Security has become the defining issue in Latin American politics. In Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella won the presidency on a hardline security platform and a promise to scrap Petro's total peace plan. In Ecuador, Daniel Noboa won re-election on the back of a military crackdown against criminal gangs. And in Washington, the Trump administration launched the Shield of the Americas: A coalition of like-minded governments committed to a military-led approach to fighting organized crime. Meanwhile, criminal groups are doing what they always do: reorganizing, diversifying, and finding new markets to tap into, from the United States and Europe to an increasingly lucrative market in Asia and within Latin America itself. Today on the podcast, our annual big picture look at how organized crime is evolving across the region: How well is the militarized approach working? And what can we expect from this new generation of right-wing leaders? Our guest is Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime. 

Over the past few months, the Trump administration has steadily ramped up pressure on Cuba: indicting senior Cuban officials including former president Raúl Castro, and sanctioning the state oil company and military-linked entities that control much of Cuba's economy. Taken together, Washington's measures, combined with the Cuban government's own decades of economic mismanagement, have pushed the island near a breaking point, with crumbling infrastructure, dire fuel shortages, and chronic nationwide blackouts arriving just as the Caribbean summer heat settles in. 

In a recent piece for Americas Quarterly, our experts lay out four scenarios for what could come next: humanitarian intervention, targeted coercive action, internal regime fractures, or negotiated concessions. 

Today on the podcast, we walk through each: What they'd look like on the ground, what Havana's room for maneuver might be, and whether the Cuban regime might once again elude expectations of change, as it has for the last 67 years. Our guest is Brian Fonseca, Vice Provost for Defense and National Security Research and Director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at FIU. 

Nearly a year after slapping Brazil with a 50% tariff in what looked like a bid to help the Bolsonaro family, the U.S.-Brazil relationship has had several ups and downs: Trump dropped most of the tariffs and, about a month ago, he welcomed President Lula to the White House for what looked like a friendly visit. But now, it looks like ties between the hemisphere's two biggest democracies are on the rocks once again. Within days of a visit by Flávio Bolsonaro to the State Department, the Trump administration designated two Brazilian criminal organizations as foreign terrorist groups and recommended new tariffs on Brazilian goods. Today on the podcast, we try to make sense of it all: What Washington is actually trying to accomplish in Brazil, whether these measures risk backfiring as they did last year, and what the October election looks like from inside the campaign. Our guest is Chris Garman, Managing Director for the Americas at Eurasia Group. 

Ever since Donald Trump took office, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum has tried to strike a careful balance: Working with Washington on security matters while maintaining sovereignty and domestic support. She sent 10,000 troops to the northern border, largely abandoned her predecessor's "hugs not bullets" strategy, and held one of the highest approval ratings in the region. But lately, that balance has become more challenging. In late April, the U.S. Justice Department indicted a sitting Morena governor on drug trafficking charges and media reports have pointed to a CIA presence in Mexican territory. This comes just as Sheinbaum's government prepares for one of its toughest negotiations yet: The USMCA review, expected to begin in July. Today on the podcast: an overview of US-Mexico ties and what they mean for security, economic activity, and trade in both countries. Our guest is Brenda Estefan, professor of geopolitics at IPADE Business School in Mexico City and columnist at Reforma.

Colombia goes to the polls on May 31 amid some of the worst violence the country has seen in two decades. FARC dissidents have carried out dozens of attacks in recent weeks, prompting an appeal for peace from Pope Leo XIV. In a way, the campaign has been shadowed since last year by the assassination of senator Miguel Uribe Turbay. And yet, paradoxically, President Gustavo Petro's approval rating has risen 10 points this year. Now three candidates are vying to succeed him: Iván Cepeda, Petro's preferred successor on the left; Paloma Valencia, a conservative senator from Álvaro Uribe's party; and Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing outsider who echoes both Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele. Today on the podcast, we want to understand the outlook for Colombia. Who is most likely to make it to the second round? And what would each of the three candidates mean for the country? Our guest is Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, speaking from Bogotá.

As recently as the 1960s, the average woman in Latin America had six children. Today that number is 1.8. In Chile, it has fallen to 1.1, lower than Japan. Combined with rising life expectancy, the result is a region aging faster than any other in the world. If current trends hold, national populations could decline by a third in Chile and Uruguay, a quarter in Brazil, and a fifth in Argentina by 2100. The consequences are already visible: pension crises and census counts that have come in millions lower than governments expected. Today on the podcast, we dive deeper into AQ's latest cover story to understand what this demographic transformation means for Latin America's economies and politics specifically. Is there a silver lining? And can the region adapt? Our guests are Laurence Blair, author of AQ's cover story on The Gray Tide, and Ernesto Revilla, Chief Economist for Latin America at Citigroup.

For years, Peru has defied gravity. The country has had eight presidents in ten years—a virtual power vacuum at the top of government—and yet the economy kept growing, the currency held strong, and the mining sector kept producing. That decoupling of politics and economics has kept Peru relatively stable and has prompted many in the private sector to argue that politics doesn’t really matter. But a first-round election marred by widespread logistical failures, fraud allegations, and a razor-thin race for second place—between leftist Roberto Sánchez, a former minister of the now-imprisoned Pedro Castillo, and right-wing populist Rafael López Aliaga—is now putting that resilience to its most serious test yet. Our guest is Luis Miguel Castilla, currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and former Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru.

Until recently, things seemed to be going well for Argentina's President Javier Milei. In October, his party won the midterm elections in a contest many polls predicted would swing the other way. Since then, he passed an important labor reform, poverty fell to its lowest level since 2018, and the economy is expected to grow around 4 percent this year. Yet suddenly, a few warning signs began to flash. One poll showed a substantial drop in Milei's popularity. Another, by Poliarquía, recorded the sharpest single month drop in public optimism of his presidency to date. Today on the podcast: What's affecting Milei's numbers? What does the broader political landscape look like? And what does that mean for public sentiment around the Argentine economy? Our guest is Alejandro Catterberg, president and co-founder of Poliarquía Consultores. 

Nearly three months after the fall of Nicolás Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez is still standing as interim president of Venezuela. The broad feeling, at least for now, is that Rodríguez and the chavista regime are not going anywhere. Since she took office on January 5th, Rodríguez has signed an amnesty law, reformed the hydrocarbon law, and restored diplomatic relations with the U.S. for the first time since 2019. Yet she has done this while keeping most of the chavista regime entrenched in power. Diosdado Cabello remains her Interior Minister, her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, runs the National Assembly, and the new Defense Minister is the former head of Venezuela's feared intelligence service, accused of overseeing torture and human rights abuses. What do her actions ultimately mean for the future of Venezuela? Our guest is Juan Forero, Bureau Chief for South America at the Wall Street Journal.  

After seven years covering Latin America for the Financial Times, and a previous post in the 1990s, Michael Stott is leaving the region as an optimist. His argument: that Latin America's strengths have been systematically underappreciated, and that in an increasingly dangerous and unstable world, what the region has going for it is about to matter more than it has in the past. In this episode, we take stock of the unique moment across the hemisphere: the tightening race between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flavio Bolsonaro ahead of Brazil's October election, the fragmented right in Colombia and the outlook for their presidential election in May, the uncertain futures of Cuba and Venezuela, and how this White House is likely to continue influencing events in years to come. Our guest is Michael Stott, now the South Asia bureau chief for the Financial Times.