Latin America in Focus

On May 1, a transatlantic trade deal covering 31 countries and a quarter of global GDP comes into effect. Some thought it would never materialize, but after 25 years of off-and-on negotiations, Mercosur and the European Union committed to one of the largest free-trade deals in the world. So why did the two trade blocs to sign on the dotted line? 

“ The reality is that today, given the approach that the United States is taking on trade policy, it really is nudging countries [...] to go ahead and take those risks. Because the risk of doing nothing is much higher than the risk of doing something," says trade expert Kellie Meiman Hock, a senior counselor at McLarty Associates and advisor to COA's Trade Advisory Group. In her return to the podcast, Meiman Hock explains how recent U.S. trade policy  spurred Mercosur and other countries across the hemisphere to diversify their commercial relationships.  

She also covers the wrinkles left for the South American and European trade blocs to iron out in the agreement, and other deals in the pipeline as countries search for stability in a trade landscape she describes to AS/COA Online’s Luisa Leme as “completely unexplored territory.” 

This episode was produced by Luisa Leme with support from Khalea Robertson. Carin Zissis is the host.

Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus and send us feedback at [email protected].

Listen to our previous episode with Kellie Meiman Hock on the impact of the Trump administration’s tariff policy on Latin America:
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/latam-focus-trade-and-tensions-latin-america-braces-trumps-tariffs

The music in the podcast is Paulo Moura's "Tarde de Chuva," performed by Cliff Korman Ensemble for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society.

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

After a February military operation led to the death of Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera, Mexican authorities searched the cartel leader’s cabin and uncovered logs showing that low-level members of El Mencho’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel earned as little as $140 per week. Many people were surprised by how little the cartel lookouts and hitmen earn, given that their jobs can be, quite literally, deadly. Despite that, the number of people working for these crime groups could fill Estadio Azteca, the stadium where the World Cup kickoff will take place, about two times over.

In this week's episode, Complexity Science Hub’s Dr. Rafael Prieto-Curiel covers why stemming cartel recruitment is crucial for curbing violence in Mexico. The mathematician coauthored a groundbreaking study calculating that, with 175,000 members, cartels represent Mexico’s fifth-largest employer. Moreover, he estimates that they count as the country’s top recruiter, given that they have to repeatedly replenish their ranks following arrests, killings, and disappearances. “They are preventing their own collapse,” he tells AS/COA’s Carin Zissis.

This episode was produced by Khalea Robertson, Luisa Leme, and Camilo Salas. Carin Zissis is the host.

Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus and send us feedback at [email protected].

Read Dr. Prieto-Curiel's research in Science.

The music in the podcast is performed by Alejandro Escuer and Leandro Díaz Keller for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society.

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

When the United States and Argentina signed a bilateral trade deal in February, one part of the agreement turned heads: Washington would be quadrupling the amount of tariff-free beef it would allow to be imported from the South American country.

Historically, the United States, like countries across the world, limits the amount of beef it imports to help promote its domestic ranching industry.

But now, the United States and Europe are opening their markets, just as China, who became the largest consumer of South American beef in recent years, is imposing quotas on the product for the first time.

Argentine trade expert Francisco Resnicoff joins AS/COA Online’s Chase Harrison to talk all things beef. How will new trade pacts and quotas affect the beef market? And what do shifts in the beef industry mean for domestic politics in countries like Argentina?

This episode was produced by Luisa Leme and Camilo Salas. Carin Zissis is the host. 

Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected].

Francisco Resnicoff previously joined the podcast to discuss the 2024 G20. Listen to the episode: https://shorturl.at/TYaTY

Find out more about Trump’s policies in Latin America by subscribing to our weekly newsletter covering Washington’s hemispheric policy: www.as-coa.org/dispatch

The music in the podcast is “Chacarera en el aire," performed by Nicolás Fioravanti for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society. Becoming a member gives you preferential access to music performances, art exhibitions, book events, our magazine Americas Quarterly, and more.  

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

Haiti has been without an elected leader since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and a spiraling security crisis threatens to derail plans to hold elections this August.  

In this episode, Romain Le Cour-Grandmaison, director of the Haiti and Caribbean Observatory at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, covers bumpy governance transitions and “the triangular relationship between the political sector, economic sector, and violent actors” in Haiti, as well as the role U.S. government’s role in addressing the crisis. Bringing on-the-ground observations of Haiti’s turbulent security context, Le Cour traces the complicated—and uncertain—path to the country’s first election in a decade. And as for the long-term future of Haiti’s democracy, he stressed, “We need to address and dismantle the system that makes the gangs attractive to political and economic actors and vice versa. So basically, we need a justice component.”

This episode was produced by Khalea Robertson. Carin Zissis is the host. Latin America in Focus’ executive producer is Luisa Leme.

Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected].

Read Romain Le Cour's article on "Ending Haiti's Criminal Governance Crisis" in Americas Quarterly.

The music in the podcast is "Finesse," performed by Rafa Aslan for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society. Becoming a member gives you preferential access to music performances, art exhibitions, book events, our magazine Americas Quarterly, and more.   

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

Close followers of trade news were waiting for this moment: On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 against President Donald Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to slap tariffs on trade partners around the world. 

Although SCOTUS' decision reined in Trump's tariffs on one front,he soon enough used another piece of legislation, section 122, to impose new global duties. 

“President Trump has a huge trade arsenal at his disposal, and what we're going to be seeing in the next few weeks is the Trump administration using other measures [that are] more procedural but are less legally exposed,” Diego Marroquín Bitar, a fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and USMCA expert, told AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis.

From IEEPA to legal measures like 122, 232, and 301, understanding trade policy can be like speaking another language. Marroquín untangles them all, explaining what the Court decision means for issues like the upcoming USMCA review and the future of trade policy in the region. 

This episode was produced by Luisa Leme. Carin Zissis is the host. 

Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Access othr episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected].

Diego Marroquín Bitar previously joined the podcast to discuss why corn is a thorny U.S-Mexico trade issue. Listen to the episode: t.ly/yCPW0

Find out more about Trump’s policies in Latin America by subscribing to our weekly newsletter covering Washington’s hemispheric policy, visit: www.as-coa.org/dispatch

The music in the podcast performed by Heloísa Fernandes for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society. Becoming a member gives you preferential access to music performances, art exhibitions, book events, our magazine Americas Quarterly, and more.      

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

Across Latin America, the political right has been on the march. From El Salvador to Argentina, we’ve seen the pink tide recede as voters back right-wing leaders who are oftentimes allied with the MAGA movement in the United States.

Then there’s Mexico. The largest Spanish-speaking country in the world remains firmly in the hands of Morena, a left-wing party, and its popular president, Claudia Sheinbaum. That doesn’t mean the right-wing leaders haven’t tried to break ground. As we’ll hear, the ultra-Catholic Eduardo Verástegui, who brought CPAC to Mexico, made a failed bid to run as an independent in 2024. And the name of one man has been making the rounds as a potential opposition figure: libertarian business leader and media mogul Ricardo Salinas Pliego.

In this episode, we hear from Gema Kloppe-Santamaría, a historian and sociologist at the University College Cork and George Washington University, and Alex González Ormerod, director of the Mexico Political Economist and author of the book La derecha no existe (pero ahí está) on the state of the Mexican right today. In a conversation with host Carin Zissis, our guests explain why a 100-year-old religious conflict weighs on the Mexican right today, what’s behind the decline of the traditional conservative party—the PAN, and what it would take for the Mexican right to stage a comeback. 

Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected].

Find out more about right-wing movements in Mexico by reading articles by both of our guests and our host in Americas Quarterly.
Alex González Ormerod: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/the-death-and-rebirth-of-the-mexican-right/
Gema Kloppe-Santamaría: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/the-long-shadow-of-mexicos-war-over-catholicism/
Carin Zissis: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/right-wing-populism-hasnt-thrived-in-mexico-why/

The music in the podcast was “Cascabel jarana de arco” performed by Alejandro Loredo for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society. Becoming a member gives you preferential access to music performances, art exhibitions, book events, our magazine Americas Quarterly, and more.

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

The Trump’s administration national security strategy was the talk of the foreign policy world late last year, not least of all because it renewed Washington’s focus on the Americas. But a few days later, China released its own policy paper focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean. But then the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro of January 3 upended the hemispheric chessboard.

Parsifal D’Sola Alvarado of the Andrés Bello Foundation for China and Latin America Research joined AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis to talk about why this new era marks an end of what he calls “cheap ambiguity” for hemispheric countries figuring out how to juggle ties with the two great powers. He explains what we can glean from China’s reaction to U.S. moves in Venezuela; how countries such as Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico been adjusting their approach to Beijing; and why Latin America needs to get its own China strategy up and running.

Read D'Sola’s analysis on what the post-Maduro era means for Sino–Latin American ties: t.ly/l05Jh  

Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected]. Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.    

The music in the podcast was “Collector,” performed by Jorge Haro for Americas Society. https://youtu.be/R_2pw75RlcY?si=I60yHUNlUYddvEoe  Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society. https://www.as-coa.org/membership Becoming a member gives you preferential access to music performances, art exhibitions, book events, our magazine Americas Quarterly, and more.

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

Organized crime continues to drive murder rates in Latin America and the Caribbean to levels well above global averages. Now in a context in which the United States has shown itself willing to flex its military muscle in the region in its battle against narcoterrorism, Latin American governments are under increasing pressure to appear tough on crime.

This episode zooms in on Brazil, from where security policy expert Robert Muggah, co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, speaks with AS/COA Online’s Luisa Leme about how two recent major police operations shed light on the increasing sophistication of criminal actors. Ahead of Brazil’s elections in October, Muggah discusses the growing appeal of hard-line policies across the region while putting forward alternative, evidence-based solutions for sustainable crime and violence prevention.

Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected]. Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.    

The music in the podcast was performed by 2vieira, a trumpet-acoustic bass duo formed by brothers Sidmar and Sidiel Vieira, for Americas Society. https://youtu.be/Hn2vsuRK-2c Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society. https://www.as-coa.org/membership Becoming a member gives you preferential access to music performances, art exhibitions, book events, our magazine Americas Quarterly, and more.

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

From the Donroe Doctrine to tariff turmoil a rightward electoral tilt, 2025 was a year of shifts for Latin America. Now, with Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Haiti, and Peru gearing up for presidential votes in 2026, more change is on the way.To make sense of what's to come, this episode of Latin America in focus brings back four of our prior guests from across the region: Venezuelan journalist and political scientist Tony Frangie Mawad, Mexican international affairs expert Brenda Estefan, Brazilian journalist and political analyst Thomas Traumann, and Latino and hemispheric digital democracy expert Roberta Braga.Then, in conversation with host Carin Zissis, the OAS’ director of electoral monitoring, Gerardo de Icaza, draws on over a decade of experience overseeing missions in 27 countries to explain the evolving challenges on the ground for election observers, from being victims of increasing political polarization to finding practical ways to leverage artificial intelligence for stronger election processes—as well as what it all means for democracy in the region.

Monitor what’s in store for 2026 elections with our guide at: www.as-coa.org/2026Listen to past episodes with our guests:

• Tony Frangie Mawad on Venezuelan elections: t.ly/DszOS
• Brenda Estefan on Mexican foreign policy: t.ly/2Mfs5
• Thomas Traumann on Brazilian votes: t.ly/jp64b
• Roberta Braga on Nayib Bukele’s online reach: t.ly/vU0tE

Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected]. Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.The music in the podcast is “Me Gusta Soñar,” our show's theme from the C4 Trío of Venezuela. https://youtu.be/NZ123ysut9s?si=tr5Qu25ujhSTXGIC Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org and share your love for Latin American culture and politics by joining Americas Society. https://www.as-coa.org/memberships/engage-americas-society

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/

Thirty-five years after the Washington Consensus, a group of the world’s leading economists have assembled a new book formulating an alternative road map for developing economies, The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century. One of the books co-editors, prominent Chilean economist Andrés Velasco, recently stopped by the New York headquarters of Americas Society/Council of the Americas to present core principles to guide refreshed and adaptable economic policies in Latin America and beyond.

In conversation with AS/COA President and CEO Susan Segal, the former finance minister of Chile and current dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science emphasized the need for greater attention to delivering well-being for all and boosting state capacity to complement private-sector efforts. Given the diversity of today’s challenges—from climate change, to AI and the future of work, to trade fragmentation and political polarization—Velasco called for economists and policymakers to be more like medical doctors: assessing symptoms before handing out prescriptions.

The music in the podcast is “One Day at a Time” by Franco Pinna for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org and share your love for Latin America by joining Americas Society. Becoming a member gives you preferential access to music performances, art exhibitions, book events, our magazine Americas Quarterly, and more.

Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus at www.as-coa.org/podcast and send us feedback at [email protected]. Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.

Follow us on social media:
X: @ASCOA
Instagram: @ascoa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascoaonline/
Bluesky: @ascoa.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ASCOA/