political issues in south america

Matt Taylor is the adjunct senior fellow for Latin American studies here at the Council on Foreign Relations. supports HTML5 video, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University, Managing Partner, McLarty Associates; Former Director for Brazil and the Southern Cone, Office of the United States Trade Representative, Director, Latin American Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. It was a rising power not only in South America, with the founding of UNASUR, but it was also increasingly projecting itself as a global power, a member of the BRICS, opting out of, you know, certain Western institutions and with other emerging markets, you know, going its own way. The successful garrison coup of Gen. Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in March and the forceful overthrow of the junta governing Bolivia in April are vivid warnings of how uneasy is the political situation in many countries to the south. But as I said before, I think there are things that can be done to sort of create the—create some of the division within the government. The economy barely missed recession during the first half of 2019, and growth prospects for 2020 remain at just 1%, after repeated forecast cuts. The Venezuelan government is not accepting the aid, but people are finding ways to help their families and others who are really suffering and living in misery in Venezuela, which is just—you know, just heartbreaking. ARNSON: Other questions? And I think they delegitimize the government. And in Ecuador, protests grew so chaotic that the administration high-tailed it out of the capital city. HOCK: Well, I think, looking for silver linings, that one of the silver linings on this topic is that south-south trade discussions are in the spotlight. And there needs to be some sort of negotiation with—I think it would have to be with the armed forces. On the corruption scandals, how much of a focus is there on the payors as opposed to the payees? Mexico is emerging from a disappointing first year of the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). The latest breaking news, comment and features from The Independent. And there’s Lava Jato, but then there is an investigation of the revenue service, and there’s an investigation of the meat-packing industry, and there’s an investigation of the pension funds. Just a quick reminder too, we’re on the record, just in case there were any—. But certainly, you know, the congress isn’t going to make his life any easier in the coming months. I’m thinking about Africa and ECOWAS, and how they turned around Gambia. And, you know, meeting with foreign ministers of the region, there’s a big change from what there was, you know, a year ago. You’ve been very patient. No, that means that they’re trying to find answers. But I have one last question about Chile. And it’s one of the key provinces of the election in Argentina. And just today there’s news of some fairly major new businesspeople being brought into the investigation. And then the others will react to it and try to defend the peace agreement, defend the peace accord. And now we’re at a point where, once again, if governments don’t deliver, then people are going to vote them out. Maybe not formally, but the armed forces are the real—I think the real power at this point, in the government. December 8, 2020, by Amelia Cheatham, Claire Felter, Lindsay Maizland and Sabine Baumgartner That could turn into an indictment in the supreme court. And that would—if they do that and they get the two-thirds votes to do that, that would mean a suspension of Venezuela from the OAS. The legitimacy of democratic institutions is based on a sense of fairness that was being questioned from different angles and that fostered the anger of South Americans. Vizcarra’s Ouster Puts Constitutional Reform on the Agenda in Peru. ARNSON: A hush falls over the room. I think that Santos’ visit was in general a success. HOCK: Yeah, and which I guess begs the question, you know, can you have a 26-state democracy with over 30 political parties and have that survive without corruption? And what do you see as the potential of a deeper Latin American and especially South American integration in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from TPP and the whole sort of context of an anti-globalization agenda, if you can put it in those terms? And so stepping away from green energy just frankly as an export promotion tool, to my mind, is going to be damaging. There’s certainly with Temer’s administration, under both Jose Serra and Aloysio Nunes as foreign ministers, there’s been an attempt to go kind of I would call it the Macri route. There have been over 50 days of daily protests, a mounting death toll, prisoners—prisoners of conscious, political prisoners, as well as people arrested during this time—hundreds of people wounded. But more and more you hear talk of convergence and acercamiento, you know, a closening of those two trade blocs. The other is that the Brazil—that the military plays a role to kind of preside over some transition and calls elections, and there are elections. And that polarization is reflected in how—the positions that different candidates are taking. December 9, 2020, 2020: The Year’s Historic News in Graphics, by Amelia Cheatham Michael, do you think that the elections in Colombia next year are going to be around peace or around anticorruption? 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