Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: The United States strikes a boat near Venezuela, Guyana and Jamaica hold general elections, and Brazilians’ perceptions of China improve.
U.S. Strike Creates ‘Very Worrying Precedent’
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. military had struck a small boat in the Caribbean, killing 11 people onboard. The move was unprecedented in recent regional history, and legal experts flagged it as a suspected violation of international law.
The Trump administration claimed that the boat carried drug traffickers from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The U.S. military “wrongly applied wartime rules in what should have been a law-enforcement situation,” Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote in the Guardian. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the boat posed an “immediate threat” to the United States.
The prospect of direct U.S. military action against Latin American drug cartels has raised alarm across the region since February, when Trump began designating several groups as terrorist organizations—including Tren de Aragua.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has made several compromises with Trump, has repeatedly stressed that unilateral U.S. military operations in Mexico would cross a red line. Last week, following U.S. naval deployments to the Caribbean that preceded Tuesday’s attack, Sheinbaum said Mexico stood against foreign interventionism.
National sovereignty has become a frequent watchword in other Latin American countries—including Brazil and Colombia—as they have confronted steep U.S. tariff threats in recent months. So it was striking that most regional leaders’ responses to the Caribbean operation were relatively muted.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Sheinbaum did not immediately comment on the attack. On Wednesday, Sheinbaum met with Rubio in Mexico City and announced heightened cooperation against drug and gun smuggling. Aside from Venezuelan officials themselves, Colombian President Gustavo Petro was a rare voice denouncing the U.S. strike, writing on social media that it appeared to amount to “murder.”
Sheinbaum’s and Lula’s leftist parties have historically been friendly to Venezuela’s Socialist government. But their relations with Caracas became strained last year after strong evidence emerged that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had clung to power despite losing an election.
Sheinbaum and Lula’s silence on the U.S. strike this week reflects the distance that has opened between their countries and Venezuela since last year. (Petro has recently moved in the other direction, appointing a new foreign minister who has voiced support for Venezuela’s ruling party.) It may also reflect the fact that both Mexico and Brazil are in the middle of their own sensitive tariff negotiations with the United States.
Meanwhile, some Latin American countries that have cast themselves as friendly to Trump lauded the U.S. naval deployments in the Caribbean.
The leader of Trinidad and Tobago even praised the strike and said the United States should kill drug traffickers “violently.” Argentina, Paraguay, and Peru were among the countries that followed the United States in declaring Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles a terrorist group.
On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. mission against drug trafficking in the Caribbean wouldn’t “stop with just this strike” and that anyone designated as a “narcoterrorist” would face the same fate. The U.S. Congress has not authorized military force against Tren de Aragua or any other gangs that Trump recently designated as terrorist groups.
The warlike nature of the attack “sets a very worrying precedent,” Paulo Filho, a retired Brazilian army colonel and former military academy instructor, posted on social media.
Filho continued: “What is the limit to this type of action? Who imposes such limits? President Trump? Does the law give him this power? Would this order be given against a boat on the Mississippi River? What about in a Brazilian favela?”
Upcoming Events
Tuesday, Sept. 9, to Friday, Sept. 12: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s Supreme Court trial continues. He faces charges of planning a coup following a 2022 election loss.
Sunday, Sept. 7, to Wednesday, Sept. 10: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit Argentina.
What We’re Following
Trade talks. The European Union’s top leadership submitted a prospective trade deal with South American customs union Mercosur to the European Council for approval on Wednesday. The EU also announced draft plans for a mechanism to safeguard European agricultural products from a surge in imports. Farmers, especially in France, have vocally opposed the Mercosur deal.
France’s trade minister said on Wednesday that he was “reasonably optimistic” about the deal. On the EU side, ratification of the deal requires a majority vote in the European Parliament and the approval of at least 15 countries representing 65 percent of the EU population; within Mercosur, ratification occurs in national legislatures.
In more provisional but still noteworthy news, Paraguay and Uruguay are in talks with around eight other countries—including Singapore and the United Arab Emirates—to join a trade facilitation agreement, the Financial Times reported last week. A step below a formal deal, the agreement would aim to grow commerce among the countries through confidence-boosting measures including the adoption of digital trade documents.
Beijing’s image bump. The downturn in Brazil-U.S. relations since Trump took office has had consequences for the United States’ image in Latin America’s largest country. This year, Brazilians’ views of the United States have turned more negative, while their perceptions of China have become more positive, pollster Quaest found in a study released last week.
Between October 2024 and August, the number of Brazilians with an unfavorable view of the United States jumped from 24 to 48 percent, while the level with a favorable view of China increased from 38 to 49 percent.
It is not the only poll to detect improvements in Brazilians’ perception of China. A Pew Research Center survey that ran between January and late April found that 51 percent of Brazilians had a favorable view of China, up from 45 percent in 2024. Most of the Pew fieldwork was done before Trump announced steep tariffs on countries around the world in early April.
An aerial view of the San Juan neighborhood in Quito, Ecuador, on June 25.Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images
Portraits of Quito. Half-built buildings, flower vendors, and people running from the rain are among the subjects of a series of photo essays on Ecuadorian news site GK. The series celebrates the poetry of everyday life in Quito and will mark one year in publication next month. Its 44 photo collections offer a contemplative look at a city that is more often in the news for political polarization and gang violence.
Photographers Nicole Moscoso Vergara and José María León Cabrera’s images tell economic and political stories about the city, too. Quito’s ubiquitous abandoned buildings reflect cycles of economic booms and busts, and flowers are one of the country’s top exports.
Being caught in the rain, meanwhile, is a great equalizer in the city’s unpredictable mountain climate. The editors quote famous 18th-century Ecuadorian poet Juan Bautista Aguirre, who wrote that the Quito sky alternates between offering “blessings” and acting as a thief.
Question of the Week
Ecuador is the world’s third-largest exporter of cut flowers. Which type accounts for the majority of its exports?
The country’s volcanic soil and long periods of sunlight—due to its location on the equator—make it ideal for flower cultivation.
FP’s Most Read This Week
- So You Want to Work in International Affairs by Luke Coffey
- Trump’s Economic Policy Is More Radical Than You Think by Howard W. French
- How Fear Killed Liberalism by Stephen M. Walt
In Focus: Caribbean Elections
Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and his wife, Arya Ali, gesture to media after voting at a polling station during general elections in Leonora, Guyana, on Sept. 1.Keno George/AFP via Getty Images
Incumbent leaders in Guyana and Jamaica were victorious in general elections this week. Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness are each set for another term in office.
Guyana’s vote occurred Monday, while Jamaica’s was on Wednesday. According to preliminary results from both elections, Guyana’s ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) earned more than twice the number of votes of its nearest rival. The Jamaica Labour Party won around 34 of 63 available legislative seats.
In Guyana, debate ahead of the election focused on whether the country was making the best use of its recent oil windfall. The government’s budget has quadrupled since production began in 2019, but by 2024, 58 percent of Guyanese were still living in poverty, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.
The PPP/C touted new investments in Guyana’s roads, schools, and hospitals, while the opposition claimed that the PPP/C had diverted some funds to benefit party allies. The PPP/C denies the allegations.
In Jamaica, where security is a major issue for voters, the country is on track to record its lowest homicide rate in more than 20 years. Holness has invested in police training and equipment and emphasized intelligence-gathering.
“The decline in Jamaica’s murder rate is a direct result of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s strategic focus on dismantling organized crime since he took office,” the Caribbean Policy Research Institute’s Diana Thorburn wrote in Foreign Policy this week.