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Only a few weeks ago, there was a near consensus in Brazil that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was the favorite to win this October’s election over his main challenger, conservative Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Today, most polls show the race is tied, and Flávio Bolsonaro seems to have the momentum. With the first round of voting on October 4 and a second round very likely on October 25, it’s been a unique—and to outsiders, somewhat confusing—campaign in Brazil.  In recent months, the main issue has been not the economy, or security, as we’ve seen in other recent Latin American elections, but a corruption scandal involving Daniel Vorcaro, a disgraced banker whose network of influence and business ties extended to much of Brazil’s political and economic establishment. Back in May, Bolsonaro was badly damaged by alleged ties to Vorcaro. But more recently, attention has shifted to Vorcaro's alleged ties to Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Those revelations, in turn, seem to have damaged Lula. This week on the podcast, we look at the latest on the Vorcaro scandal and other key factors in this race, including the health of Brazil's economy and whether President Trump will try to intervene on behalf of the Bolsonaro family, with Thomas Traumann, a longtime political analyst and commentator, who is also a member of AQ’s editorial board.

We’re all used to hearing pessimistic headlines about the state of democracy in Latin America and beyond. But the latest edition of the AmericasBarometer survey suggests the mood may be shifting.  Support for democracy across the Americas rose between 2023 and 2026, the first broad upturn in the region’s commitment to democracy in a generation. The survey, from Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, includes more than 25,000 interviews across 21 countries, from Argentina to the United States and Canada. It also offers a rare look inside Cuba, fresh data on how the region views China and the U.S. under President Trump, and a surprising decline in how many people say they want to emigrate.  This week on the podcast, we break down the findings with Noam Lupu, Director of the Center for Global Democracy at Vanderbilt University.

On August 7th, Abelardo de la Espriella was inaugurated as Colombia's new president after winning an incredibly tight election. Three days later, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the western part of the country, leaving damages close to $10 billion and devastating hundreds of municipalities across 15 departments. It was an extraordinary early test for a president still in his first week in office. De la Espriella came to power promising Milei-style fiscal cuts, a hardline security plan, and a sharp break from Gustavo Petro's four years in office: including restarting oil exploration, ending the total peace process, and launching joint military operations with the United States. Instead, his first major act was declaring a state of national emergency.  Today on the podcast, we explore what his agenda looks like now on security, the economy, and the fiscal situation and ask how much he will still be able to get done. Our guest is Mauricio Cárdenas, former presidential candidate and minister of finance and Senior Scholar at Columbia University.  Note: This episode incorrectly states that over 23 million people voted in the second round election in Colombia. The correct number is over 26 million votes.

Venezuela's regime and parts of the political opposition are holding a new round of talks that analysts and citizens hope could lead to a democratic transition. The dialogue brings together Dinorah Figuera, representing the opposition-aligned 2015 National Assembly, and Jorge Rodríguez, brother of acting president Delcy Rodríguez and current head of the legislature.  It comes more than seven months after the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd, and at a moment when Washington has unprecedented leverage over Venezuelan affairs. Today on the podcast, we ask what Delcy Rodríguez actually wants out of this process, what role María Corina Machado will play given her absence from the talks, and whether the chavista regime is pursuing genuine change or simply stalling for time until Trump leaves office. Our guest is Anatoly Kurmanaev, international correspondent for The New York Times, who recently spent several weeks reporting from the country. He spoke to AQ from Germany.

On July 28th, Keiko Fujimori took office as Peru’s ninth president in ten years. Most of her predecessors’ terms ended in impeachment, resignation, or prison. She won a June runoff by close to 50,000 votes, less than a full percentage point ahead of leftist Roberto Sánchez, and her inauguration ceremony captured the challenge ahead: Opposition lawmakers walked out of Congress rather than hear her inaugural address.  Fujimori campaigned on stability, security, and economic reform, a message that resonated in a country where the homicide rate has doubled in recent years and where most agree the economy, despite growing last year, is still far from its potential. Her father’s shadow looms large: Alberto Fujimori stabilized Peru’s economy and defeated the Shining Path in the 1990s, but was later imprisoned for human rights abuses and corruption. Today on the podcast, we ask whether Keiko Fujimori can bring stability after a decade of chaos, unlock Peru’s economic potential, and navigate the country’s relationship with Washington and Beijing. Our guest is Alfredo Thorne, former Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru.

The $75 billion IPO for Elon Musk's SpaceX is just the latest sign of explosive growth in the global space industry, which is forecast to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035. Latin America, it turns out, has more to offer this boom than most people realize. Countries along the equator such as Ecuador, Brazil and Peru are among the most efficient and cost-effective places on Earth to launch satellites into orbit. In the Southern Cone, countries are already sought-after locations for ground observatories and some of them, like Argentina and Brazil, are producing their own satellites. The region's potential has caught the eye of the world's two superpowers, with the United States and China competing for influence on the ground.  Today on the podcast, we ask how Latin America can fully exploit its natural advantages, how the US-China rivalry is playing out across the region, and what governments and companies need to do to become protagonists, not just a battleground, in the burgeoning space economy.  Our guest is Laura Delgado López, senior fellow at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University and a contributor to AQ's latest issue.

Security has become the defining issue in Latin American politics. In Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella won the presidency on a hardline security platform and a promise to scrap Petro's total peace plan. In Ecuador, Daniel Noboa won re-election on the back of a military crackdown against criminal gangs. And in Washington, the Trump administration launched the Shield of the Americas: A coalition of like-minded governments committed to a military-led approach to fighting organized crime. Meanwhile, criminal groups are doing what they always do: reorganizing, diversifying, and finding new markets to tap into, from the United States and Europe to an increasingly lucrative market in Asia and within Latin America itself. Today on the podcast, our annual big picture look at how organized crime is evolving across the region: How well is the militarized approach working? And what can we expect from this new generation of right-wing leaders? Our guest is Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime.

Over the past few months, the Trump administration has steadily ramped up pressure on Cuba: indicting senior Cuban officials including former president Raúl Castro, and sanctioning the state oil company and military-linked entities that control much of Cuba's economy. Taken together, Washington's measures, combined with the Cuban government's own decades of economic mismanagement, have pushed the island near a breaking point, with crumbling infrastructure, dire fuel shortages, and chronic nationwide blackouts arriving just as the Caribbean summer heat settles in.  In a recent piece for Americas Quarterly, our experts lay out four scenarios for what could come next: humanitarian intervention, targeted coercive action, internal regime fractures, or negotiated concessions.  Today on the podcast, we walk through each: What they'd look like on the ground, what Havana's room for maneuver might be, and whether the Cuban regime might once again elude expectations of change, as it has for the last 67 years. Our guest is Brian Fonseca, Vice Provost for Defense and National Security Research and Director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at FIU.

Nearly a year after slapping Brazil with a 50% tariff in what looked like a bid to help the Bolsonaro family, the U.S.-Brazil relationship has had several ups and downs: Trump dropped most of the tariffs and, about a month ago, he welcomed President Lula to the White House for what looked like a friendly visit. But now, it looks like ties between the hemisphere's two biggest democracies are on the rocks once again. Within days of a visit by Flávio Bolsonaro to the State Department, the Trump administration designated two Brazilian criminal organizations as foreign terrorist groups and recommended new tariffs on Brazilian goods. Today on the podcast, we try to make sense of it all: What Washington is actually trying to accomplish in Brazil, whether these measures risk backfiring as they did last year, and what the October election looks like from inside the campaign. Our guest is Chris Garman, Managing Director for the Americas at Eurasia Group.

Ever since Donald Trump took office, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum has tried to strike a careful balance: Working with Washington on security matters while maintaining sovereignty and domestic support. She sent 10,000 troops to the northern border, largely abandoned her predecessor's "hugs not bullets" strategy, and held one of the highest approval ratings in the region. But lately, that balance has become more challenging. In late April, the U.S. Justice Department indicted a sitting Morena governor on drug trafficking charges and media reports have pointed to a CIA presence in Mexican territory. This comes just as Sheinbaum's government prepares for one of its toughest negotiations yet: The USMCA review, expected to begin in July. Today on the podcast: an overview of US-Mexico ties and what they mean for security, economic activity, and trade in both countries. Our guest is Brenda Estefan, professor of geopolitics at IPADE Business School in Mexico City and columnist at Reforma.

Colombia goes to the polls on May 31 amid some of the worst violence the country has seen in two decades. FARC dissidents have carried out dozens of attacks in recent weeks, prompting an appeal for peace from Pope Leo XIV. In a way, the campaign has been shadowed since last year by the assassination of senator Miguel Uribe Turbay. And yet, paradoxically, President Gustavo Petro's approval rating has risen 10 points this year. Now three candidates are vying to succeed him: Iván Cepeda, Petro's preferred successor on the left; Paloma Valencia, a conservative senator from Álvaro Uribe's party; and Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing outsider who echoes both Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele. Today on the podcast, we want to understand the outlook for Colombia. Who is most likely to make it to the second round? And what would each of the three candidates mean for the country? Our guest is Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, speaking from Bogotá.

As recently as the 1960s, the average woman in Latin America had six children. Today that number is 1.8. In Chile, it has fallen to 1.1, lower than Japan. Combined with rising life expectancy, the result is a region aging faster than any other in the world. If current trends hold, national populations could decline by a third in Chile and Uruguay, a quarter in Brazil, and a fifth in Argentina by 2100. The consequences are already visible: pension crises and census counts that have come in millions lower than governments expected. Today on the podcast, we dive deeper into AQ's latest cover story to understand what this demographic transformation means for Latin America's economies and politics specifically. Is there a silver lining? And can the region adapt? Our guests are Laurence Blair, author of AQ's cover story on The Gray Tide, and Ernesto Revilla, Chief Economist for Latin America at Citigroup.

For years, Peru has defied gravity. The country has had eight presidents in ten years—a virtual power vacuum at the top of government—and yet the economy kept growing, the currency held strong, and the mining sector kept producing. That decoupling of politics and economics has kept Peru relatively stable and has prompted many in the private sector to argue that politics doesn’t really matter. But a first-round election marred by widespread logistical failures, fraud allegations, and a razor-thin race for second place—between leftist Roberto Sánchez, a former minister of the now-imprisoned Pedro Castillo, and right-wing populist Rafael López Aliaga—is now putting that resilience to its most serious test yet. Our guest is Luis Miguel Castilla, currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and former Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru.

Until recently, things seemed to be going well for Argentina's President Javier Milei. In October, his party won the midterm elections in a contest many polls predicted would swing the other way. Since then, he passed an important labor reform, poverty fell to its lowest level since 2018, and the economy is expected to grow around 4 percent this year. Yet suddenly, a few warning signs began to flash. One poll showed a substantial drop in Milei's popularity. Another, by Poliarquía, recorded the sharpest single month drop in public optimism of his presidency to date. Today on the podcast: What's affecting Milei's numbers? What does the broader political landscape look like? And what does that mean for public sentiment around the Argentine economy? Our guest is Alejandro Catterberg, president and co-founder of Poliarquía Consultores.

Nearly three months after the fall of Nicolás Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez is still standing as interim president of Venezuela. The broad feeling, at least for now, is that Rodríguez and the chavista regime are not going anywhere. Since she took office on January 5th, Rodríguez has signed an amnesty law, reformed the hydrocarbon law, and restored diplomatic relations with the U.S. for the first time since 2019. Yet she has done this while keeping most of the chavista regime entrenched in power. Diosdado Cabello remains her Interior Minister, her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, runs the National Assembly, and the new Defense Minister is the former head of Venezuela's feared intelligence service, accused of overseeing torture and human rights abuses. What do her actions ultimately mean for the future of Venezuela? Our guest is Juan Forero, Bureau Chief for South America at the Wall Street Journal.