Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: Bolivia’s elections boot the socialist ruling party, the United States deploys warships off the coast of Venezuela, and a salacious Brazilian song charms the Middle East.
Bolivians Cast Ballots for Change
Over the past 20 years, the leadership of most Latin American democracies has swung back and forth between the political left and right. Bolivia was a unique case: Barring an inconclusive 2019 election, former President Evo Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party won all national leadership contests during that period.
But MAS’s control of Bolivian politics ended decisively on Sunday. In general elections, right-wing lawmakers swept into the legislature, and the presidential contest advanced to an Oct. 19 runoff between a centrist and a right-wing candidate.
Pollsters widely expected MAS to lose. Bolivia is experiencing an economic crisis, with more than 20 percent annual inflation. The party was also split by infighting: Morales told his followers to spoil their ballots rather than vote for the MAS candidate, Eduardo Del Castillo. Morales himself had tried to run despite exceeding term limits and was blocked by a court.
Sunday’s vote did introduce a surprise. Many preelection polls suggested that two right-wing candidates would proceed to a runoff. In the end, only one of those advanced: former President Jorge Quiroga, who served from 2001 to 2002. A late surge in support propelled the more moderate Sen. Rodrigo Paz ahead of Quiroga and kept the other right-wing candidate out of the runoff.
Paz has embraced both left-wing and right-wing identities throughout his career. In this election, he pitched himself as a centrist. Rather than echoing Quiroga’s pledge to seek an International Monetary Fund bailout, for example—which typically implies harsh austerity requirements—Paz has promoted an agenda that he calls “capitalism for everyone,” or cutting red tape for businesses and issuing new credit lines to Bolivians.
In the final days before Sunday’s election, many voters told pollsters that they were undecided. Paz’s last-minute surge may have come from voters who were disillusioned with MAS but uncomfortable with the prospect of a candidate further to the right.
Paz’s vice presidential pick could also help explain his success. His running mate, Edman Lara, is a former police officer who was expelled from duty last year after exposing multiple cases of bribery. He gained a large TikTok following for his videos denouncing corruption in Bolivia’s security forces.
“The institution that represents state corruption at the worst, and which Bolivians trust the least, is the police,” political analyst Gustavo Pedraza told Bloomberg Línea. Lara “won over the voters, above all the undecided ones.”
Despite the unexpected result, no candidate contested Sunday’s outcome. International observers said voting was generally smooth and peaceful. It was a sign of health for Bolivia’s democracy.
Regardless of who wins the runoff, Bolivia appears poised to play a more active role on the global stage.
During MAS’s two decades of dominance, Bolivia generally favored efforts to boost South American cooperation and balance against U.S. influence by courting countries such as Russia and China. But Bolivia maintained high regulatory barriers to foreign investment and left its economy relatively closed.
Both runoff candidates now want the country to liberalize its trade relations—although they differ on specifics.
Paz has pledged to pull Bolivia out of what he calls “international isolation.” He wants to build on existing ties with the South American customs union Mercosur, which Bolivia joined last year, as well as other Latin American neighbors. Quiroga, meanwhile, has called Mercosur a trade “prison.” (A common tariff hits goods entering the bloc.)
Paz and Quiroga have called for better economic relations with the United States, which has levied a 15 percent tariff on Bolivian goods under President Donald Trump. They have also both pledged to open the country’s lithium sector. Although Bolivia has the world’s largest known reserves of the critical mineral, little has been mined so far due to MAS’s heavy state control.
Paz says he has plans to develop lithium in partnership with firms from neighboring countries. Quiroga, by contrast, has vowed to create a free trade zone for international companies to invest and to focus on partnerships with Chile and Argentina. The candidates both say they would promote local processing and industrialization of lithium.
Upcoming Events
Friday, Aug. 22: A summit of Amazonian countries wraps up in Colombia.
Monday, Sept. 1: Guyana holds a general election.
Wednesday, Sept. 3: Jamaica holds a general election.
What We’re Following
U.S. warships near Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said he would deploy 4.5 million militia members across the country after reports this week that Trump had ordered U.S. warships to be dispatched off the coast of Venezuela. Venezuela’s militia is linked to the army and includes reservists and volunteer forces.
Though the United States hinted during Trump’s first term that it was open to using the U.S. military for regime change in Venezuela, it never moved forward with a deployment like this one, which reportedly includes several guided-missile destroyers.
The U.S. mission is designed to combat drug trafficking, Trump administration officials told news outlets this week. That’s a policy goal that the United States has generally conducted in partnership with local Latin American militaries rather than unilaterally. The ships could be patrolling for months.
Workers fix iron shuttering between foundation pillars at a construction site in Mexico City on July 15.Carl de Souza/AFP via Getty Images
Morena’s anti-poverty policies. A whopping 13.4 million people exited poverty during former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s six years in office, the country’s statistics agency said last week. López Obrador’s efforts to address poverty help explain the resilient popularity of his Morena party and his protégé, current President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took over last year.
One of Mexico’s main anti-poverty policies under López Obrador was a series of dramatic increases to the minimum wage. Many people in Mexico’s business sector initially opposed such changes because they feared it would bring about inflation, government economist Luis F. Munguía wrote in Phenomenal World this month.
No inflationary crisis occurred, in part because Mexico’s minimum wage was so low in the first place, Munguía wrote. Now, it ranks around the middle of Latin American countries when the minimum wage is calculated as a fraction of the average wage.
Funk out of context. A salacious Brazilian funk song has enjoyed a vibrant afterlife in an unexpected location: the Middle East and South Asia. International pop artists frequently sample Brazilian funk tracks. But they are often highly explicit—so it surprised some listeners that a little-known 2019 Brazilian track has become a fad from Turkey to Pakistan, played at weddings and soccer stadiums.
The song “Vidrado Em Você,” or “Hooked on You,” reached No. 1 on Spotify this year in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Singer Livinho was even invited to Turkey in May to perform at a party for soccer club Galatasaray, which boasts Turkey’s biggest fanbase.
Livinho’s new fans speak to the unpredictable nature of pop culture in the digital age. When he arrived at the airport, Turkish police recognized him because of his music, Livinho told Piauí.
Question of the Week
Which of the following countries had the highest minimum wage in 2024, adjusted for purchasing power parity?
That’s according to the International Labour Organization. The World Bank classifies Costa Rica as an upper-middle-income country.
FP’s Most Read This Week
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- Key Takeaways From Trump’s Meeting With Zelensky by Rishi Iyengar
- Trump’s State Department Cuts Are a Self-Inflicted Wound by John Dinkelman
In Focus: Panama’s Ports
Cranes and containers are seen along the Panama Canal in Panama City on June 24.Anna Moneymaker/AFP via Getty Images
The government body that manages the Panama Canal wants to get into the port business, its director announced last week. The Panama Canal Authority seeks to build two new ports as part of a seven-year investment plan, with one on the Atlantic side and one on the Pacific side of the waterway.
The announcement came after two existing ports near the canal became embroiled in a diplomatic crisis this year. Those ports are operated by a Hong Kong-based firm; after Trump criticized Chinese influence in the canal, the firm quickly announced plans to sell them to a U.S.-based asset manager, BlackRock, in early March.
In the months since, Panama has chilled its economic and political relations with China. President José Raúl Mulino has refrained from meeting with Chinese officials, and Panama sent low-level envoys to a China-Latin America summit in Beijing in May.
Mulino’s approach appears to have calmed Trump’s calls to “take back” the Panama Canal. But Mulino’s popularity has slumped. In May, Panamanians demonstrated against an agreement to allow U.S. troops to deploy near the canal. By June, more than 73 percent of Panamanians told pollsters that they disapproved of Mulino’s leadership.
Panama’s announcement of domestically owned ports represents an alternative response to U.S.-China competition: to control infrastructure yourself rather than relying on an outside power.
At least for now, the Panama Canal Authority feels confident enough to plan new investments. As of last month, the waterway was operating at full capacity as exporters rushed to get goods to the United States before Trump’s tariffs hit. The canal’s revenue is expected to slow in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in October.