The Americas Quarterly Podcast

Ecuador is facing one of the most consequential moments in its recent history. President Daniel Noboa won reelection in April 2025 on a promise to restore public security, but despite an increasingly aggressive campaign against organized crime and closer ties with the United States, the country continues to struggle with entrenched criminal networks. Homicides are down about 8% this year after a record-setting 2025, and Noboa is increasingly compared to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Now, local ...

Since María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela on October 25, the country’s politics feel different. Many hope the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate will speed up Venezuela’s return to democracy. Since Nicolás Maduro’s capture in January, the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez has passed an amnesty law, released hundreds of political prisoners, and joined U.S.-backed talks with part of the opposition. Yet much of the old system is still standing. Many officials who r...

After a comeback and a win by more than four million votes, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva must now face a hostile Congress, nervous financial markets and an uncertain relationship with Washington. His opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, has left for the United States, where he is alleging political persecution. Over a political career spanning more than 40 years, Lula has often evolved according to the needs of the moment. This time, will he take a more orthodox approach to the ...

Arguably no country has been more exposed to Donald Trump's second term than Mexico. The country sends more than 80% of its exports to its neighboring nation and receives more than $60 billion a year in remittances from citizens living in the U.S. President Claudia Sheinbaum has navigated the relationship with notable pragmatism, but tensions are rising again over U.S. demands for greater security cooperation, extradition requests for Morena politicians, and uncertainty over the future of the...

Latin America is having its best economic outlook since the commodities boom of the 2000s. Record commodity prices, a weak U.S. dollar, a privileged position in the global trade war—selling to both the U.S. and China— and a wave of business-friendly governments are creating conditions the region hasn't seen in decades. But Latin America has defied rosy predictions before, and the outlook remains uncertain in its three largest economies: Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. Today on the podcas...