[[{“value”:”
Programs in violence prevention, refugee services, and forest protection are in jeopardy.
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: How the impacts of the U.S. foreign aid freeze are being felt across Latin America, Emilia Pérez earns mixed reactions in Mexico, and Ecuador prepares for an election.
Have feedback? Hit reply to let me know your thoughts.
Trump’s Aid Freeze May Be an ‘Own Goal’
Though a war of words between U.S. President Donald Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro over deportations captured attention in Latin America last week, another U.S. measure fueled further uncertainty across the region and shook governments’ confidence in partnership with Washington.
Last Friday, the U.S. State Department ordered a temporary freeze on foreign assistance projects worldwide. A 90-day review will eventually restore funding to initiatives that make the United States “safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” the State Department said.
Waivers were announced Tuesday for “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” but the Trump administration might judge a vast range of U.S.-funded activities in Latin America to fall outside of that category, including programs to integrate refugees into host countries, protect rainforests, and promote transparency.
Soon after the freeze, the International Organization for Migration told Brazil that it was suspending work on a program that helps connect Venezuelan migrants in the country with jobs. The Colombian group Institute of Studies for Development and Peace, which monitors violence against rural communities, said that it would terminate the contracts of several team members.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately publicize a list of projects that are frozen or permitted. When asked by Foreign Policy to confirm whether certain categories of aid to Latin America have continued, a U.S. Agency for International Development spokesperson referred to the guideline about lifesaving assistance and noted a directive that funding could also cover migrant repatriation.
News of the aid freeze sounded alarms within the region’s humanitarian and nonprofit sectors. Some Latin American policymakers argued that the stoppage ran counter to Trump’s stated goals, such as reducing undocumented immigration to the United States.
“People who are coming to Brazil are not going to the U.S.,” Brazilian retired general and congressman Eduardo Pazuello told Folha de S. Paulo about the freeze on funding migrant integration. “If this door closes, they’ll have to look for another one.” Remigration has become common in Latin America in recent years when legal permissions and job opportunities dry up in receiving countries.
For paused programs that might eventually regain U.S. support, even the temporary funding gap will take a toll, said Eric Jacobstein, a former senior Biden administration official who worked on Latin America.
Jacobstein pointed to Trump’s previous aid cutoff for Central American countries in 2019. Trump resumed some of that aid after a few months, and former U.S. President Joe Biden added new assistance when he took office. Still, Jacobstein said, “There were long-standing repercussions: contracts canceled, staff fired. These things have real-world impacts.”
The type of programs currently paused include anti-gang units “that assist governments in the region in investigating and tracking leaders of [crime group] MS-13, who are directing criminal activities both in Central America and the United States,” Jacobstein added.
In a Jan. 22 statement, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the overhaul aims to make the State Department more “innovative, nimble, and focused,” stripped of “political and cultural causes that are divisive at home and deeply unpopular abroad.” Climate policies, in Rubio’s telling, “weaken America.”
Many Latin America analysts disagree. Trump’s aid freeze “is an own goal,” said Adam Isacson, of the Washington Office on Latin America. U.S.-funded programs that are less directly linked to crime and migration—such as U.S.-backed journalism outlets, support for ethnic minorities, and environmental protection—are good for U.S. standing in the region, he said.
“This is just a unilateral disarmament on the whole fight for hearts and minds in the region. China could hardly devise a better policy for increasing its influence,” Isacson said.
Writing in Foreign Policy on Tuesday, the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Oliver Stuenkel made a similar argument. “The more threatening Trump seems to Latin American governments, the more they will try to move closer to other major powers,” he wrote. Trump “has yet to provide … an explanation of how Latin America may benefit from U.S. foreign policy.”
The Week Ahead
Saturday, Feb. 1: Trump has threatened to impose blanket 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico on this date.
Monday, Feb. 3, to Friday, Feb. 7: Rubio is expected to visit countries in Central America and the Caribbean this week.
Sunday, Feb. 9: Ecuador holds presidential and legislative elections.
What We’re Following
Argentina at SCOTUS. Argentina saw a defeat at the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The case concerned the fate of money loaned to the country before its 2001 economic crash, largely by private bondholders, that was never paid back. Argentina had appealed a decision at a New York federal court, which the Supreme Court declined to hear.
Governments that default on debt amid a crisis often make pledges to restructure that debt in good faith, but Argentina did not follow through, creditors argued. By throwing out Argentina’s appeal, the Supreme Court effectively opened the door for creditors to seize around $300 million in assets held by Argentina at the New York Federal Reserve to be compensated.
Bondholders have often been unable to identify state assets that they can seize from cash-strapped Argentina. In the past, another group of creditors burned in the 2001 crisis briefly seized an Argentine navy ship that had docked in Ghana.
The Supreme Court ruling was a blow to Argentine President Javier Milei, who has sought to improve the country’s financial position to move forward with his own economic reforms.
Migration mayhem. On Wednesday, Trump revealed that he plans to house many of the undocumented immigrants that his administration detains at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He said that 30,000 spots will be prepared for “the worst criminal illegal aliens.” The United States leases land on Guantánamo Bay for a naval base, which includes a high-security prison.
But Guantánamo “is also home to a separate, lesser-known facility that the United States, under both Republican and Democratic administrations—including the Biden administration—has used since the mid-1990s to detain migrants intercepted at sea,” as FP’s John Haltiwanger reports.
Separately, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday revoked Biden’s last extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, which shielded them from deportation for an additional 18 months. The move could leave some Venezuelans with TPS vulnerable to deportation as early as April.
Noem did not immediately announce any changes for other groups that have TPS, such as Salvadorans.
A banner of the French film “Emilia Perez” is seen at the Diana cinema in Mexico City on Jan. 23.
A banner of the French film “Emilia Perez” is seen at the Diana cinema in Mexico City on Jan. 23.Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images
Reactions to Emilia Pérez. Latin America’s Golden Globes picks have now graduated to the Oscars. Brazil’s I’m Still Here and the Mexico-inspired Emilia Pérez each earned several nominations. Emilia Pérez has also now debuted in Mexican cinemas after being previously released on Netflix in countries such as the United States and Canada.
That has given Mexican viewers the chance to judge for themselves a film that was shot in France with few Mexican actors. The musical features a drug boss who fakes his death and then has gender-transition surgery; some early Mexican reviewers argued it overly relied on national stereotypes. Since its theatrical release, reactions to Emilia Pérez in Mexico have been mixed.
The movie has spawned pans and even some parodies. Some viewers said that it seemed an overly simplistic portrayal of violence in Mexico. But perhaps the most searing critique came in the form of a 30-minute parody by a Mexican filmmaker that depicted stereotypes of French people from beginning to end, which has more than 1.8 million views on YouTube.
In Focus: Ecuador’s Election
Supporters of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa gather near the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, on Jan. 5.
Supporters of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa gather near the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, on Jan. 5.Galo Paguay/AFP via Getty Images
Latin America’s first election of 2025 takes place next weekend. It has only been a year and a half since Ecuador last held a presidential vote; that was a snap contest triggered by former President Guillermo Lasso’s dissolution of congress when he faced an impeachment attempt.
The current contest is shaping up to look familiar. Although 16 candidates are running, polls suggest that only two are competitive: center-right President Daniel Noboa and leftist Luisa González, who hails from the political movement of former President Rafael Correa. The two also faced off in the 2023 runoff vote.
Polls again favor Noboa—which is noteworthy considering that he has presided over a security crisis, a spate of power outages, and an economy that grew sluggishly last year amid efforts to control Ecuador’s budget. Noboa’s government reported a 15 percent reduction in homicides in 2024; earlier last year, he declared a war on crime.
Continued economic strain helps explain González’s popularity. She says that her heavier-spending policies would lead to a return to economic growth, as in the Correa era. But some Ecuadorians remain disillusioned with Correa’s camp after corruption scandals and poor treatment of some Indigenous groups during his 10-year rule.
Noboa and González did not directly face off in a televised presidential debate last week because it was held in two shifts to accommodate all candidates. If neither of the two politicians wins more than 50 percent of the vote on Feb. 9, or wins more than 40 percent with a 10-point advantage, the contest will advance to a runoff.
We give you energy news and help invest in energy projects too, click here to learn more
The post Trump’s Aid Freeze Sounds Alarms in Latin America appeared first on Energy News Beat.
“}]]