Category Archive: Project Syndicate

Latin America’s Crime Tax

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By Guillermo Ortiz

Even excluding lives lost, communities displaced, and families ravaged, the economic costs of organized crime in the region produce a bleak picture, shaving 0.5–2 percentage points off annual GDP growth in the most affected countries. That, too, represents a hefty human toll.

Latin America almost certainly pays the world’s highest economic price for organized crime. According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), crime costs Latin America and the Caribbean an average of 3.44% of GDP annually, equivalent to 78% of all public education spending across the region. But there are significant discrepancies across LAC. Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico stand out both for the scale of the problem and how organized crime operates.

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Guatemala’s Democratic Renewal

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By Carlos Alvarado Quesada

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo’s recent selection of an honest successor to a corrupt attorney general represents a decisive victory for the country’s democracy. Arévalo succeeded not because he abandoned institutions to save democracy, but because he trusted institutions enough to work through them.

After two years of fierce political battles, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo finally managed to appoint a new attorney general in May. In replacing a corrupt prosecutor with an honest one, Arévalo demonstrated that, even after years of erosion, democracy can prevail if political leadership chooses constitutionalism over confrontation.

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Appeasing Trump Only Invites Betrayal – as Europe’s Far Right Just Learned

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By Stephen Holmes

With Donald Trump laying claim to Greenland, Europeans have finally realized who they are dealing with. The US president is animated less by the prospect of deal-making than by the need for domination, less by the spirit of exchange than by the perverse pleasure of belittling others and exalting himself.

By threatening to seize Greenland by force, US President Donald Trump has exposed the childlike illusions of his European admirers. Having spent years cultivating their bromances with him, the continent’s right-wing populists – the United Kingdom’s Nigel Farage, Jordan Bardella in France, Alice Weidel in Germany, Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Robert Fico in Slovakia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and Mateusz Morawiecki in Poland – imagined themselves fellow travelers in a revolt against liberal internationalism. Now their idol and patron has been threatening to swallow whole or in part (if the supposed “deal” he has announced comes about) the sovereign territory of a European ally.

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How Indigenous Peoples Will Drive Progress at COP30

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By Sonia Guajajara

As co-hosts for this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, the Indigenous peoples and local communities of Brazil’s Amazon region understand what is at stake and will be given a greater voice than ever before. That is good news not only for these communities, but for everyone.

This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, has been eagerly awaited worldwide. A COP in the Amazon raises expectations for all those who recognize the urgency of climate change and its impact on our lives and environment. That is why Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is calling this the “COP of Truth.”

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What a Trump Victory Would Mean for Latin America

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By Jorge Heine

Already struggling to get out of its deepest economic downturn in 120 years, Latin America now must brace for the possibility of another Donald Trump presidency. Judging by the Republican candidate’s campaign promises and longstanding positions on trade and immigration policy, the implications would be dire.

After the euphoric Democratic National Convention in Chicago, there is little doubt that Kamala Harris’s candidacy has changed the dynamics of the 2024 US presidential race. Democrats now have a fighting chance, which is more than they could have said a few months ago. However, with polls still showing an extremely close contest in the seven swing states that ultimately matter, the rest of the world must brace for what Donald Trump’s return to the White House would entail.

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Mexico’s Democracy is at Stake in 2024

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By Jorge G. Castañeda

Over the course of two centuries of independence, Mexico has elected its leaders democratically on only four occasions. Whether the presidential election in June will be fair and free is questionable, given that the playing field is heavily tilted in favor of the ruling party’s candidate.

Many countries, from the United States and Uruguay to India and Indonesia, will hold elections in 2024. Although pundits, politicians, and political scientists tend to portray each one as “historic” and “momentous,” Mexico’s June 2 presidential election may be one of the few to warrant such superlatives, if only because the country has limited experience with truly democratic votes.

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Can Latin America Escape Its Second Lost Decade?

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By José Antonio Ocampo

Latin America’s economies continued to be the worst-performing in the developing world in 2023. To boost economic growth, the region’s political leaders must increase their investments in science and technology, foster regional integration, and reaffirm their commitment to democratic governance.

Latin America has come to the end of its second lost decade of development. Average annual growth hovered just below 0.9% for the 2014-23 period – worse than the 1.3% rate in the 1980s. GDP per capita, however, is projected to be slightly higher in 2023 than in 2013, owing to slower population growth. By contrast, it was not until 1994 that the region’s GDP per capita returned to its 1980 level. Still, Latin America has a severe growth problem.

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