Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: The United States recalibrates its Venezuela sanctions policy, a cease-fire crumbles in Colombia, and how Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade bested Simone Biles.
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In the nearly two weeks since Venezuela’s disputed presidential election, the vote continues to dominate diplomacy in the Americas. Although Venezuela’s opposition appears to have presented credible evidence of its victory, the government proclaimed incumbent President Nicolás Maduro as the winner.
Venezuelan security forces have jailed hundreds of people who contested the official result in a crackdown that has alarmed observers and human rights groups. Allies such as Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba have backed Maduro’s claim. Other countries with some sway in Venezuela, including the United States, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, are trying to lay the groundwork for a negotiated solution to the crisis.
The details of such plans remain vague. But most experts acknowledge that sanctions—a tactic that the United States has used to respond to anti-democratic actions in Venezuela in the past—have not been effective at creating a democratic opening.
The United States has so far refrained from imposing new sanctions on Venezuela in the wake of the election, instead prioritizing diplomacy—a policy shift that many have long called for. The Biden administration’s concern about the dangers of sanctions overuse led the U.S. Treasury Department to carry out a lengthy sanctions policy review in 2021.
But amid disagreements inside the U.S. government, Treasury recommendations to use sanctions more cautiously were watered down prior to publication, the Washington Post reported.
Meanwhile, Latin American officials have for years told their U.S. counterparts that sanctions in the region are counterproductive. These include the 62-year U.S. embargo on Cuba, which contributed to the country’s largest-ever wave of emigration between 2022 and 2023.
Mexican and Colombian officials were among those who warned that former U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions on Venezuela could also increase emigration. Peer-reviewed research suggests that they did: Venezuelans have become one of the largest groups of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border in recent years.
Since the end of the Trump presidency, both Republicans and Democrats have begun to support other approaches in Venezuela. In 2019 and 2020, Trump officials made discreet contact with Caracas and considered a potential road map for a power-sharing deal between the government and opposition. In 2023, Democratic lawmakers—including a group that toured South American countries last August—called for a revision of U.S. sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela.
Then, last September, one of the staunchest defenders of U.S. sanctions in Latin America, Sen. Robert Menendez, was indicted on foreign influence charges and departed his role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez helped thwart President Joe Biden’s return to an Obama-era policy of normalization with Cuba.
The Biden administration agreed to lift sanctions on Venezuela last October in exchange for the government’s return to talks with the opposition and for commitments on conditions for July’s presidential election. The agreement helped unify Venezuela’s opposition ahead of the vote, even after Maduro violated part of it and some sanctions were reimposed.
“I’m not sure the shift in U.S. sanctions policy to incentivize talks in Venezuela would have been possible if Senator Menendez were still chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Despite Maduro’s repression in the last two weeks, Venezuela’s main opposition leaders are not calling for additional new sanctions to be added. While “the ‘maximum pressure’ strategy created high discursive and mediatic expectations, internally it contributed to the opposition’s loss of credibility and the population’s disillusionment and demobilization,” Venezuelan analysts Maryhen Jiménez, Mariano de Alba, and Antulio Rosales wrote in El País this week.
The U.S. cautiousness on sanctions in part reflects lawmakers’ power in setting foreign policy. “There are now more and more leaders in the United States who are willing to say the obvious, which is these policies aren’t having any intended outcome,” said U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, who toured South America last year and again visited Colombia this week.
In Colombia, left-leaning U.S. lawmakers participated in a forum with counterparts from seven other countries in the Americas. The group, known as the Panamerican Congress, aims to meet repeatedly to talk policy on issues from peacebuilding to green economic transitions.
Casar said to expect progressive U.S. lawmakers to pay even more attention to Latin America in the future. That includes pushing for tighter controls of U.S. guns flowing to the region. On Cuba, a former lawmaker who has supported an economic opening may be headed to the White House—presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.
Although many U.S. legislative initiatives related to the region in recent years have focused on pushing back against Chinese influence, Casar rejected such a “Cold War” view. Often, he noted, U.S. policies have harmed countries in the region, whether through guns or economic sanctions.
Friday, Aug. 9: Maduro is due to attend a hearing before Venezuela’s supreme court regarding the results of the presidential election.
Saturday, Aug. 10: Brazil and the United States play each other in the Paris Olympics women’s soccer final.
National Liberation Army negotiator Israel Ramírez Pineda, also known as Pablo Beltrán, speaks during a press conference after signing an agreement to extend the guerrilla group’s cease-fire with the Colombian government in Havana on Feb. 6.
National Liberation Army negotiator Israel Ramírez Pineda, also known as Pablo Beltrán, speaks during a press conference after signing an agreement to extend the guerrilla group’s cease-fire with the Colombian government in Havana on Feb. 6.Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images
Colombian cease-fire ends. Colombia’s military announced that it was restarting offensive operations against the rebel group National Liberation Army (ELN) this week after talks to renew a year-old cease-fire fell through. It was a step back for President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” strategy of trying to cut deals with armed groups to reduce violence. Before talks collapsed, the ELN retracted a previous commitment to stop kidnappings.
The Petro administration is continuing to push total peace on other fronts, however. This week, Bogotá announced that it would reopen talks with the Gulf Clan, the largest armed group in the country. The government and the Gulf Clan tried negotiating a cease-fire early in Petro’s administration, but it too broke down.
Reelection restrictions. Dominican President Luis Abinader announced this week that he will introduce constitutional amendments that would block future presidents from extending the existing limit of two consecutive four-year terms. The Dominican Republic was run by a dictator for more than 30 years, and indefinite reelection was only outlawed in 1994.
Since the turn of the 21st century, politicians in countries including Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have all aimed to change limits to reelection.
Deep sea director. Brazilian oceanographer Leticia Carvalho was elected president of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) last week. The United Nations-mandated organization oversees talks on the governance and mining of deep-sea minerals. Carvalho is known for her pro-conservation stance.
The fight over leadership of the ISA was so high-stakes that a campaign allegedly backed by the incumbent sought to get Carvalho to drop her bid, the New York Times reported. She prevailed. Carvalho told FP’s Christina Lu that her fight to defend natural habitats in the face of powerful extractive interests comes from her background enforcing Brazilian environmental policy.
Which of the following groups has Petro not struck a deal with as a part of his total peace strategy?
Gulf Clan
Segunda Marquetalia
FARC-EMC
Zapatistas
The Zapatistas are in Mexico. Petro announced cease-fires with a whopping five armed groups after his inauguration.
Gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles of the United States bow to Rebeca Andrade of Brazil after she won the gold medal in the women’s floor exercise final at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 5.
Gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles of the United States bow to Rebeca Andrade of Brazil after she won the gold medal in the women’s floor exercise final at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 5.Elsa/Getty Images
Latin American gymnasts shined at this year’s Paris Olympics. They include Colombia’s Ángel Barajas, who became an overnight national hero after earning a silver medal on the men’s high bar. Barajas, 17, grew up in a single-parent household in Cúcuta. His performance was celebrated by figures from Colombian senators to media personalities.
The Brazilian women’s gymnastics team also earned a historic third-place finish in the team final, after the United States and Italy. The squad was led by superstar Rebeca Andrade, who came back from her third ACL injury to win the floor exercise final this week against the United States’ Simone Biles.
Andrade is the only gymnast who has come close to challenging Biles’s dominance of the sport in the past decade. Where Biles has earned gold, Andrade has often followed with silver. Most of the Olympic events adhered to this pattern: After the team final, Andrade won second place to Biles in both the all-around and vault finals.
“I’ve never had an athlete that close” in score, Biles said of Andrade after the all-around. “It definitely put me on my toes and brought out the best athlete in myself.”
On Monday, after both Biles and Andrade wobbled in their beam routines—failing to medal—they took to the floor exercise for the last event final of the Olympics. Although Biles’s difficulty score is higher than Andrade’s, she went out of bounds on numerous tumbling passes and earned a lower execution score than the Brazilian gymnast.
Andrade finally managed to get her gold with a 0.033-point win over Biles, becoming the most decorated Brazilian Olympian of all time.
Although Biles and Andrade have been competitors for years, their relationship is unusually positive. At the Olympics, they cheered each other on and frequently hugged. Biles so celebrated Andrade that she and fellow American gymnast Jordan Chiles bowed to her on the podium after Andrade earned her gold. The image has become a viral show of sportsmanship.
“Rebeca, she’s so amazing, she’s queen,” Biles said of the gesture. “It was just the right thing to do.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-08 21:00:00
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