Welcome again Foreign Policy‘s Latin America Brief.
Highlights this week: Colombia chooses a far right fire as its next president earthquake it’s shaking Venezuela, and health researchers are praising it of Uruguay cannabis policy.
True to the polls, far-right businessman and lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella he won Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday. He is the latest in a string of right-wing, pro-American candidates to be elected in Latin America. US President Donald Trump spoke about the Colombian vote, endorsing de la Espriella on social media.
Last week, US immigration authorities detention a Colombian immigrant living in the United States who had publicly criticized de la Espriella. The US State Department memo provided an example of the immigrant’s political speech while laying out the grounds for his deportation. New York Times information.
At the same time, some Democratic congressmen of the United States published an open letter calling for an investigation into the relationship between the president-elect and what appear to be shell companies in the United States. (De la Espriella lived in Miami for many years and is an American and Italian citizen.)
De la Espriella has vowed to work closely with the Trump administration, to join his administration American shield plan to fight the gang and said that he will do it again Plan Colombia security cooperation agreement. He also promised “the construction of large prisons, an end to peace talks with armed groups, and a total war against criminal organizations,” Christina Noriega. he wrote in Foreign Policy.
There is little uncertainty about de la Espriella’s agenda, however. One is the fact that his margin of victory was about 250,000 votes, less than one percent ahead of the left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda, who. he agreed on Wednesday. Cepeda won more votes than the leftist outgoing President Gustavo Petro when he was elected in 2022.
Colombia is divided almost exactly according to the geographical analysis that defined the 2022 elections, according to Michael Weintraub, a political scientist at the University of the Andes. The left wing of the country gained support in a few rural districts and lost in some urban districts.
Perhaps realizing his narrow victory, de la Espriella said in his victory speech that he would respect the rights of Colombians who did not vote for him. That was a step back from his strong campaign rhetoric, which he it promised “eliminate” political opponents.
De la Espriella’s party does not have a majority in parliament, while the Colombian Parliament is evenly split between left-wing, right-wing and moderate or ideologically controversial MPs. Still, the president-elect has suggested he will enact his security and economic agenda by signing executive orders. On foreign policy, he has more freedom.
De la Espriella’s entry into the American Shield could make the informal group Washington’s preferred location for meeting Latin American leaders. US officials have also participated through the Organization of American States (OAS), which–unlike the Shield of America–includes Canada and other governments that have opposed Trump’s policies, such as Brazil and Mexico.
However, Trump has not earmarked funding to the OAS next year, suggesting it may lose support from its main donor. Trump’s ambassador to the organization he said should be more active in combating drug trafficking and criticizing its human rights work as ideologically driven. The Trump administration has been reported removed several senior US diplomats at the OAS.
The annual meeting of the OAS was held this week in Panama. His secretary general did not mention indirect US threats to the organization during his keynote speech, instead praising new funding from observer states in Europe. Multilateralism “is a necessity for our life,” he said he said.
Friday, June 26: The Human Rights Council of the United Nations is discussing Venezuela.
Wednesday, July 1: Deadline for completion of US-Mexico-Canada Treaty review.
Cuban reform. The Cuban Parliament adopted it said more than 100 market-friendly reforms last week, including new permits for private businesses to operate on the island and for private investors to buy shares.
Details about the regulations are scarce, but they appear to be major concessions from the country’s communist government as it faces pressure from the United States to seek independence. Despite the new policies, the United States imposed further sanctions on Cuba this week. this time, goals it included a powerful company owned by the military and a member of the Castro family.
A US State Department statement called Havana’s announcements “high smoke signals from the Cuban government.”
Uruguayan cannabis record. Uruguay’s marijuana legalization and control policies are known worldwide because they have not led to a significant increase in the use and addiction of the drug, according to a new organization. paper published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry.
In Uruguay, non-medical marijuana is offered only in a few settings, such as smoking clubs. That is different from Canada and some US states, where companies have been many times allowed aggressive drug dealing—and where drug use problems have become more common.
One reason to legalize marijuana goes beyond preventing addiction. Many states have chosen to outlaw the drug because of the disproportionate way prison sentences for minor drug charges have been handed out to non-white communities.
The Lancet the paper did not go into that aspect of Uruguay’s policies. But it suggested that how countries legalize marijuana—not just whether they do—is important.
Uruguay midfielder Maximiliano Araujo celebrates with teammate Sebastián Cáceres after scoring his team’s first goal during the 2026 World Cup Group H match between Uruguay and Cape Verde at Miami Stadium in Miami, Florida, United States, June 21. Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images
World Cup statistics. The data shows how strong the soccer culture is in some of the South American countries participating in the FIFA Men’s World Cup this year. In Argentina, a child’s name memory show that there was an increase in “Diegos” and “Lionels” born in the country in the years after Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi rose to fame – the 1970s and 2000s, respectively.
Uruguay, meanwhile, has produced the most popular players per capita in the world, according to Argentine sociologist Daniel Schteingart. He compared data about world famous soccer players with national population.
In Foreign PolicyDiana Roy and Gil Guerra subtract the number where members of this year’s national teams were born, revealing patterns of migration. When Haiti played in the World Cup for the first time in 1974, most of the squad was born in the country. But most of today’s team was born abroad. The changes show how frequent conflicts in the country have led to migration.
Only one Haitian national team player, Woodensky Pierre, is currently in the country. What team does he play for?
Violette
Leon
Valencia
True Hope
Based in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, it is the main football club of Haiti.
First responders attend to a damaged building after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Venezuela and other parts of the Caribbean, seen in Los Palos Grandes in Caracas on June 24. Edilzon Gamez/Getty Images
Two powerful earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7 on the Richter scale shaken the western region of Caracas, Venezuela, on Wednesday night, collapsing buildings and testing the ability of the transitional government to deal with emergencies. By Thursday afternoon, the leaders were information more than 180 deaths.
Emergency services have been disrupted in Venezuela due to the country’s long-running economic crisis. Although oil investment is beginning to return, it is far from restoring the country’s public medical system to precrisis strength.
The United States and other countries in the region promised to send aid to Venezuela. One of the quakes was the country’s biggest in more than a century, with tremors felt as far away as Brazil. Venezuela he sits up where the tectonic plates of the Caribbean and South America meet.
Before the natural disaster, attention in Venezuela this week focused on the political maneuvering of the opposition. Opponent Dinorah Figuera he came back to Venezuela after eight years in exile, and the United States gave him its blessing to participate in negotiations towards democratic change.
Figuera had lived in Spain since he took part in the failed 2018-19 effort to get Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to hand over power to opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Like Guaidó, Figuera was an elected member of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled parliament at the time.
fig he told reporters last week that he returned to Venezuela at the invitation of the US State Department, which also issued an official statement praising last Thursday’s meeting between him and Jorge Rodríguez, the brother of interim President Delcy Rodríguez.
Figuera and Rodriguez agenda it includes strengthening Venezuela’s electoral authority, with an eye towards holding elections eventually, although no date has been set.
