Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe is convicted of bribery, the United States announces tariffs and sanctions on Brazil, and Mexico City marks the anniversary of Tenochtitlán’s founding.
U.S. Slams Conviction of Ex-Colombian Leader
On Monday, a court in Colombia found a former leader guilty of a crime for the first time in the country’s history.
Former President Álvaro Uribe was convicted of bribery and procedural fraud. Prosecutors argued that Uribe, who governed from 2002 to 2010, offered to pay a paramilitary member to retract testimony that he funded paramilitary groups in the 1990s. The case has stretched over 13 years.
Uribe is a tough-on-crime and conservative figure who has remained highly influential even after his time in office. He successfully boosted allies Juan Manuel Santos and Iván Duque to the presidency, although Santos would later diverge politically. Uribe’s right-wing party plans to run a candidate in next year’s presidential election.
Uribe’s conviction is major news in Colombia. But a subsequent social media statement from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio added an international element to the story. Rubio denied that Uribe had committed any crimes and wrote that “the weaponization of Colombia’s judicial branch by radical judges has now set a worrisome precedent.”
Uribe closely aligned Colombia with the United States while in office and is friendly with conservative political groups in the United States that are close to Rubio. Rubio’s post echoed the Trump administration’s recent criticism of the trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. In an editorial, Colombian newspaper El Espectador called Rubio’s statement “unacceptable interference by the United States in our justice system.”
This week’s ruling against Uribe was only at the circuit court level, and his lawyers said they will appeal. The case is a test of the integrity of Colombia’s judiciary.
“Judging an ex-president isn’t desirable, but it should not cause a cataclysm in a democracy. To the contrary: It is a symptom of institutional health,” journalist Vladimir Flórez wrote in El Tiempo. A 2023 Foreign Policy analysis found that at least 78 political leaders in democratic and semi-democratic countries have been indicted this century.
As with Brazil, the Trump administration’s dissatisfaction with Uribe’s trial could have consequences for Colombia’s relations with the United States.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on many Brazilian goods; the tariffs were detailed in an executive order that also complained about Bolsonaro’s trial. Meanwhile, U.S. officials are considering allowing anti-drug cooperation with Colombia to lapse ahead of an annual renewal deadline next month. The partnership sends tens of millions of dollars of financial aid to Bogotá each year.
Uribe’s conviction may also galvanize the Colombian right at a moment where left-wing President Gustavo Petro’s popularity is slumping. For months, Uribe has urged the country’s smattering of center-right to right parties to unite ahead of next year’s election.
Colombia’s centrist politicians have lately been reluctant to team up with Uribe, which is partly due to the legal charges against him. In the country’s most recent presidential election, the candidate who was the second-most popular after Petro was a little-known former mayor who styled himself as a political outsider—not a candidate from Uribe’s hard right.
Upcoming Events
Friday, Aug. 1: Panama assumes the one-month rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council.
Sunday, Aug. 17: Bolivia holds general elections.
What We’re Following
New U.S. tariffs. On Wednesday, the Trump administration followed through on its threat of 50 percent duties on Brazilian goods—with several exemptions. Dozens of products were left off the levy list, leaving the effective U.S. tariff rate on Brazil at around 31 percent, Goldman Sachs estimated.
U.S. buyers of Brazilian goods lobbied hard for the exemptions, which include orange juice, fertilizers, energy, and airplanes. Brazil is the source of more than half of the orange juice consumed in the United States, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
Washington also introduced financial sanctions on the Brazilian Supreme Court judge overseeing Bolsonaro’s trial, Alexandre de Moraes. The moves against Brazil are “the clearest example so far of [the Trump administration’s] autocracy promotion,” Oliver Stuenkel wrote in Foreign Policy this week, adding that they are “bound to reduce U.S. influence in the country.”
Mexico, for its part, dodged potential U.S. tariffs of 30 percent on Thursday after President Claudia Sheinbaum held a call with Trump. Currently, many goods not covered by an existing trade deal are subject to a 25 percent duty.
The higher rate will be postponed for 90 days, Trump said after the call. He added that he hoped to sign a trade deal with the country soon.
Travel diplomacy. Last week, Argentina announced greater business and tourism travel permissions with China. This week, it made a similar announcement with the United States: The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding that will jump-start Argentina’s reentry into the U.S. visa waiver program. The process could take some three years to complete.
Washington made the commitment in part because Argentines have the lowest U.S. visa overstay rate of any Latin American country. But the move is also a response to Argentine President Javier Milei’s friendly posture toward the United States, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
Argentina enjoyed visa-free travel to the United States until 2002, when it was halted amid a financial crisis in Argentina and post-9/11 U.S. border tightening. Chile is the only Latin American country that enjoys that privilege today.
Mexican Army soldiers and actors perform during the celebration of the 700-year anniversary of Tenochtitlán’s founding in Mexico City on July 26.Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images
Aztec anniversary. Last weekend, Mexico celebrated the 700-year anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlán, the Indigenous Aztec city that preceded Mexico City.
In the capital’s main square, hundreds of actors simulated Tenochtitlán’s founding. Aztec elders told historians that the location for the city was chosen when they saw an eagle sitting on a cactus and holding a snake, thought to be a divine sign. The image is depicted on Mexico’s flag.
Tenochtitlán was a city built on islands in the middle of a lake, split by canals, somewhat akin to Venice, Italy. Spanish colonists later drained the water, but the city center remains where the old Aztec temple was located.
Sheinbaum spoke at the ceremony, saying that “great civilizations” built Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards. She urged an end to anti-Indigenous racism.
Question of the Week
Which of the following cities was also an ancient Indigenous capital?
Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire.
FP’s Most Read This Week
- When the Threat Is Inside the White House by Tim Weiner
- The Great Dismantling by Suzanne Nossel
- Xi Jinping’s War on Dinner Is Hurting China’s Economy by Lizzi C. Lee
In Focus: New Migration Hotspots
Venezuelan refugees board a Brazilian Air Force plane, heading to Manaus and São Paulo, at Boa Vista International Airport in Brazil on May 4, 2018.Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images
It has been around six months since the Trump administration moved to shut down asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. In that time, some Latin American countries have tightened their own migration restrictions, while others have allowed an influx of people seeking work or protection.
A new report this week by the research group Mixed Migration Centre examined patterns from the year so far. In addition to Brazil, which has accepted some migrants who previously sought to build lives in the United States, people are looking to neighboring Paraguay. The country received 15,000 residency applications between January and May, a rate that is on track to break an annual record; top applicants included Brazilians, Argentines, and Bolivians.
Thousands of Ecuadorians have headed to Argentina, according to Ecuador’s Interior Ministry. It counted 7,754 Ecuadorians who left for Argentina between January and May and did not return. Ecuadorians migrated to the U.S.-Mexico border in large numbers at the end of former U.S. President Joe Biden’s term due to rising violence and economic strains in the country.
Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina all are part of a nine-country residency agreement between the customs union Mercosur and several other South American nations that eases movement between them.
Even so, individual countries have some legal space to tighten or loosen migration requirements. Ecuador and Argentina have upped restrictions in recent weeks. Uruguay went in the other direction, expanding access to a residency policy that largely benefits Cuban migrants.
It’s too early to say how Latin American migrants will impact the economies of their new host countries. But the United States’ loss could be another country’s gain. This week, former senior officials from the Biden administration wrote in a Brookings report that the expanded numbers of legal migrants to the United States after 2020 helped the country avert a post-pandemic recession.