Latin America Daily Briefing, April 16

April 16, 2025

Venezuela

• Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado has been largely in hiding since last year’s presidential elections. “She has been restructuring her movement from one focused on preserving electoral integrity to one that is able to threaten Maduro’s regime from the shadows,” according to Bloomberg. “The next phase of the opposition’s plan is to isolate Maduro internationally — and much of that depends on the US. Her team has been lobbying the Trump administration to apply maximum pressure strategies. That includes advocating for the US to designate Maduro as the head of Tren de Aragua, the gang in Trump’s crosshairs.”

Regional Relations

• Nayib Bukele’s relationship with Donald Trump belies the usual dynamic: “Bukele did not travel as the usual leader of a developing country, hoping to extract a few concessions from the most powerful nation in the world. He arrived at the White House not just as a friendly counterpart but as a smug guru in 21st-century power consolidation,” writes Ricardo Avelar in El Faro. (See yesterday’s post.)

• U.S. Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland will travel to El Salvador on today and attempt to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, who was deported by error to a maximum security prison there — both Bukele and Trump claim to be powerless to intervene. (Guardian, see yesterday’s post.)

• “Latin America experts scoffed at the idea that Mr. Bukele, whose government has ordered mass arrests and seized control of the country’s courts, would suggest he could not return one man — if he wanted to,” reports the New York Times.

• Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and a team of defense contractors pitched a plan to the U.S. government to vastly expand deportations to El Salvador — by designating part of the maximum security CECOT prison as U.S. territory, reports Político.

• Historian Héctor Lindo Fuentes looks at the fraught history of U.S. efforts to set up bases and protectorates in Central America, in El Faro.

Panama

• An agreement between Panama and the U.S. allowing the latter to deploy troops to former U.S. military bases could be a way for Panama to limit Trump’s threats to takeover the canal, but the political cost for President José Raúl Mulino could be untenable, according to AFP.

Peru

• A Peruvian court sentenced former president Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, to 15 years in prison for laundering funds received from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to finance Humala’s 2006 and 2011 campaigns. Most of Peru’s living former presidents have faced legal issues related to Odebrecht, notes the Associated Press.

• Brazil granted Heredia diplomatic asylum, yesterday, and Peru’s government said it would provide safe-passage and guarantees for the transfer of Heredia and her son, reports Reuters.

Brazil

• Senior Brazilian and Chinese agriculture officials are to meet in Brasília this week to discuss ways to expand Brazil’s exports to China, reports the South China Morning Post. Brazilian government officials said that the meetings would focus on Brazilian exports of agricultural products, such as soybeans and beef, and “how to address the gap left by US tariffs”.

Mexico

• The U.S. Treasury Department announced economic sanctions against the two Familia Michoacana leaders — brothers Johnny “El Pez” and Jose Alfredo “El Fresa” Hurtado Olascoaga — along with two of their lower-ranking siblings in the criminal organization, Adita and Ubaldo. “The U.S. sanctions represent both a symbolic and financial blow,” reports El País.

• “One of Mexico’s biggest Achilles’ heels in dealing with the Trump administration is energy — its overwhelming dependence on natural gas from the United States,” reports the New York Times.

• The Mexican government has halted U.S. fuel imports sent into the country by road, as it cracks down on illegal deals, reports Reuters.

• The biggest threat Mexico faces now is its judicial reform, argues the Mexico Political Economist. “Even in taking the government’s pro-judicial reform arguments in good faith, the popular election of every single judge and magistrate in Mexico presents logistical and philosophical challenges which could well derail the country.”

Ecuador

• Ecuador has talked to the United States about receiving support in its battle against criminal gangs, President Daniel Noboa told CNN in an interview. “There are plans … we had conversations, we had a plan, we had options that we would like to follow. And now we just need another meeting, post-election, now as an elected president, to consolidate it.”

• Colombian President Gustavo Petro said yesterday that he could not recognize Noboa’s 12-point victory on Sunday because the runoff election was held under a state of emergency in some areas — saying that full tabulations of the vote must be made public, and compared the case with Venezuela’s much questioned election last year. (El País)

• European Union observers said yesterday that they “categorically” reject allegations of fraud in Sunday presidential elections in Ecuador, joining a chorus of rejections of the opposition candidate’s call for a recount. (Reuters)

• Ecuador’s sidelined vice-president, Verónica Abad, has accused Noboa of “violating the democratic code” by using the state apparatus to gain an advantage over the other candidates in the country’s runoff election. (Guardian)

Colombia

• The White House is urging Colombia to halt the implementation of new auto safety regulations that could jeopardize U.S. car exports to Colombia, as both nations prepare to discuss tariffs recently imposed on Colombian products including coffee, avocados, flowers and oil, reports the Associated Press.

Argentina

• Milei’s decision to ease currency controls is having an impact on Argentina’s real economy, as retailers and importers adjust their prices as the peso weakens. But experts are optimistic that high inflation could be avoided this time around, reports Bloomberg.

• In this Passover season, one might ask, what makes this IMF bailout different from all those that came before? According to the Financial Times, it’s that this time “Argentina has a government that is serious about fighting inflation by living within its means. Even hardened cynics have been surprised at how firmly Milei has stuck to his pledge to slash spending and run budget surpluses, instead of the deficits to which Buenos Aires was addicted for decades, including under Macri.”

Chile

• In a new book, journalist John Dinges details findings that the US embassy in Chile conducted a sham investigation of the kidnapping of the two U.S. citizens in 1973, in the wake of the coup against Salvador Allende, and deceived the victims’ families, in their effort to follow Henry Kissinger’s order to defend the new military regime and avoid pressuring it about human rights. (Ciper)

Culture Corner

• Luca Prodan, a Scottish-Italian rocker, is a national legend in Argentina, but relatively unknown elsewhere. That looks set to change – thanks to a forthcoming biopic called Time Fate Love, produced by Birdman co-writer Armando Bo, reports the Guardian.