Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: Claudia Sheinbaum is inaugurated as president of Mexico, European Union and Latin American officials convene for a conference in Brazil, and deforestation causes a parrot invasion in an Argentine town.
Sheinbaum Makes History in Mexico
On Tuesday, Claudia Sheinbaum took office as Mexico’s first female president. Addressing politicians and visiting dignitaries in the halls of Congress after her swearing-in, she pledged to uplift the country’s poor and spur economic growth.
Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, leaned into the historic nature of the moment. “It’s time for women,” she said, praising well-known activists who came before her as well as lesser-known “Indigenous women, domestic workers,” and “great-grandmothers who did not learn to read or write because school wasn’t for girls.” Her speech was interrupted with cheers of “presidenta!” from legislators.
Thanks to Mexico’s hard-won gender parity laws, female lawmakers pack public office at all levels in the country. The heads of Mexico’s central bank and Supreme Court are women, as are half of Congress and half of Sheinbaum’s presidential cabinet.
Sheinbaum faces a long list of challenges as president. Mexico’s economy is projected to grow a sluggish 1.2 percent next year. After endorsing a controversial judicial reform pushed by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum must also prove to critics that Mexico is not watering down the rule of law through what lawyer Emiliano Polo recently called “de-institutionalization” in Foreign Policy.
Yet Sheinbaum’s inaugural address and first few days in office have already highlighted signs of differences between her and López Obrador, whom she has been cautious not to criticize.
In a second speech on Tuesday in Mexico City’s Zócalo Square, Sheinbaum pledged to put the country on track to generate 45 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030—up from around 20 percent in 2023. By contrast, Mexico’s energy mix got dirtier in the final years of López Obrador’s tenure.
On Wednesday, Sheinbaum gave her first press briefing, which was shorter than those typical of López Obrador. When asked about violence in the state of Sinaloa, she referred to her new national security strategy, which focuses on intelligence-led strategies to combat crime and identifies 10 high-violence municipalities for initial efforts. López Obrador’s approach to crime, which he dubbed “hugs, not bullets,” reduced the capacity of police investigations.
Foreign policy is another area where Sheinbaum may stake out a different path from the former president. While the López Obrador administration did not make great efforts to deepen trade and investment with other Latin American countries, Mexican and Brazilian authorities said on Monday that they were already in talks about expanding an existing bilateral trade agreement.
Citing the fact that 83 percent of Mexico’s trade is currently with the United States, Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said, “I don’t see why we can’t grow trade with Brazil or with other countries, so we’re going to do it.” How Sheinbaum plans to approach Mexico’s all-important relationship with the United States will be more evident at a high-level CEO dialogue between the countries this month.
Still, there’s only so much planning Sheinbaum can do before November: The election of Republican nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump would undoubtedly pose a major challenge to bilateral ties, especially if Trump implemented the sky-high tariffs on Mexican goods that he has promised.
The Week Ahead
Friday, Oct. 4: G-20 energy ministers gather for talks in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.
Sunday, Oct. 6: Brazil holds municipal elections.
Tuesday, Oct. 8: The United Nations Human Rights Council is due to discuss Honduras and Haiti.
What We’re Following
Haiti mission update. On Monday, the U.N. Security Council voted to extend its endorsement of a Kenyan-led multinational security mission in Haiti for one year. The U.N. currently administers a trust fund for the mission but does not operate it. Both the United States and Haiti have called for the initiative to become an official U.N. peacekeeping mission.
This week, the United States and Ecuador drafted a resolution suggesting that change, but Russia and China did not support it. The resolution that did pass encourages countries to step up funding to the mission, which has been rolled out slowly. Only around 400 Kenyan police officers and two dozen Jamaican personnel are currently on the ground.
An aerial view of the concession area of a nickel mine run by the Compania Guatemalteca de Niquel, a subsidiary of Swiss Solway Investment Group, in El Estor, Guatemala, on Oct. 25, 2021.Carlos Alonzo/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. sanctions in Guatemala. U.S. anti-corruption sanctions against Russian-backed nickel mines in Guatemala plunged thousands of people into joblessness—leading some to then migrate toward the United States, the Washington Post reports.
The closure of the sanctioned mines caused an economic downturn in the town of El Estor that extended well beyond the mining sector. Some sanctions were eventually lifted, but the mines have not restarted operations.
The U.S. Treasury Department did not tell the Post what if any economic assessments were made before imposing the sanctions. In Africa, U.S. sanctions on the gold sector alone have affected around 400,000 workers, leaving them unemployed or pushing work underground, said Akpan Hogan Ekpo, a professor at Nigeria’s University of Uyo.
Argentina’s avian invasion. Deforestation on Argentina’s eastern Atlantic coast has driven forest-dwelling parrots to the town of Hilario Ascasubi, creating scenes that observers say are reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds. Parrots have caused electrical outages by biting cables and have left droppings across homes and public spaces.
Residents have tried to scare the birds away until they migrate for the annual breeding season—but to no avail; their numbers are reportedly growing as high as 10 parrots for each of the town’s 5,000 human residents. “We need to start to restore our natural environments,” biologist Daiana Lera told Reuters.
Question of the Week
Sheinbaum’s white inauguration dress was embroidered by Claudia Vásquez Aquino, an artisan of Indigenous descent from the state of Oaxaca. Which of the following famous Mexicans also hailed from there?
Juárez was Mexico’s first Indigenous president. He held office from 1858 to 1872.
FP’s Most Read This Week
- How Beirut Reacted to Nasrallah’s Death by Stefanie Glinski
- How Nasrallah Became One More Corrupt Warlord by Thanassis Cambanis
- China Says It Backs Iran. Does It? by James Palmer
In Focus: A New Chapter in EU-Latin America Ties
Secretary General of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jonatan Vseviov is seen in Ankara on June 13, 2022. Ali Balikci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
At the 21st Forte International Security Conference held in Rio de Janeiro last Friday, military, government, and civil society actors from Europe and Latin America weighed in on the fragile state of international cooperation.
The European Union upped its focus on Latin America under outgoing foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell, who is from Spain. Borrell, a Socialist, had an affinity with the region due to language as well as historical and ideological ties; several Latin American countries also have leftist or left-leaning governments.
In July 2023, the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States held their first summit in eight years, while Borrell endorsed a big—but so far unfruitful—effort to close a trade deal between the EU and Mercosur, a South American trade bloc.
Soon to take over from Borrell is former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who has little experience with Latin American affairs and a foreign-policy track record focused on countering Russian pressure. Latin American countries are unsure of what to expect from Kallas; some leaders in the region have taken softer stances than her on when and how Russia’s war in Ukraine should end.
At last Friday’s conference, Jonatan Vseviov, the secretary-general of Estonia’s foreign ministry, began his comments by warning against allowing Russia’s moves in Ukraine to open a “Pandora’s box” by normalizing territorial conquest. In an interview, he described a view of Europe-Latin America relations that went beyond the war, hailing cooperation on “cleaner industrial development,” trade, and the defense of multilateralism and international law.
“To tackle the challenges of today’s world, we need the partners and countries of Latin America who play an important role in global politics and global governance,” he said.
Vseviov called for further progress toward an EU-Mercosur trade deal, which has taken on new life in recent months after Brazil and Argentina overcame previous hang-ups. German participants at the conference backed the idea, too.
Reviving the long-stalled deal would show that “we are still able to speak to one other and come to agreement about crucial things for our future,” said German lawmaker Catarina dos Santos-Wintz. But those dreams may be frustrated by France, whose president criticized the current draft of the agreement on Wednesday.