Friday Reading List - 13 December 2024
Friday the 13th and twelve days until Christmas, but nobody has made a good horror movie about a partridge in a pear tree
Good morning.
On Monday, I was up in Maine to give a speech about Latin America to the Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations. The crowd was very focused on international affairs but less focused on Latin America, so this was a big-picture overview of some of the trends in the region. The speech was about 30 minutes followed by 30 minutes of Q&A. The audio is here if you want to listen.
This week’s World Politics Review column discussed the fact that Venezuela and Guyana did not go to war in 2024 despite all the hype early in the year. It also warned about factors that could place the issue back on the agenda in 2025.
This week’s newsletters:
Tuesday - Argentina - Ride the Milei hype wave at your own risk
Wednesday - Ecuador - Noboa and González fight for the lead among low-quality polling
Thursday - Six Stories - comments on Mexico, Brazil, Haiti, Venezuela and Paraguay
Thanks to everyone who sent good feedback on the newsletters this week and to everyone who pays for the upgraded subscription!
Reading List
Americas Migration Brief - 5 migration trends in the Americas to watch in 2025
Foreign Affairs - Latin America Is About to Become a Priority for U.S. Foreign Policy
InSight Crime - What Trump’s Hardline Immigration Policy Means for Crime on the US-Mexico Border
Bloomberg - Cartels Are Conglomerating. Governments Must Too.
Guardian - ‘Mother of all battles’: terror for Mexicans as war rages inside Sinaloa cartel
Crash Out Media - Exclusive: Inside the Cell Phone of a Cartel Plaza Boss
NYT - Chinese Carmakers Are Taking Mexico by Storm While Eyeing U.S.
WSJ - How Mexico’s Soap-Opera Tycoons Became the Country’s Trump Whisperers
AP - Organized crime gangs expanded into a third of cities in Brazil’s Amazon, report finds
Reuters - Brazil's left caught in the long shadow of ailing patriarch Lula
AP - Prominent human rights attorney quits international court over failure to prosecute Venezuela
Amando - Hasta el cuñado de Tarek El Aissami tuvo que ver con los pepinos de mar
WSJ - The Global War Machine Supplying Colombian Mercenaries to Fight in Sudan
Colombia Risk Analysis - What is the future of democracy in Colombia?
AP - Bolivia extradites former anti-narcotics chief to the US to face drug trafficking charges
Reuters - Argentina's Mr Market Javier Milei wants to make austerity great again
Cenital - Trump, aliado y salvador: ¿y si sale mal?
UNODC - 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report
Confidencial - Credicoop: The Ortega Regime’s “Slush Fund” for Evading Sanctions and “Laundering” Bancorp and Caruna Assets
AP - US officials to investigate labor and human rights abuses in Nicaragua
FT - El Salvador to scale back bitcoin dreams to seal $1.3bn IMF deal
CSIS - China’s Intelligence Footprint in Cuba: New Evidence and Implications for U.S. Security
WSJ - Haiti Gangs Kill More Than 180 Mostly Elderly People in Capital
Bloomberg - Trump’s Return Gives China a Shot at Being the Next Weather Superpower - I’m a bit fascinated by this concept of weather and climate data being a form of soft power.
Thanks for reading
I’m off to Bogota for a short business trip. Have a great weekend!
