Welcome again Foreign Policy‘s Latin America Brief.
Highlights this week: President of Chile Gabriel Boric is preparing to leave power, the United States and Ecuador are taking steps anti-drug cooperationand Colombian audiences are enjoying the new A Netflix soap opera.
If the recent presidential election is any indication, justice is having a moment in Latin America. Some of the region’s most powerful conservative leaders are also younger, including the President of Salvador Nayib Bukele and the President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa.
They stood in contrast to fellow millennial leader Gabriel Boric, the outgoing president of Chile. Boric campaigned on a promise turning his country into a “graveyard” of neoliberalism and came to power in 2022 at the age of 36. He will hand over power on Wednesday to a right-wing successor.
Boric rose became known after the protests against the government in 2019. As president, he promised to channel the protests into an ambitious project to rewrite the constitution of the dictatorship era of Chile, which grew into two. constitutionally assemblies. Although those effort failedhis presidency marked a change for the left Latin Americans that could happen beyond his term of office.
“What Boric is prioritizing is the difference between the left and the democrats,” especially when it comes to their positions on Venezuela, Argentine political scientist Andrés Malamud said..
In the 1980s and 1990s, human rights advocacy was at the center of the left in Latin America. But in recent years, many leftists have refused to criticize authoritarian turns in countries around the world, including leftist governments in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Boric struck a different tone when he condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Venezuela’s human rights violations.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva once disparaged Boric with such remarks, call he is an “urgent young man” who had no experience in international diplomacy.
However, Boric’s position on Venezuela won him praise among the region who continue he was confused by the kindness of senior officials to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was so unpopular in the region that 60 percent of South Americans told voters they were happy the US kidnapped him in January. (Lula later increased further important of Maduro.)
Beyond his stance on human rights, Boric stood apart from the previous generation of leftists in his desire to change course following the mistakes, Chilean analyst Patricio Fernández said. Both of Boric’s efforts to rewrite the constitution were it is damaged for political division and rejected by voters in referendums. (Fernández was a member of the first constitutional assembly.)
After that defeat, Boric reshuffled his cabinet to include more moderate members and implemented measures he had previously avoided, including stricter security and border control policies. By the end of his term, both murder and irregular migration were falling in Chile.
Chile’s left wing is young and “capable of learning from its mistakes,” Fernandez said. “Is this a government that did extraordinary things? No. But during the transition, it was able to stabilize the country.”
About foreign policy, Boric combination continuation of certain priorities, including regional cooperation and business combinationwith some changes. He emphasized more feminism and energy transition than his predecessors, said Andrés Villar, a senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile. The Boric regime also launched industrial policy for its lithium sector and become the second country to ratify it High Seas Treaty.
Boric’s legacy depends in part on his successor, José Antonio CastMalamud argued.
“If Kast has a very good government – and this depends on the international context, such as product prices and the level of interest—people will look back on Boric as a young fool who failed,” he said.
Although Boric has encouraged others compare to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a fellow millennial and progressive, Malamud compared him to a different American politician: former President Jimmy Carter.
“Carter didn’t win re-election, but people say he was the best former president in history. He looked at the election, he was a fun guy, a normal guy, an institutional guy,” said Malamud. “Boric can take on such a role … to bring a message to a new generation that was able to rule and have something good to say – something better than the war and real politics that exist now.”
Saturday, March 7: US President Donald Trump is hosting several South American presidents in Florida.
Sunday, March 8: Colombia holds parliamentary elections.
Wednesday, March 11: Kast is inaugurated as the president of Chile.
Effects of the Iran war. When the United States and Israel launched a war with Iran on February 28, one big question was how Venezuela would react. Tehran was an ideological—and often an economic—assistant of the Maduro government, and acting President Delcy Rodriguez he has tried to maintain the aura of his predecessor’s political project even as he cooperates with Washington.
Relations with the United States took center stage in Rodríguez’s official response to the crisis: He did not mention Iran’s support on his social media, instead calling for a diplomatic solution in phone calls and Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
As the war escalates, Latin American countries will grapple with its impact on global energy and agricultural markets. Oil exporters such as Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela will see more revenue, but there will be disruptions fertilizer equipment can harm farmers. About 41 percent of Brazilian urea fertilizer is imported last year it passed through the Strait of Hormuz, which is now effectively closed.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking to Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness after taking a family photo at the Caribbean Community summit in St. Kitts and Nevis on February 25.Jonathan Ernst/AFP via Getty Images
Caricom meets. Annual meetings of the Caribbean Community, known as Caricom, often feature board statements about shared values. But amid the trade turmoil and Trump’s targeting of Cuba, last week’s event was different. Country has been approved new common industrial policy and he announced measures to simplify the process of air workers to work in other countries in the group.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended the meeting, and Caricom leaders pressed him on the humanitarian collapse of Washington’s oil embargo on Cuba. The Prime Minister of Jamaica, a close ally of the United States, he said that “a protracted conflict in Cuba will affect migration, security, and economic stability throughout the Caribbean.”
In a possible sign of progress in the negotiations behind Washington and Havana, on Monday, the Cuban president he announced that the country planned “rapid” changes to its economic structure, including “changing the size of the state apparatus.” He did not immediately provide further details. With oil supplies running low in Cuba, millions of people were left without electricity on Wednesday.
Colombian soap opera. Netflix has followed up a variety of Colombian releases—from the 2015 gangster drama Narcos for the 2024 movie version of the classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. And in January, the streaming platform released an unusual soap opera, Defying Fate.
Telenovelas across the region have often focused on the shortcomings and romantic escapades of the rich and powerful, but Defying Fate features the true story of Maria Roa Borjaa Black Colombian woman who left the war-torn countryside for the city of Medellín and eventually became a union leader, successfully advocating for labor rights legislation for domestic workers.
The audience is responding well Defying Fatewhich quickly he jumped to rank among the top 10 most-streamed Netflix shows in 17 countries, including several across Latin America and Spain.
The show is far from preachy and includes a lot of sex and violence that is common in dramas. But it offers something new to the audience, the main actor Karent Hinestroza he told it Country: a chance for many Latin American women to see someone whose life story is similar to theirs.
What year was it? One Hundred Years of Solitude published?
1957
1967
1977
1987
The novel, by Gabriel García Márquez, was part of a literary movement known as the “South American development.”
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa visit Ulpiano Paez Airport in Salinas, Ecuador, November 6, 2025.Alex Brandon/AP via Getty Images
United States, Ecuadorian and European law enforcement agencies worked together to detain 16 suspects and dismantle an international drug trafficking network linked to Los Lobos, a European law enforcement agency. Europol and US Embassy in Ecuador he said Tuesday.
Since coming to power in 2023, President Daniel Noboa’s strong criminal platform has included. anti-drug cooperation with the United States. He signature many anti-drug deals with the Biden administration, paving the way for joint work during the Trump administration.
Drugs have progressed flow from Ecuador “in industrial abundance,” according to the International Crisis Group. Ecuador’s Ministry of Defense reported to catch a record 135 tons of drugs at sea in 2025. (It said that the high number of seizures partly reflected more aggressive anti-drug methods.)
But increased law enforcement has not led to fewer killings on the streets. After the murders in the country decreased at the beginning of Noboa’s term, now they have increased. Last year, Ecuador has entered his highest kill rate ever.
Noboa is attending this weekend’s meeting of South American right-wing leaders with Trump in Florida. It is possible that the announcement about joint anti-narcotics operations before the meeting was meant to strengthen the solidarity between Ecuador and the United States.
Another Trump administration shutdown came Wednesday: Ecuador he announced Cuban representatives do not like it without giving reasons why. The Cuban Foreign Ministry called the move “unfriendly and unprecedented.”
