Welcome again to Overseas Coverage’s Latin America Temporary, and pleased holidays.
This week, we’re trying again on the largest tales of the 12 months, together with the U.S. revival of the Monroe Doctrine, the United Nations local weather summit in Brazil, and international recognition for Venezuela’s pro-democracy motion.
The most important single occasion to have an effect on Latin American overseas coverage this 12 months was U.S. President Donald Trump’s January inauguration. Beneath his watch, the USA has launched an aggressive technique to reshape the Western Hemisphere.
The brand new U.S. Nationwide Safety Technique this month made express what Latin American international locations skilled all year long. Washington is placing assets towards efforts to cease migration, levying tariffs on international locations that it says have unfair commerce practices, deploying army belongings towards alleged drug trafficking, and rewarding political allies.
The USA has additionally minimize overseas assist and aimed to punish political adversaries.
Latin American leaders responded in quite a lot of methods. Some, resembling Colombian President Gustavo Petro, pushed again vehemently and skilled additional U.S. retaliation. Others had been extra reasonable, together with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who supplied compromises on some—however not all—fronts.
And some leaders embraced Trump: Argentine President Javier Milei received a whopping $20 billion help bundle for the peso that helped increase his get together in midterm elections.
The USA repeatedly intervened in Latin American international locations’ home politics and threatened their economies. This performed out most prominently in Brazil, the place Washington tried to meddle within the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally.
However for essentially the most half, the politically divided area didn’t reply to Trump with a united voice. Deportation offers, in addition to responses to tariffs and threats surrounding strategic belongings such because the Panama Canal, had been largely performed bilaterally.
One exception was the March election of Surinamese politician Albert Ramdin to steer the Group of American States (OAS). Although Ramdin was not explicitly anti-Trump, his opponent had signaled a robust alignment with the White Home.
After Washington had threatened to tug help from the OAS within the first half of the 12 months, Ramdin labored to unite all OAS members, together with the USA, round a typical purpose: strengthening the worldwide response to Haiti’s political disaster. The U.N. Safety Council went on to approve the OAS-backed plan in September.
Latin American international locations have additionally responded to Trump’s insurance policies by searching for to develop ties with different nations, together with on commerce. A lot of this diversification centered on Asia, going past simply deepening relations with China.
Peru signed a commerce cope with Indonesia. Chile held 4 rounds of talks towards a free commerce cope with India. South American bloc Mercosur signed a commerce cope with the four-country grouping of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, in addition to a strategic partnership settlement with Japan.
Mexico is getting ready to host the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation convention in 2028 and in current months stepped up commerce coordination with Canada. Each international locations are events to a North American commerce settlement with the USA with an unsure future underneath Trump.
Within the 12 months by way of September, Canada grew as an export vacation spot for Mexican items. Within the 12 months by way of November, China equally grew as an export vacation spot for Brazil.
Maybe most importantly, Latin America and the Caribbean are ending out the 12 months with round 2.4 p.c GDP progress—largely in line with regional progress because the COVID-19 pandemic and forward of the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) projection in April that the area’s 2025 progress could be a mere 2 p.c.
When the IMF raised its forecast for the area in October, officers on the fund cited a number of elements, certainly one of which was that Latin American international locations maintained sturdy exports to commerce companions the world over.
Venezuelan migrants who had been imprisoned in El Salvador get off a airplane at Simón Bolivar Worldwide Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on July 18.Federico Parra/AFP by way of Getty Photos
The dramatic U.S. crackdown on immigration hit Latin People onerous this 12 months. These measures included the efficient finish to the asylum course of on the U.S.-Mexico border, the termination of protections from deportation for sure Latin People inside the USA, and new journey bans that prolonged to the relations of U.S. authorized everlasting residents.
The USA rewarded international locations that cooperated with its insurance policies, resembling El Salvador, which imprisoned folks whose deportations are being challenged in U.S. courts. It’s doubtless that Venezuela’s continued acceptance of U.S. deportees is a bargaining chip in its dramatic standoff with the USA. In the meantime, resulting from U.S. assist cuts, international locations resembling Mexico and Colombia are responding to an inflow of migrant returnees with out monetary help from the USA.
Amid these shifts, 4 international locations within the Caribbean Group went towards the grain and liberalized a number of the bloc’s inside migration permissions. Officers acknowledged regional anti-migrant sentiment however mentioned economics and the necessity for staff spoke louder.
This 12 months, Colombia chaired an additional time session of U.N. biodiversity talks that started final 12 months, and Brazil hosted the U.N. local weather convention often known as COP30. Regardless of moments the place the summits appeared gridlocked or prone to breaking down, each ended with progress.
On the biodiversity convention, international locations agreed to steps together with a street map to mobilize $200 billion per 12 months by 2030 to guard nature. At COP30, international locations agreed to strikes together with tripling the funds obtainable for adaptation finance by 2035.
Colombia and Brazil had been additionally protagonists in a push at COP30 to require international locations to make plans for shifting away from financial dependence on fossil fuels. Although the difficulty was not codified within the summit’s remaining settlement, international locations pledged to advance it within the coming months. Colombia and the Netherlands are internet hosting a world convention on the matter in April.
Venezuelan opposition chief and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize recipient María Corina Machado attends a press convention in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 11.Rune Hellestad/Getty Photos
The Nobel Peace Prize returned to Latin America this 12 months, with María Corina Machado acknowledged for main the Venezuelan opposition by way of final 12 months’s elections and her ongoing work towards democratization within the nation. Beneath the management of Machado and her allies, Venezuela’s pro-democracy motion has demonstrated tenacity and tact within the face of repression.
This 12 months, Machado has additionally managed a tough balancing act because the Trump administration makes use of more and more aggressive techniques to use strain on the authoritarian authorities of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The USA has broadcast readiness for army motion towards the nation.
That may be a step too far for some members of the opposition—and it’s seen with alarm by regional neighbors which have spoken out towards Trump’s lethal strikes on alleged drug boats that started in September. Washington has not produced particular particulars in regards to the greater than 100 folks it has killed in such strikes within the area this 12 months.
Latin American music had one other sturdy 12 months, with reggaeton artist Unhealthy Bunny dethroning Taylor Swift as essentially the most streamed artist of 2025 on Spotify.
So, too, did Latin American movie and tv. Argentina’s The Eternaut, an adaptation of a beloved sci-fi comedian ebook, turned Netflix’s most streamed non-English-language sequence quickly after its launch in April.
On the Venice Movie Competition, Ecuador’s The Ivy and Mexico’s On the Highway received awards within the Horizons part for brand spanking new developments in world cinema. Brazil’s I’m Nonetheless Right here received a Golden Globe for greatest feminine actor in a drama and an Academy Award for greatest worldwide movie—the first-ever Brazilian movie to take action.
Extra lately, one other Brazilian movie, additionally in regards to the nation’s 1964-85 army dictatorship, has attracted buzz on the pageant circuit. The Secret Agent is now nominated for 3 Golden Globes and shortlisted for the Oscars.
In Overseas Coverage final week, Lucas Iberico Lozada wrote that although the 2 movies differ tonally—I’m Nonetheless Right here is stately, whereas The Secret Agent is zany—each juxtapose “the menace and paranoia of the dictatorship with the sexual and psychedelic liberation of Brazil’s revolutionary tropicália cultural motion.”
In addition they “supply up a extra nuanced portrait of authoritarianism than the standard Hollywood fare,” Iberico Lozada wrote.
