Alexander Munguía

Alexander Munguía is the CEO of Galvez Strategies and an expert in US-El Salvador trade and security relations.

Does Brazil want another Bolsonaro?

Last month, two State Department officials were set to make what they called a routine visit to Brazil, ahead of October’s presidential election. Their stated objective was an assessment of election integrity, religious freedom and freedom of expression in Latin America’s largest democracy. Brazil was not convinced. It slammed the door in their faces and denied their visas.  Washington insists its diplomats were simply sent to ask questions. Brasília cries foreign interference from a nation that has a history of meddling in Latin American politics. Tensions between the two largest democracies in the Americas have not run this high in decades.

Colombia’s transition is being brokered on the Potomac

It is another sweltering afternoon in Washington, and the room at the Atlantic Council is filling with businessmen and diplomats for a speech already ten minutes late. José Manuel Restrepo, Colombia's vice-president-elect and a former finance minister, is no stranger to the venue: since last fall he has been a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. But the think-tank polish sits on top of a crisis back home. In June, the right-wing outsider Abelardo de la Espriella won Colombia's presidency by a whisker – some 250,000 votes out of 26 million – beating the chosen candidate of the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro.  Petro, the country's first leftist leader and a former guerrilla, has refused to accept the result.

Colombia