He will visit Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. (Associated Press)

• There is growing policy dissonance between what the West wants from Latin America - to stop drugs - and what Latin America wants - to stop violence, International Crisis Group’s Elizabeth Dickinson told CNN.

• Leaving aside moral arguments, invading Panama to regain control of the canal would be disastrous for the U.S., argue Javier Corrales and James Loxton in Americas Quarterly. In addition to the geopolitical concerns the handover addressed, Panama’s successful management of the canal contributed to economic prosperity that means the country has virtually no outward migration. “If Panama is a textbook case of decolonization done right, recolonization would be a catastrophe.”

• U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva lead the Western Hemisphere’s two largest economies. The two leaders have wildly different ideologies, and points of friction could include trade disputes, China, climate change, Trump’s relationship with Lula’s political opposition. and big tech. Nonetheless, “it is facts that will most likely guide the relations between the two countries in this new era. The U.S. is Brazil’s second biggest trading partner after China, and their ties have grown steadily,” argues Fernanda Magnotta in Americas Quarterly.

• The Council on Foreign Relations on how Trump’s tariffs threaten USMCA — and how a joint review mandated for next year is likely to turn into a full fledged renegotiation.

Haiti

• Gangs in Haiti could overrun Port-au-Prince, leading to a complete breakdown of government authority without additional international support for the the country’s police, warned U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a report this week. (Associated Press)

• A new investigation by The New Humanitarian and Kenya’s Nation newspaper found that the foundering international support mission led by Kenya is failing due not only to a significant lack of resources, but also a misguided plan from the get go. “The New Humanitarian interviewed a wide range of security experts, policymakers, and key Haitian observers for this investigation. Nearly all noted that the Kenyan police have been placed in an untenable position.”

• Haiti’s government invested more than $3.8 million in public works in Jacmel to receive Colombian President Gustavo Petro this week — a decision that has prompted public anger, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday’s briefs.)

El Salvador

• Former Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes died of a heart attack in Nicaragua, where he had fled in 2016 to avoid accusations of corruption. (El Faro, Washington Post)

Trinidad and Tobago

• Trinidad and Tobago extended a state of emergency in response to a spike in violence, but while the measure is politically expedient and “may deliver a short-lived reduction in homicides, the government appears to have no long-term solution to the country’s increasingly worrying violence,” according to InSight Crime.

Argentina

• Argentina’s economic cycles repeat in loop, yet never cease to amaze — the BBC on how costly Buenos Aires is now. Key indicator: Argentina’s Big Mac is the second most expensive in the world, after Switzerland’s.

• Argentine President Javier Milei said in an interview he might drop membership in Mercosur to sign a free trade agreement with the United States. It’s an effective political stance, but wouldn’t be a good idea, writes James Bosworth at Latin America Risk Report. “Trump has made clear that the United States is going to spend the next four years burning its free trade agreements and implementing tariffs. Moving away from Mercosur, which just reached an agreement with Europe, to embrace the United States would not work out economically.”

Critter Corner

• The world’s biggest iceberg is moving toward the remote South Georgia Island, off Antarctica, which is home to millions of penguins and seals. If the megaberg gets stuck it could make it hard for penguin parents to feed their babies and some young could even starve — but researchers are apparently unconcerned about major harm, reports the Associated Press.