US-LatAm Relations
My apologies in advance: the last thing the world needs is another blog post on US-Latin American relations. With that out of the way, there really are some interesting developments going on that...
View ArticleReclaiming Brand Mexico
Roberto Newell Garcia of the Woodrow Wilson Center has published a great report titled “Restoring Mexico’s Reputation.” The basic premise of Newell’s argument is that Mexico is facing a number of...
View ArticleCristina Will Run (and Probably Win)
A little less than three years ago, LatAmThought wrote a commentary questioning the viability of the at that time new Kirchner administration. CFK was less than one year into what had been one of the...
View ArticleIdeas, not money, will make Central America safer
Boz has a great point about the fresh funding headed to Central America: I think a lesson is that there is no amount of money that the US could put on the table and no amount of attention the US could...
View ArticleThe Peso Paradox
One of the more troubling signs of financial difficulties in Argentina has been the recent news that the government has fined economists for publishing inflation rates that do not reflect those of the...
View ArticleThe United States and the Wealth Gap
A Reuters analysis, “In debt row, hints of emerging-economy crisis”, highlights the point that the United States’ current debt ceiling stalemate, brought on by highly factionalized political camps, is...
View ArticleDifferent Means, Same Ends
Oil production in Colombia is a popular topic these days. Domestic production levels are at an all time high, and Colombian state-owned oil behemoth Ecopetrol is considering selling 10 percent of its...
View ArticleLatin America’s Security Dilemma Continued
Sam Novacich and I have a piece at ISN in which we take a closer look at one of Rio’s Pacifying Police Units (UPP) in the Cantagalo/Pavão-Pavãozinho communities and document some of the challenges the...
View ArticleIn Ciudad Mier, deploying troops is not enough
Back in November 2010, a small town on the US-Mexico border, Ciudad Mier, made headlines when most of the town’s residents left because of intense fighting between the Zetas and Gulf cartels. Both...
View ArticleOverstating Cartels’ Relevance to the American Electorate
The lead article in last week’s Proceso talks about the political importance of capturing El Chapo for both the Calderon and Obama administrations. The article is worth a read in its entirety, but the...
View ArticleBrazil in Latin America: Emerging political risks?
Simon Romero has written a solid article on the front page of yesterday’s NYT about how Brazil’s rise and activity in Latin America is creating diplomatic problems with some its regional neighbors. The...
View ArticleUS households becoming more Latin American?
A major narrative in the US media (CNN, NYT, MSNBC, WaPo, just to name a few) these days is that of the ‘Lost Generation’, i.e. those recent college graduates who, unable to find jobs and saddled with...
View ArticleOn Extraditions and Colombian-Panamanian Ties
Much has been made about Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ success at mending relations with his neighbors to the east and south. Rightly so. Given the difficult situation he inherited from his...
View ArticleConcerns with the Brazil Narrative
Thank you to Rio Gringa and Andrew Downie for calling out international coverage of the recent collapse of several buildings in Rio de Janeiro. Numerous English-language media outlets have used the...
View ArticlemisLEDEing
Hopefully The Daily Show or Colbert Report will pick up on this one. I took a picture of this headline during Sunday afternoon cable news network programming: The price of gas is a major story here in...
View ArticleMexico Dodges a Bullet
The news could have been a lot worse. A magnitude 7.4 earthquake (downgraded from a 7.9 from earlier today) struck a rural part of Mexico near the border between Oaxaca and Guerrero at around noon...
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What content matters most in Latin America?
If, like the authors of this blog, the above question has kept you up at night, we are in luck. Tina Coll of Outbrain, a NYC-based ad tech company that helps companies reach audiences with relevant...
View ArticleWasted Media Buy, Mexico Edition
I was watching CNN in English on my TV in Mexico City recently. The interview was with Robert O’Neill, the Navy SEAL who has made headlines for his decision to come public about his role in the...
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Venezuela’s newest exchange rate and condom shortages
Reading the newspaper last week, I came across an article that begged for further attention: “Condones, afectados por escasez en Venezuela: se venden en más de 11 mil pesos [mexicanos] (US$755).” 7...
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Media in Latin America: ¿Cómo se dice “Cord-Cutters”?
It’s good to be a big media network in Latin America. The big ones are really big relative to their competition, and there are usually only a few. Consequently, they have a lot of negotiating power....
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