South America

The commercial and geopolitical interdependence between China and Latin America makes any U.S. claim to promote a "decoupling" between them impractical. Digital technologies and critical minerals will be in the crosshairs of the North American National Security Strategy  ...

Trade agreements, in earlier eras, were instruments of exchange. In the present one, they have become instruments of order. The EU–Mercosur agreement, after more than two decades of negotiation, reaches a decisive moment—not merely as a framework for tariff reduction, but as a mechanism through which competing visions of economic organization are projected and contested. ...

We are now in the fifth week since the U.S. airstrike that killed top leaders of the Iranian regime, initiating a war involving the United States and Israel against the country. More than a month of mutual bombardments between Iran and Israel has ensued, extending to other Persian Gulf nations, U.S. military installations—and even Cyprus. From a global perspective, the impact has stemmed primarily from disruptions to regional production of goods and the blockade of the Strait of Hor ...

Le premier sommet des BRICS, tenu à l’initiative de la Russie en 2009, sera suivi de 16 autres, le dernier étant celui de Rio dont les travaux se sont déroulés les 6 et 7 juillet 2025. Jusqu’en 2022, un seul élargissement est intervenu, celui accueillant l’Afrique du Sud, transformant les BRIC en BRICS. À partir de 2023, en revanche, trois sommets, ceux de 2023, 2024 et 2025, vont se solder par la transformation des BRICS en BRICS+5, accueillant 5 nouveaux pays membres, en ...

Latin America has had to deal with expansionist agendas of great powers since its independence. To do so, different leaders from the region have adopted different policies. Some have sought to reinforce their relations with the U.S. whereas others mistrusted their big neighbor from the North and tried to multiply their partnerships with other parties in order to keep their autonomy. To this respect, the central role played by U.S.-Latin American relations, epitomized by the1823 Monr ...

Divergent regulatory regimes for data, driven by different motivations, ranging from privacy protection in the European Union to information control in China, could eventually produce distinctively different, and possibly contradictory, bodies of data. Artificial-intelligence models trained on those datasets could produce differing and possibly even conflicting outputs. To the extent that AI outputs start to shape human perception and to influence decisions, in governments and ...

The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro caused international astonishment, raising questions about respect for international law. And, quite logically, the operation led to numerous analyses, both of the political, security and geostrategic arguments put forward by Washington, and of the underlying ambitions behind this decision, which has no real precedent in recent history. In addition to the fight against narco-trafficking, it was of course the oil issue that came first ...

L’arrestation du président vénézuélien Nicolàs Maduro a suscité la sidération internationale en interrogeant sur le respect du droit international ; puis, fort logiquement, cette opération a conduit à maintes analyses tant sur les arguments politiques, sécuritaires et géostratégiques avancés par Washington que sur les ambitions sous-jacentes ayant présidé à cette décision sans réel précédent dans l’histoire récente. Outre la lutte contre le narcotrafic, c’est bien évidemment la ...

This Opinion was originally published by the Hanns Seidel Stiftung on January 19th, 2026. The author of this opinion, Gabriela Keseberg Dávalos, is a 2013 alumna of the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Program. The signing of the EU–Mercosur agreement is a small geopolitical miracle. Signed on 17 January 2026 in Paraguay, it arrives at a moment when Europe is unmistakably being cast aside by the United States. Meanwhile Latin America, and with it, the Mer ...

The post-1945 international order, an architecture born of war-weariness and colonial twilight, is now a majestic but empty shell. Its foundational promise—a universal system of rules administered impartially—has been hollowed out by decades of selective enforcement, instrumentalized law, and a chasm between the rhetorical ideals of its custodians and their geopolitical practice. This is not a temporary dysfunction, but a systemic failure of legitimacy. From the invasion of Iraq und ...

The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean—the most significant since the Cuban Missile Crisis—comes at a moment when a new world order is taking shape, its contours still unclear, and in which the U.S. seeks to be more assertive in the Western Hemisphere. This disposition toward South America and the Caribbean was underscored by the recent publication of the new U.S. National Security Strategy, in which the Monroe Doctrine is explicitly invoked. This Policy Brief situates the devel ...

This report addresses the business environment in Brazil as one of the determinants responsible for the weak evolution of productivity in recent decades. After addressing this productivity performance, we define what constitutes the business environment, using as a reference the three ways in which the World Bank has been addressing the subject.Next, we highlight how the business environment affects productivity in a country. Finally, we review some recent reforms in the country's b ...

The election of Javier Milei as President of Argentina in 2023 created high expectations: how likely was he to succeed in transforming Argentina as he had promised? Would he be able to enforce his economic policies despite his limited backing in the legislature? Could he maintain the strong popular support that brought him to power in the face of the harsh reforms he was committed to implementing? And ultimately, would he be able to neutralize Peronism in Argentina and launch a new ...

This paper analyzes the impact of the BRICS+ Summit of July 2025 on the evolution of the bloc, as well as on the relationship between the bloc and the U.S. under President Trump. It also tackles the aftermath of the summit and in particular the impact it had in the souring of Brazil-U.S. relations. Before the paper analyzes the impact of BRICS+ on Morocco, it goes over the consequences of the events that resulted from the summit on the Brazilian political sphere.  ...

In 2019 - well before the onslaught of COVID-19 and the wars in Europe and the Middle East - the central thesis of a policy paper by this author, analyzing the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean, characterized it as one of missed opportunity due to the lack of consistent, meaningful engagement between the two regions - despite the relationship’s special significance given their shared history. Underinvested: The Caribbean African Relationship (PCNS 2019) chronicled the li ...

An Executive Order issued on July 30 by President Donald Trump hiked United States tariffs on imports from Brazil by 40%, in addition to the 10% established on April 2—the so-called ‘Liberation Day’ when Trump set out ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on countries around the world.The decree came with a long list of exemptions for Brazilian exports. For a number of product lines, the 10% April 2 tariff will continue to apply. These include air transport equipment, orange juice, furniture, fuel, ...

Cet article a été publié initialement sur lopinion.fr"Afrique/Europe : il faut repolitiser pour mieux coopérer", selon Karim el Aynaoui, président Exécutif Policy Center for the New South ...

This article was written by an external contributor. The author is not affiliated with the Policy Center for the New South, and the views expressed herein are solely those of the author. The Liberal International Order (LIO), established in the aftermath of WWII, is now facing unprecedented challenges. Though the main proponent of this same Order, the United States under Donald Trump has turned against traditional allies and is actively seeking to undermine the v ...

This paper aims to demonstrate how certain transformations in the international economy since the 1980s¾notably the globalization of firms and industries¾combined with a set of domestic challenges, disrupted the path of industrial and technological development that Brazil had pursued since the 1930s. In essence, growth strategies based on the scale of the domestic market ceased to be effective. The innovation and economic challenges the country now faces cannot be addressed without ...

A country's areas of strategic interest are defined by its values, principles, and expectations. In this context, unprecedented opportunities are emerging for two key Atlantic States—Brazil and Morocco—to forge a mutually beneficial partnership. This premise underscores the deep-rooted social and geohistorical connections between both sides of the Atlantic. Recognizing this potential suggests that building stronger Atlantic bonds could advance shared interests, grounded in an evolvi ...

Latin America was barely mentioned in US President Donald Trump’s 2024 electoral campaign. Expectations were that President Trump would remain uninterested in Latin America, while Latin America would show pragmatism and restraint in its dealings with him. However, surprisingly, Latin American has been at the forefront of Trump’s agenda since his re-election. Aside from migration, which was already prominent in Trump’s electoral campaign, although as an internal issue, there is also ...

The European Union’s (EU) Global Gateway initiative, established to enhance global connectivity and sustainable infrastructure, offers a significant opportunity to align with Africa’s development goals under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). However, the challenge lies in whether the Global Gateway can effectively complement AfCFTA’s objectives of boosting intra-African trade and industrialization by addressing critical infrastructure gaps. This paper examines how th ...

The G20 Summit held in November 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, under the Brazilian G20 presidency, showed what decentering from the Western agenda and Western domination of world politics could mean. The summit’s main achievement was the constitution of an Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, with a membership of, and funds mobilized from, not only all G20 members, but also from more than 60 other countries. In fact, what the West showed was discomfort at not having its agenda, its ...

Developments in Venezuela since the presidential election of July 28, 2024, epitomize the fault lines of contemporary world politics. The elections failed to clarify the political situation in Venezuela. Instead, they complicated it. The official electoral authority declared Mr. Nicolás Maduro the official winner of the elections, with a narrow but comfortable margin, while the opposition also declared its candidate, Mr. Edmundo González Urrutia, the legitimate winner of the elect ...

This study quantifies the contributions of Brazil’s blue economy and explores the economic interdependence between coastal and hinterland regions through interregional linkages. Employing a multi-level approach, we analyze municipality and state-level data on oceanrelated activities. Using an interstate input-output model, we estimate the value chains of the blue economy, offering a deeper understanding of its systemic impacts. This study addresses gaps in national, regional, and lo ...

Millions are severely malnourished in a world where there is enough for all. Hunger and malnutrition stalk more than 3.1 billion people. Yet, widespread hunger in all its forms is a problem which has been largely solved at the macro level in today’s high-income, industrialized countries. Their “escape from hunger and premature death” is a fairly recent phenomenon. It began around 300 years ago, continued for most of the 20th century and is still ongoing today. The problems faced by ...

Venezuela holds crucial presidential elections on July 28. The results might substantially alter the political system in that country, since, for the first time since 1998, the opposition candidate has a clear chance of winning the vote. Why has the opposition been unable to win elections in that country for almost three decades now? And why is it on the verge of winning elections this time? What is the international dimension of this electoral process? How might it impact Morocco? ...

In January 2024, gunmen invaded a TV studio in Ecuador, seized journalists and staff as hostages, and interrupted the regular programs. That episode highlighted the rise of violence in Ecuador, a country that was until very recently calm and peaceful. In this paper, I place the rise of violence in Ecuador within the context of what some refer to as the endemic violence in Latin America. I explore its risks, consequences, and the ways it could be tackled. I also emphasize some of the ...

This paper was originally published in nature.com   Deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon remains a challenge due to its detrimental effects on ecosystems and the associated increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Such deforestation can be driven by foreign demand in terms of international exports, as well as domestic demand. However, most efforts to quantify the associations between consumer markets and deforestation mainly consider international exports rather than dome ...

This paper examines Brazil's economic growth patterns over the last three decades and identifies a missed opportunity for the country to attain high-income status by the mid-2010s. Instead, Brazil has suffered from low productivity growth, and has made little progress in transforming its production and export structures in favor of higher value-added activities. This premature de-industrialization makes it challenging for Brazil to transition from its long- standing upper-middle-inc ...

- Brazil’s latest tax reform will replace five taxes on consumption with one single VAT to promote greater efficiency and sectoral isonomy. - Forecasts produced by a detailed ICGE model point to sizeable gains in GDP exceeding 4% in the long run, even if spatially unequal. - Exceptions to the rules reduce potential benefits in efficiency terms. - Policies meant to promote regional development and close the gap deepened by the reform partially achieve their goal at the expense of ...

This Paper was originally published on onlinelibrary.wiley.com   This study aims to shed new empirical light on the importance of the wage curve in a developing economy. The main contribution to the empirical literature is related to the analysis being conducted at different regional levels of a developing economy. This indicates that municipal-level data seems to be more adequate for wage curve evaluation, and that spatial dependency should be considered to adequately c ...

The Brazilian economy is stuck in a so-called middle-income trap—growth that stalled long before Brazil caught up with the living standards of the highly industrialized countries. After exhibiting a stellar performance in the decades before the 1980s, the economy has since been unable to sustain growth for long periods. The predicament can be summarized using a medical analogy: Brazil has been suffering from both productivity anemia and public sector bloat. On the one hand, it hasn ...

The surprising victory of Javier Milei, the unconventional ‘anarcho-capitalist’ candidate, in the August primaries ahead of Argentina’s October 2023 general election, can be largely credited to his commitment to dollarize the Argentine economy, a move perceived as the ultimate solution to bring an end to the nation's economic turmoil. The potential shift from the local currency to the dollar has sparked concerns about Argentina's bilateral currency swap line with China. This swap l ...

Marianna Albuquerque and Santiago Theoduloz are 2022 alumni of Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program. Learn more about Marianna here and Santiago here.  From our experience of participating in the ADEL Program and the Atlantic Dialogues in 2022, we learned that the Atlantic countries have the potential to improve their economies through regional coordination. This led us to reflect on how many opportunities the countries from the wider Atlantic missed ...

This Paper was originally published on agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com   Water plays a central role in several socioeconomic and environmental nexuses. Faced with various anthropogenic pressures that act as water scarcity drivers and knowing that the unavailability of water can be a limiting factor for economic development, there is an urgent need for the design and evaluation of economic instruments that help in the management of water resources. This article presents a ...

This report is part of a partnership between the Policy Center for the New South and the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.   The creative economy is a constantly evolving activity, driven by the cultural industries, which make up a large and interconnected sector. Arts and culture impact the creative economy in major areas: education, innovation, collaboration, and clustering. The cultural industries are one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the global economy. This sect ...

This Book was originally published on springer.com   This book examines regional structural challenges on Colombia’s path to sustainable social cohesion and regionally inclusive growth. These challenges can be divided into three main groups: (i) those that focus on competitiveness and the supply side, (ii) those that arise from critical business cycle issues on the demand side, and (iii) those concerning environmental sustainability, employment and social inclusion.&nbsp ...

At the August 22-24 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa said they wanted to use more of their national currencies for cross-border payments, which are currently dominated by the U.S. dollar and other global convertible currencies. Like China and the other BRICS, several other countries have also sought to develop alternative external payment mechanisms. Pairs of countries have agreed to settle commercial and financial transactio ...

Le 22-24 août 2023, à Johannesburg, en Afrique du Sud, se réunit le 15ème sommet des BRICS. Ce sommet est particulièrement intéressant pour deux raisons : il est, d’abord, le premier sommet en présentiel depuis la pandémie de la Covid, et en pleine guerre russo-ukrainienne qui perdure, et il l’est, ensuite, du fait de son ordre du jour consacré en partie à l’adhésion de nouveaux pays et à l’instauration d’une éventuelle monnaie commune. L’objet de cette étude lui est consacré. Rappe ...

This policy brief was originally published on T20 India website   Supportive policies for tropical agriculture have helped millions of small-scale farmers in Brazil step out of poverty by improving government capacity to design legal frameworks to strengthen agricultural production and family farming. Scientific and technological developments have enabled small-scale Brazilian farmers to produce food while considering local tropical conditions. In contrast, tr ...

L’océan Atlantique, dans sa partie sud, qui demeure un espace géopolitique inexploité, peut servir de nouvelle plateforme de dialogue entre le Nord et le Sud. Le Royaume du Maroc, stratégiquement placé dans cet espace, peut exploiter sa façade atlantique afin d’insuffler une nouvelle dynamique à sa relation avec l’Amérique latine pour le renforcement des échanges politiques et économiques dans le sud global. Les relations entre le Maroc et les pays de l’Amérique latine c ...

This paper aims to investigate the impact of an inflation targeting framework adoption by the central bank, on the reduction of public debt ratios in emerging countries, through the potential discipline-enhancing effect of inflation targeting on the conduct of fiscal policy in general. The impact evaluation method used is the Propensity Score Matching (PSM), which allows the evaluation of the treatment effect of inflation targeting on fiscal discipline, in terms of public debt reduc ...

In April 2007, on my first day as vice president at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington D.C., I received an informal visit from Thomas E. Lovejoy, a celebrated American environmental scientist who died last year. He spoke to me of a “turning point” in deforestation in the Amazon, beyond which the consequences would be irreversible. He was interested in knowing how the IDB could help in the fight against deforestation. Thomas and the Brazilian environmental scien ...

China’s rate of economic growth has slowed. Chinese GDP ended 2022 up 3%, but this was the lowest growth rate in the last 40 years, except for 2020, the first year of the pandemic. In addition to problems in its real-estate sector, China’s severe ‘COVID zero’ confinement policy is one of the causes. The post-‘COVID zero’ reopening of the Chinese economy has improved its growth outlook. In the International Monetary Fund’s annual report on China, published in early February 2023, 5. ...

L’objectif de ce papier est d’essayer d’examiner si l’implémentation du cadre de ciblage de l’inflation par la banque centrale, permet une réduction de la dette publique dans les pays émergents, à travers l'effet disciplinant du ciblage sur la conduite de la politique budgétaire en général. Pour ce faire, la méthode d’évaluation d’impact utilisée est l’appariement par score de propension ou Propensity Score Matching (PSM), qui permet l’évaluation de l’effet de traitement ...

This ninth edition of “Atlantic Currents” appears in an international context marked predominantly by a ten month-war between Russia and Nato members that began February 2022. The war is affecting not only the European and American member States directly and actively involved in an unprecedented manner, but more importantly the countries of the global South that have suffered collateral damage. Indeed, the nations of the world were barely out of the most painful and costly phase o ...

The pandemic has hit Latin America hard, and its economic recovery has been slower than in other regions. In addition to the legacy of higher public indebtedness, the pandemic left scars on the labor market and the human capital formation of future workers. The COVID-19 crisis has receded in Latin America but has left a significant toll. Reported deaths from the pandemic are currently low and converging to global levels. The average excess mortality during the pandemic was among t ...

The Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Alumni (ADEL) Portraits are a series of journalistic insights that delve into the stories and backgrounds of impactful young leaders of the ADEL community, now 350 alumni strong. These portraits are more than a biography as they capture the motives, success stories, career shifts, and vision behind each emerging leader’s pursuit of positive impact. From Morocco to South Africa, Germany to Canada, Brazil and the United States, these young leade ...

This Paper was originally published on sciencedirect.com   This study aims to assess the nature and the magnitude of the productive links of consumer operations made possible by the revenue generated by ride-hailing. We seek to map the interdependencies established between the consumption decisions of drivers that use the 99 app, a leading e-hailing provider, with other sectors and segments of the Brazilian economy. The dataset comprises operational information ...

Last March, a proposal of dollarizing Argentina’s economy arrived at its Congress. We summarize here the potential consequences of such a route in case the bill succeeds in getting approval. First, we point out the broad implications of dollarizing an economy. Then, we set out some cases of Latin American experiences with dollarization. Finally, we address the case of Argentina. The main potential benefit of dollarization would be elimination of domestic inflation, but at a very hi ...

The pros and the cons of regional market integration are well exemplified by the experience of Uruguay, a small, open economy in MERCOSUR, which is a highly protectionist trade bloc, dominated by Argentina and Brazil. With access to such large markets, Uruguay did raise its growth rate during the first decade of MERCOSUR, the 1990s. However, market integration as implemented in MERCOSUR was also problematic in that Uruguay suffered from the high protectionism of Argentina in the for ...

The contrast between Argentina’s rich natural resource endowment and its poor economic performance has been the focus of much socio-political and economic analysis. When it created MERCOSUR with its immediate neighbors, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay in 1991, it had access to a trading bloc with a combined GDP of US$ 419 trillion (2019), making it the 5th largest economy in the world. Joining the MERCOSUR was a break from its protectionist past. But it did not last. Argentina greatl ...

On January 28, both Argentina’s government and the International Monetary Fund staff made announcements about an understanding on new support program. Meanwhile, in addition to the payment of an amortization due on January 28, another payment is also expected in the first week of February. Both payments relate to the previous package, approved in 2018 and substantially disbursed thereafter. Non-payment could sour relations at a critical moment for a new program to be approved by the ...

Après une longue période de prix atones, le café a vu ses cours se raffermir au cours de l’année 2020 et du premier trimestre 2021, avant de flamber durant l’été et l’automne. Il renouait alors avec des plus hauts niveaux depuis 2011, date de la fin du dernier « super-cycle des matières premières (2002-2011). Tandis que la demande progresse structurellement, l’offre s’est repliée, pénalisée par une conjonction de facteurs climatiques, géopolitiques et, bien évidemment, sanitaires en ...

This paper analyses the regional economic differences in the impact of lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 ordered by Colombia’s national gov­ernment. Using an input-output model, we estimate regional economic losses by extracting a group of formal and informal workers from different sectors of the economy. Results show regional differences in the impact of lockdown measures on their labour markets, local economies, and productive sectors. We also find that periphera ...

As COVID-19-related health indicators improve after restrictive measures were set in place in different parts of the world, governments are expected to guide how to ease interventions while minimizing the risk of resurgent outbreaks. Whereas epidemiologists track the progress of the disease using daily indicators to understand the pandemic better, economic activity indicators are usually available at a lower frequency and with considerable time lags. We propose and implement a timel ...

In her very energetic way and a waterfall of words, Edna Valencia Murillo explains how the Atlantic Dialogues 2019 have been a life changer. At the time of her participation in the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program in 2019, she was a Colombian news anchor for France 24 in Spanish, working from Bogota, a job she left in September 2021 to follow a more independent route. During the pandemic, she has written a book, built her platform “to connect black people in Colombia with ...

A slowdown in China and winding down of U.S. stimulus threaten a much-needed regional rebound. First appeared at Americas Quarterly The last year has seen some good news for Latin American economies. The region’s recovery has been stronger than expected, and growth forecasts by the World Bank and IMF have improved since six months ago. Vaccination campaigns and fiscal support have sparked an economic rebound since the second half of last year, despite an appare ...

The rhythm of samba is being replaced by funeral hymns. Almost 560,000 Brazilians (608,000 as of October 31,2021) have succumbed to COVID-19, the world’s second highest death toll, and no end is in sight. There have been “Staggering losses”, as the BBC reported (on July 8), provoking Medecins sans Frontières to warn of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Brazil. Supplies of drugs and oxygen, confirmed British publication The Lancet, “are running short”. Yet, Jair Bolsonaro, president o ...

With no hesitation, Daniela Varela describes herself as a “good-listener, and a perseverant person with a positive-attitude”. Born and raised in Posadas, Misiones, a province of North-East Argentina bordering Paraguay and Brazil, she knew from a young age she wanted to work in international relations. Today, she is an International affairs advisor in the Ministry of Education of Argentina. She also holds the position of Secretary for International Affairs of the Latin American ...

This paper estimates the economic impacts of climate change over the Brazilian regions until the end of the century. We estimate the direct and indirect impact of the projected changes in climate on the yield of the country’s main crops. The results point to a broad spatial heterogeneity of impacts across the country. Using the extreme scenarios created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (RCP 2.6 and 8.5), our predictions indicate that the average annual losses ...

First appeared at AMERICAS QUARTERLY A growing global imbalance threatens to further weaken already vulnerable emerging markets. The massive vaccine disparities between advanced and developing economies may exacerbate what the IMF has dubbed “divergent recoveries”—with dire consequences for Latin America. Despite being home to only 8% of the world’s population, the region has already suffered nearly 30% of all global COVID-19 deaths. The pandemic has ...

Brazil, an oil-exporting nation, was still struggling to recover from the depression which started around 2014/15 when it was hit by a quick succession of shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil price collapse. The global pandemic triggered major economic dislocations and contractions in foreign and domestic markets, which further exacerbated the fall in demand for oil, sending world prices tumbling further. Poverty was already widespread in Brazil pre-pandemic. And despite recen ...

This article was originally published on Bruegel  A recovery from the COVID-19 recession is underway though the suffering is far from over, especially for the most vulnerable. Inequality is both a consequence of the pandemic and a cause of its severity. Many countries need comprehensive policy change to address its worst effects. At the end of a tragic year marked by pandemic and increased poverty, the miraculously rapid arrival of vaccines stirs great hope. The COVID-19 ...

We estimate the contents of services value-added incorporated in goods exports in different countries in Latin America, exploring the local dimension of the results. We use inter-regional input–output analysis to trace and map domestic value-added embedded in those countries' exports. We add to the discussion of global value chains the internal, within-country geography of trade in value-added, since the set of locational preferences that help understanding the spatial patterns of n ...