IMF predicts region slowdown
April 22, 2025
The International Monetary Fund’s predicts economic output growth in LatAm and the Caribbean to decelerate in 2025 to 2.0% from last year's 2.4% expansion, down from a January estimate for 2.5% growth. A forecast contraction in Mexico's 2025 economic output accounts for most of the IMF's estimate for a slowdown in the region, reports Reuters.
“Most of the rest of Latin America faces “stagflation light.” Growth remains positive in most countries, but it’s still slowing due to tariffs, the global economic slowdown, policy uncertainty, and the withdrawal of fiscal stimulus. Meanwhile, the “progress on disinflation has mostly stalled,” which is a nice way of saying that inflation remains too damn high in most countries,” explains James Bosworth in the Latin America Risk Report.
The IMF maintained its 5.5 percent growth projection for Argentina in 2025, despite global trade uncertainty, reports the Buenos Aires Times.
More IMF
The Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are taking place in Washington DC this week, in the midst of considerable challenges in the face of plummeting global confidence due to the Trump administration’s trade shock, according to CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot.
“There have long been calls for governance reform at the IMF and World Bank, and other institutions that are often described as multilateral and pillars of the ‘rules-based international order.’ This current crisis is one of the most compelling examples of why the IMF needs to be reformed and become a real multilateral organization.” (CEPR)
Guatemala
As Guatemala’s President Bernardo Arévalo tries to modernize the country and revive its democracy, there is consensus that he needs to show results in his second year in power, reports Americas Quarterly, in a deep-dive into the leader’s administration thus far. “We are creating a space, an institutional rescue. And for us, the institutional rescue is the sine qua non that (will) allow us to generate development later,” Arévalo told AQ in an interview.
“While Guatemala has higher economic growth rates and lower inflation than much of Latin America and the Caribbean, it lags the region in other key indicators. The nation’s macroeconomic stability belies levels of poverty, socio-economic inequality, food insecurity, and labor informality that are high even by regional standards,” reports Americas Quarterly.
Brazil
A panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices started proceedings today to determine whether federal officers, retired military officers and an aide of former President Jair Bolsonaro will also stand trial for allegedly attempting to stage a coup. If a majority votes in favor, the accused will become defendants in a criminal case, reports the Associated Press.
Brazilian soybeans producers are poised to become winners in the U.S.-China trade war, reports the New York Times.
Regional Relations
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will travel to China next month for a CELAC-China summit, reports Agencia Brasil. Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, which holds the CELAC pro tempore presidency, will also participate, reports Infobae.
The United States will impose visa restrictions on more than 250 officials of the Nicaraguan government of President Daniel Ortega, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday, citing human rights abuses. (Reuters)
Deportations
Many political and human rights activists have voiced perplexity and shock that the Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to El Salvador – having been denied due process in the US – have now been floated as pawns in a potential prisoner swap between Nayib Bukele and Nicolás Maduro. But the “PR stunt” has potential payoff for both strongmen, shifting the focus from their own human rights abuses to those of the other, Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert from the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, told the Guardian.
Four U.S. Democratic lawmakers traveled to El Salvador on yesterday to press for the release of Kilmar Abrego García who was mistakenly deported there last month, and to demand updates on him and other migrants who are imprisoned there, reports the New York Times.
Mexico
Homicides in Mexico have gone down 28.1% between January 2024 and April 2025, according to new official data. (La Jornada)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that her government has asked television stations to pull a commercial produced by the Trump administration warning against undocumented migration to the United States, reports the Los Angeles Times.
In recent weeks, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has aired a number of spots amidst popular shows and sporting events in which she tells potential migrants that if they come to the U.S. they will be “hunted” down and deported, reports Pirate Wire Services.
Sheinbaum’s has proposed regulations to prohibit the broadcasting of foreign advertising in national territory. (La Jornada)
Sheinbaum said there’s no agreement yet with her US counterpart Donald Trump after the two spoke last week about US tariffs. (Bloomberg)
Regional
“Criminal organizations behind environmental crimes and other illicit economies in Latin America and the Caribbean are placing the region’s vast biodiversity, fragile ecosystems, and Indigenous ways of life under serious threat,” reports InSight Crime. “Extractive economies such as mining, fishing, and logging — where legal and illegal activity often intersect — along with crimes like wildlife trafficking and drug production, pose some of the gravest threats to the survival of the region’s ecosystems and the people who defend them.”
Chile
A group of distinguished economists — including Andres Velasco, Nicolas Eyzaguirre, Pablo Garcia and Roberto Zahle — is supporting Chilean center-left presidential candidate Carolina Toha, who is lagging in polls ahead of November’s election, reports Bloomberg.
Chile’s far-right presidential candidate is also a fan of Argentina’s “chainsaw model,” Bloomberg reports.
Argentina
Trump’s ideological ally, Argentine President Javier Milei, is worlds apart from the U.S. leader on trade. ”As Trump places tariffs on allies and foes alike, Milei is moving the other way to unravel a protectionist economy and spark an import boom,” notes the Wall Street Journal.
Jorge Bergoglio, later Pope Francis, “was not a member of the radical church in Argentina. But he was born in Peronist Argentina, as the poor were beginning to demand entrance into the political arena, living through his country’s industrial expansion, its dictatorship, then neoliberalism’s corrupt sell-off of industries, and the country’s economic collapse at the start of the new millennium,” writes Greg Grandin in The Nation.
“For decades, Bergoglio was dedicated to working in the capital’s poorest neighbourhoods, earning him the nickname the “priest of the slums”,” reports the Guardian.
Corta has the story behind the picture of Bergoglio on the Buenos Aires subway in 2008.
As pontiff, Bergoglio never returned to Argentina — analysts believe it was to avoid playing into national political feuds, reports the New York Times.
Haiti
At least three Haitian soldiers were killed in an apparent gang ambush Sunday in a town on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, reports the Associated Press.
Haiti is approaching a “point of no return” leading to “total chaos”, the UN special representative to the country warned the UN security council yesterday. “Haiti could face total chaos,” she said, adding that international aid was desperately needed to avoid that fate. “I urge you to remain engaged and answer the urgent needs of the country and its people.” (AFP)
In a report seen by AFP, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned that further international support was “required immediately to allow the national police to prevent the capital slipping closer to the brink”.
The U.S. Trump administration warned that it cannot continue financing security efforts in Haiti, “as the country spirals deeper into gang-fueled chaos and its capital stands on the precipice of being fully under gang control,” reports the Miami Herald.
Flora
Can Cañahua, an ancient relative of quinoa, revive rural Bolivia’s economy? - Guardian