The Americas Quarterly Podcast

This past week, we started to get a sense of what Mexico's June 2024 general elections will look like. Samuel García, the young governor of Nuevo León, Mexico's industrial powerhouse, announced he will run, while former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who was seen as a possible aspirant, said he will not. Although García’s candidacy is seen as a long shot, how might it affect the campaigns of the current favorite, Claudia Sheinbaum, from the governing Morena coalition, and Xóchitl Gálvez, the candidate from the opposition Frente Amplio por México? What does this electoral cycle reveal about the current state of Mexican politics? And what are the factors that could shape the race going forward? Political consultant Carlos Ramírez joins us to explore these and other questions.

Chile’s new constitutional proposal is ready and will be put to a plebiscite on Dec. 17. The document was received earlier week by President Gabriel Boric after a mostly right-wing  Constitutional Council drafted the text. This episode does a political overview of the country. We discuss what this new constitution would change, if approved, and look more broadly at the status of the left and the right, at Gabriel Boric’s political future and the state of the economy. Our guest in Claudia Heiss, Head of Political Science at Universidad de Chile.

After a decade of negative or meager economic expansion, Brazil's GDP is expected to increase by 3.2% in 2023. Significant reforms, such as tax reform, are being discussed, and a modern, green economy could take hold. How successfully is the Lula government handling the economic challenges, and which areas will benefit the most? In this episode, Arminio Fraga, one of Brazil's top policy minds, analyzes the structural dysfunctions at the root of Brazil's economy and suggests ways forward. Fraga, a former president of Brazil’s central bank, is now the chair of the Institute for Health Policy Studies (IEPS).

Amid Argentina's worst economic crisis in more than 20 years, the self-described anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei will now face Economy Minister Sergio Massa in a December 19 runoff to become Argentina’s next president. Both are fighting to attract voters from other candidates’ camps. Can Milei win over moderate voters? Can the governing coalition put Massa over the top with inflation nearing 140%? In this episode, Brian Winter and Ana Iparraguirre explore what’s ahead for Massa and Milei, who might have the upper hand, and how each candidate would govern if elected. Iparraguirre is senior vice president at GBAO, a political strategy consultancy based in Washington. 

In this special edition of the Americas Quarterly Podcast, an interview with Juan S. Gonzalez, the White House's top Latin America official, about the potentially transformative deal announced this week between the U.S. and Venezuela. The U.S. is partially lifting economic sanctions that have been in place for several years on  Nicolás Maduro's regime. In return, Maduro has committed to holding free and fair elections in the second half of 2024. What happens if the Maduro government doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain? Will the opposition's likely candidate, María Corina Machado, be allowed to run? Will these changes improve conditions on the ground in Venezuela? Gonzalez answers these and other questions. He is senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council.

After a “lost decade” that saw economies stagnate across Latin America and the Caribbean, a new optimism appears to take hold in some areas. 2023 will be the third consecutive year the IMF and other multilateral institutions have raised their growth forecasts for the region after they proved too pessimistic. Foreign direct investment soared 55% last year to $224 billion, its highest value on record. But the region’s growth rate remains below its potential, trailing other emerging markets in Africa and East Asia. In this episode, former Colombian finance minister Mauricio Cárdenas joins us with an overview of where the potential for growth lies and what are the obstacles to achieving that.

Venezuela is reaching a critical moment as the country's opposition prepares to choose its candidate in primaries on October 22. The winner will run against Nicolás Maduro in a general election next year. On this week's episode, AQ'S Brian Winter speaks to Ana Vanessa Herrero, The Washington Post correspondent in Caracas, about what the opposition and Maduro's endgame could be and how talks with the U.S. on conditions for free and fair elections are playing out as Venezuelans endure an uncertain environment, a recessive economy and an annual inflation above 400%.

Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales has announced he will run again in 2025, likely competing with the current head of the executive, Luis Arce, whom Morales helped elect. The decision is splitting their party. In this episode, we take a big-picture look at the Andean country, how its economy and politics have changed since Morales was forced out of office in 2019, how he has changed and what political consequences his return could bring. We also discuss what to expect from Bolivia's efforts at lithium exploration. Our guest is Raul Peñaranda, an award-winning journalist, the director of the news website Brújula Digital and the president of the La Paz Association of Journalists.

Ecuador is facing many of the same issues we see across Latin America today. Long one of the region’s most peaceful countries, it has recently seen a daunting increase in violence, as international drug cartels use the country as a transit point. It is also immersed in a debate about how and whether to exploit its oil and minerals, during an era of rapid climate change. Politics have been unstable this year. In October there will be a runoff for a new president to serve out the rest of Guillermo Lasso’s term, after he invoked a constitutional mechanism that triggered fresh elections for both the presidency and the legislature. In this episode, Brian Winter and Will Freeman discuss the two candidates, Luisa González and Daniel Noboa, and how Ecuador might fit into wider regional trends when it comes to ideological tendencies and environmental issues. Freeman, a columnist for Americas Quarterly, is a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a political scientist.

Mexico’s economy is shifting into a higher gear in 2023, thanks in part to stronger than expected investment from nearshoring. This July, we saw a historic moment as Mexico passed China to become the biggest exporter of goods to the United States, reclaiming that title for the first time in 20 years. What does this transformation mean in practice for Mexico's industrial hubs? Is the country taking full advantage of the nearshoring trend, or could it be doing more? What is the relevance of politics and the 2024 elections to investors' decisions? Our guests today are two Bloomberg journalists who recently reported from the industrial hub of Monterey, in the north of Mexico: Maya Averbuch, an Economy and Government Reporter based in Mexico City, and Leda Alvim, Markets Reporter at Bloomberg News, based in São Paulo.