Latin America will now be subjected to The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, according to the National Security Strategy announced by the White House in November 2025
Highlights:
-Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American
security interests.
-The United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.
-The US will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in its Hemisphere. The terms of its alliances, and the terms upon which US provides any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence—from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined
-The terms of American agreements, especially with those countries that depend on it most and therefore over which US has the most leverage, must be sole-source contracts for American companies. At the same time, the US should make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region.
Latin Americans have to prepare themselves to face the Trump Corollary of Monroe Doctrine which means American broadening of drug wars, migration control and military build up in the region. But they will continue to do business with China and try to get the best out of the US-China rivalry. But they should not expect American companies rushing into Latin American infrastructure projects, since the US companies have no interest, competitive pricing or latest technology to build ports, roads, railways and power stations in Latin America. China has invested and done infrastructure projects in Latin America besides establishing manufacturing plants to make electric cars, electronic goods, mobile phones, appliances and renewable energy components.
South America is emerging as the major supply growth region of oil outside OPEC.
Brazil, Argentina, and Guyana will collectively contribute approximately 5.9 million barrels per day of additional supply capacity.
South America holds the second largest oil and gas reserves after the Middle East
Brazil is the largest producer with 3.4 mbd in 2024. The production will go up to 4.3 mbd by 2026. Crude oil became the country’s top export in 2024 for the first time. The cost of production is $30-45 per barrel range
Guyana produced 770,00o bpd in October 2025. This will rise to 1.2 mbd by 2030 and 2 mbd by 2036. Cost of production is $35-50 per barrel.
Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale fields holds the world’s second largest reserves of shale gas and fourth largest of shale oil.
Of course, Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, more than that of Saudi Arabia. The US has crippled oil production and exports of Venezuela through sanctions in order to suppress the competition and help the American oil exporters to make money.
Total upstream investment in South American oilfields reached over $46 billion in 2024, the highest level since 2015. This year, investments are expected to grow by 10% before tapering slightly in the following years, staying close to $50 billion throughout the next decade.
Rodrigo Paz, the pragmatic centrist elected as President of Bolivia in the elections held on 19 October 2025
The elections were free and fair.. Power is being transferred peacefully.
Good news for Bolivia which needed a change after two decades of the leftist MAS party rule.
The country has come out of the shadow of Evo Morales who has gone mad and ruined the presidency of his successor, his own MAS party and the democracy of the country with his crazy antics. In his first two terms, he was a hero and iconic president from the indigenous community. He empowered the indigenous people and was an inspiration for native people of Latin America. But he did not want to leave power and tried to hang on through unconstitutional and silly pursuits.
Peru is mired in political instability - October 2025
Jose Jeri becomes Peru’s seventh president to hold office since 2018, and the fourth thrust into office by a predecessor’s impeachment in the same time. His unpopular predecessor Dina Boluarte was impeached this week by the Congress. The reason for impeachment is her inability to stop the high rate of crimes in the country.
The culprit behind this political instability is the Congress which has become stronger and has overrun the presidency and the courts. The coalition of powerful members of the Congress call the shots and patronise mafias and gangs involved in drug trafficking and illegal gold mining.
The only consolation is that the economy of the country is doing well with solid macroeconomic fundamentals.
Latest discovery of oil in Brazil
BP has made its largest oil and gas discovery of the past 25 years off the coast of Brazil. This should add extra power to Brazil which has emerged as the largest producer and exporter of oil in Latin America. Venezuela has been shut by US sanctions. Mexico's production in steady decline. Crude oil is a major item of India’s imports from Latin America.
Latin American Economic Outlook -annual publication of OECD on 9 December 2024
Highlights:
Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) poverty rate is 27% and extreme poverty rate is 10.4%.
LAC tax revenues averaged 21.5% of GDP in 2022, below the OECD’s 34.0%, constraining governments’ ability to finance development agendas
Debt service by LAC exceeds the spending on education and healthcare
Personal income tax accounts for 26.7% of total tax revenue (5.7% of GDP) in LAC, compared to the OECD average of 48.4% of total tax revenue (16.9% of GDP)
file:///Users/rengaraj/Downloads/c437947f-en.pdf
Mercosur signs FTA with European Union on 6 December 2024
The FTA negotiations which had been going on for over two decades were finally concluded and the agreement was signed on 6 December 2024 at Montevideo, during the Mercosur summit.
The agreement will come into force after ratification by the parliaments of the countries on both sides.This might take another 18 months. France has been opposing the FTA fearing adverse impact on its farmers who cannot compete with the less costly agroproducts from Mercosur.
The EU is Mercosur's second-biggest trade in goods partner, after China and ahead of the United States. The EU accounts for 16.9% of Mercosur's total trade in 2023. Mercosur is the EU's tenth-largest trade in goods partner.
In 2023, the EU's exports to the four Mercosur countries amounted to €55.7 billion, while Mercosur's exports to the EU totalled €53.7 billion.
Mercosur's biggest exports to the EU in 2023 were mineral products (29.6% of total exports), foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco (19.2%), and vegetable products (17.9%).
The EU's exports to Mercosur include machinery and appliances (26.7% of total exports), chemicals and pharmaceutical products (25%) and transport equipment (11.9%).
The EU exported €28.2 billion of services to Mercosur, while Mercosur exported €12.3 billion of services to the EU in 2022.
The EU’s accumulated stock of investment has gone up from €130 billion in 2000 to €384.7 billion in 2022.
The FTA will save EU businesses €4 billion worth of duties per year. EU firms will be able to bid for public contracts on equal terms with Mercosur companies.
Single digit inflation in Peru
Peru's inflation has remained in single digit for the last 27 years and 7 months since 1997, despite many political changes. Julio Emilio Velarde Flores, the brilliant governor of Central Bank has remained as governor for the last 18 years since 2006 despite changes of governments from left to right and to left.
Chile's inflation had also been in single digit for 27 years and 6 months from 1994 to 2022.
Mexico's inflation has been in single digit for 24 years since 2000.
Creation of poverty out of prosperity by Argentina
Here is a familiar old song about Argentina, repeated by World Bank in its November 2023 report.
The lyrics are as follows:
“Argentina was the seventh wealthiest nation in the world in 1918. The country is home to diverse natural resources, including the world’s second-largest deposits of lithium, and the second-largest gas shale and fourth-largest shale oil reserves. With a territory of 2.8 million square kilometers, the extraordinary fertility of Argentina’s land makes it one of the most important agricultural producers in the world. Its ranking is third in soybean production worldwide. Its beef and soybean industries perform at the technological frontier, using some of the most modern practices in the world. Some producers are world leaders in genetics, farm machinery, and innovation. The country also has abundant natural energy resources and a world-class potential for solar and wind energy”.
Here is the reality:
Today the poverty rate is over 50%. Unemployment is high. The inflation is over 150 percent. Interest rates are over 100%. Wages cannot cope with the increase in cost of living. The country does not have enough foreign exchange reserves to service the huge external Debt of around 260 billion dollars including IMF loan of over 40 billion.
Since 1950 Argentina has had 15 recessions, making it the country with the most economic recessions globally. The average duration of the recessions was 1.6 years, with an average annual decline in GDP of close to 4 percent in each case. Today Argentina’s GDP per capita is close to its 2007 level.
Here is the World Bank prescription:
Cut fiscal deficit, privatize state enterprises, reduce import tariff, open up the economy to the world with more FTAs, free the barriers for foreign investment, ..music to the libertarian President Javier Milei who proposes to close the Central Bank and abolish the Argentine currency in favor of US dollars.
These are the same old Washington Consensus advice given in the 1980s, which worsened poverty and inequality in Argentina and much of Latin America.
The problem of Argentina is their politicians and oligarchs who in collusion with the Wall Street have ruined the country with unnecessary and excessive borrowings and bond issues. The IMF and the New York financiers have lent money irresponsibly (like lending to gambling addicts) and helped the Argentines to create poverty out of prosperity.
The report has a good news. It talks about the country’s rich human capital and its notable achievements in knowledge-intensive sectors such as research and innovation. Argentina is a regional leader in biotechnology, and ranks 12th in the world for the number of biotech companies. The biotechnology sector consists of about 300 companies and 54 scientific institutions with research capacity. The number of firms has grown eightfold in the last three decades.
Report:
Latin America received just 1.3 billion dollars of Chinese credit in 2023.
This is a slight increase in lending from the $863 million in 2022.
Between 2019-2023, the LAC region received an average of just over $1.3 billion per year from China as compared to peak lending of $ 25 billion in 2010
Report
Latin America could become this century’s commodity superpower
-The region is the world’s largest net food exporter, providing 60% of the world’s supply of soyabeans and more than 30% of maize, beef, poultry and sugar.
-It supplies more than a third of the world’s copper, used in wiring and wind turbines, and half of its silver, a component of solar panels.
-It holds vast deposits of critical minerals and metals. Despite mining it for decades, Chile and Peru retain 30% of the world’s exploitable reserves of copper.
-It is home to almost 60% of known lithium. Bolivia has tin, used as a solder in electrical components. Brazil has graphite, another battery metal.
-The metals are often easier to extract in Latin America than elsewhere. It is cheaper to get lithium by evaporation than to drill it from rocks, as is done in Australia and China. Brazil’s magnetic rare earths lie close to the surface.
- A record 60 bn barrels of oil was found across the region in the 2010s; another 10bn have since been discovered. Together Argentina, Brazil, Guyana and Mexico could produce 11m barrels per day by 2030.
Source: Economist
Conservative Colorado party comes back to power in the elections in Paraguay
In the elections held on Sunday, Santiago Pena of the ruling Colorado party got elected as president. The elections were peaceful and the results were accepted by the losers promptly unlike what happened in US or Brazil.
The victory of the ruling Colorado party stands out against the recent trend of anti-incumbency results in Latin America. The right-wing Colorado party’s win also goes against the regional trend of election of Leftists to presidencies of many countries in the region.
Last year, India’s exports to Paraguay were 211 million dollars and imports 16 million. The trade will go up in the coming years with the recent opening of Indian embassy in Paraguay.
More in my blog Conservative Colorado party comes back to power in the elections in Paraguay
In the elections held on Sunday, Santiago Pena of the ruling Colorado party got elected as president. The elections were peaceful and the results were accepted by the losers promptly unlike what happened in US or Brazil.
The victory of the ruling Colorado party stands out against the recent trend of anti-incumbency results in Latin America. The right-wing Colorado party’s win also goes against the regional trend of election of Leftists to presidencies of many countries in the region.
Last year, India’s exports to Paraguay were 211 million dollars and imports 16 million. The trade will go up in the coming years with the recent opening of Indian embassy in Paraguay.
More in my blog
Brazil has a research project to produce hydrogen from ethanol
Brazil proposes to do research for production of hydrogen from ethanol for using as fuel in cars. There is going to be collaboration between the University of Sao Paulo, Toyota, Shell, Raizen (ethanol producer) and Neuman and Esser, a German firm working on energy solutions with hydrogen.
Brazil is a global pioneer and leader in the use of sugarcane ethanol as fuel for cars. The country achieved this in the seventies by a collaborative project between car manufacturers, ethanol and sugar plants and oil companies in the seventies. Using ethanol, Brazil has reduced petrol consumption by 50%.. Petrol and ethanol are sold through separate pumps in the same petrol stations. The petrol is already blended with 20% ethanol.
Ethanol is less polluting than petrol and its extensive use has strengthened the Brazilian sugar and ethanol industry and added to the income of farmers. Win-win for all the stakeholders.
Indian government has started mandatory blending of 10% ethanol. The target is 20% by 2025. But the Indian oil companies, uninterested in the ethanol programme, do the blending slowly and reluctantly. India should learn from Brazil’s success story.
2022
2G ethanol production in Brazil
Second Generation ethanol (2 G ethanol) is produced from sugarcane waste such as straw and bagasse.
Brazilian company Raízen announced this week R$6 billion investment to build five new second-generation ethanol plants over the next five years. The production of each unit will be 82 million litres per year. They are supplying the 2G ethanol on longterm contract basis to Shell which will export it US and Europe where it will fetch a higher price due to its lower carbon footprint.
Ethanol from Agave – Brazil explores
The University of Campinas (Unicamp) of Brazil and Shell are doing a joint study for production of ethanol from agave. The project is based on the work of a master’s degree student at Unicamp.
Agave has a high energetic potential for ethanol production in semi-arid regions, with productivity as high as that of sugarcane. Agave can resist unpredictable weather because it can survive up to several years without rain, unlike sugarcane, which is more susceptible to climate variations.
There is potential for 6-10 billion liters of agave ethanol, against 35 billion liters of sugarcane ethanol produced per year in the country.
Agave can be planted in 2 million hectares in the semi-arid region. This is just 2% of the total area of 100 million hectares of arid land. The cultivation of agave can transform the Brazilian hinterland.
Brazil is the global leader and pioneer in the production of sugarcane ethanol used as fuel for vehicles. The Brazilians are in the vanguard of research and production of biodiesel and related products.
More...https://valorinternational.globo.com/agribusiness/news/2022/11/09/shell-bets-on-agave-as-alternative-energy-source.ghtml
The annual Chinese lending to Latin America and Caribbean has come down from a peak of 34.5 billion US Dollars in 2010 to zero in 2020 and 2021.
The chief lenders were the China Development Bank (CDB) and China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank).
The lending has declined steadily to 12.5 bn in 2016, 6.6 bn in 2017, 2.1 bn in 2018 and 1.9 bn in 2019 before hitting zero in 2020 and 2021.
The Chinese seems to have reached a saturation point.
The top four recipients of the credit are: Venezuela- 62.5 bn, Brazil-30.5 bn, Ecuador-18.2 bn and Argentina- 17 bn. Of these Ecuador has done some restructuring of the Chinese debt this year. The Chinese receive oil from Venezuela and Ecuador as repaymen
Ecuador restructures Chinese debt - September
Ecuador has reached a deal with China this week to restructure $4.4 billion of outstanding debt.
Ecuador is the third largest recipient ($18 bn) of Chinese credit to Latin America after Venezuela ($62.5 bn) and Brazil ($30.5 bn)
More in my blog
Summit meeting of Andean Community of Nations (CAN) held on 29 August in Lima,
In the summit, the presidents of the four member states (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) have called for Argentina, Chile and Venezuela to join the group.
CAN was created in 1969 as the Andean Pact by Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Venezuela joined in 1973 but President Chavez quit from the group in 2006 angry with the FTAs signed by Peru and Colombia with the US. Chile left the group in 1976 when the country was under the brutal military dictatorship of Pinochet. It rejoined in 2007 as an associate member.
CAN was the best institutionalized and well established among the regional groups in Latin America. It has its own Secretariat, Court of Justice, Parliament and Development Bank (CAF) which is a solid Triple A rated bank with headquarters in Caracas. The Group had Free Trade Area and Open Skies policy for aviation among other integration projects. In early 2000s, CAN and Mercosur started talks for an FTA between the two groups.
The 2022 Summit has revived CAN which remained dormant in recent years due to political changes. The new leftist presidents of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are keen to strengthen CAN and expand it. The centre-right but moderate Peruvian president Lasso is also on board for revival of the group.
Venezuela and Colombia restore diplomatic relations
The South American neighbors have exchanged ambassadors for the first time since 2019. The normalization process will include the full reopening of the border, which has remained largely closed to vehicles. This will open up trade and movement of people. More importantly it will give a much needed lifeline for Venezuela.
In 2019, Colombia's former President Ivan Duque cut off ties with Caracas after refusing (as part of the US-led isolation of the Maduro government) to recognize Maduro's election. Embassies and consulates in both countries were closed and flights between the two countries were grounded. In addition, the border itself remained completely shut between 2019 and late 2021.
Gustavo Petro, the new leftist President of Colombia sent a warm letter to President Maduro highlighting friendship between the two countries and signed the letter, ”loyal and good friend”.
Petro’s gesture is a slap in the face of US (under Trump administration) which had announced a 15 million dollar bounty on the head of President Maduro based on some cooked up drug charges. Along with Maduro, several ministers, generals, judges and officials of Venezuela were also indicted and a large bounty of 55 million dollars was announced by the cowboy regime of Trump. Indictment of a ruling head of state is highly unusual and even US laws do not permit it. But the Gringos pretended that Maduro was not a real president and it was their puppet Guaido was the interim president. Now the Americans are quietly ditching Guaido and are making overtures to Maduro administration requesting them to produce and export more oil to make up for the shortfall in the global oil market caused by the sanctions on Russia.
The priority for Colombia and Venezuela now is the return of the two million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. Most of them are economic refugees while some have got political asylum there. It is worth noting here that there were about a million plus Colombians who had come to work in Venezuela when the country was prosperous during high oil prices. The leftist Venezuelan government was also giving overt and covert support to some of the Colombian guerilla groups. Now there will be no such support and this will put pressure on the guerillas to move towards peace deal with the government of Petro.
So the resumption of Colombia-Venezuela diplomatic relations is a win-win for the two countries. But it is a clear a loss-loss for the American policy of divide-and-rule as well as their plans for regime change in Caracas.
Brazilian digital bank Nubank has acquired 1 million cryptocurrency customers in Brazil
The bank started its crypto offering at the end of June.
Neobank offers Bitcoin and Ethereum, the most popular cryptocurrencies, to its entire base of 60 million users. Its goal is to popularize access to crypto-assets through its mobile app.
Its clients can trade crypto at a 0.12% commission, with a minimum order of BRL 1.00 (US$ 0.20) and no added spreads, markups or custody fees.
Nubank CEO and co-founder David Vélez says, “crypto is a growing trend in Latin America,
Vastu practice in Argentina
Argentine architect Augustin Gutierrez has specialized in Vastu Shastra for the last ten years. He calls Vastu as the yoga of houses. He has studied it in India. He claims that even the Roman Colliseum, Greek Parthenon, Tajmahal and the headquarters of Microsoft, Intel, Boeing and NASA have been built according to Vastu principles. He provides even online consultation on vastu principles on orientation of house, decoration, furniture arrangement, use of colours, empowering of the house with the five natural elements and mantras for for maintenance of the energy of the house. He publishes a newsletter and is active in social media.He also practices and teaches Yoga, meditiation and the Art of Living techniques of respiration.
His website https://vastu.com.ar/
Kerala University has started a Latin America Study Centre - 13 March
My interview to Mathrubhumi newspaper
2021
Bitcoin City to be founded with a Bitcoin sovereign bond to be issued by El Salvador
El Salvador’s Maverick president Nayib Bukele has announced plans to build a volcano-powered “bitcoin city” financed partly by an issue of $1bn in sovereign bonds ( Bitcoin Bond) backed by the cryptocurrency. The $1 billion that the initiative aims to raise will be divided into two parts. The first part will be used to purchase a $500 million allocation of bitcoin, and the second $500 million will be used to build bitcoin-specific mining and power infrastructure. The tokenized bond will be available to a number of users in the world, that will have access to invest in small amounts of even $100 dollars. El Salvador would partner with Blockstream and use its liquid network to issue the Bitcoin bond.
The Bitcoin City would have no property, income or capital gains taxes except value added tax (VAT).Its infrastructure and other costs will be funded by a sales tax and money raised by the bond issues. The city would include residential and commercial areas, services, museums, entertainment, bars, restaurants, airport, port, rail - everything devoted to Bitcoin. The city will be circular to represent the shape of a large coin and will be built in the south-eastern region of La Unión. The site would take advantage of the Conchagua volcano's geothermal energy to power Bitcoin mining.
In September, El Salvador introduced Bitcoin as a legal tender, alongside the US dollar. At the time, the government released a new digital wallet app, giving away $30 (£22) in Bitcoin to every citizen. More than 200 new cash machines were installed across the country.
This is yet another experiment by the tech-savvy millennial president Bukele. If the project fails, his successors will have the burden of debt and obliged to pay the bondholders, a story common in many countries of Latin America.
President Ortega’s reelection victory is a betrayal of democracy and socialism
President Daniel Ortega, won a fourth consecutive term in the elections held in November 2021. His wife Vice President Rosario Murillo, will continue as Vice President.
Ortega had prevented opposition candidates from contesting by imprisoning seven would-be presidential candidates including Ms. Chamorro who had higher favorability rating of 53% approval, compared with 39% for Ortega. Ms. Chamorro is the daughter of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who defeated Mr. Ortega in the 1990 presidential elections.
Ortega is in power continuously since 2007 after removing the constitutional term limit. He was earlier president from 1985-90 and part of the ruling Junta from 1979 to 1984. He and his wife Rosario are running the country like a family dynasty similar to the Somoza dynasty which ruled from 1937 to 1979.
Ortega was part of the glorious Sandinista revolution which overthrew the Somoza dynasty in 1979. He was admired when he accepted the defeat in the 1990 election gracefully and waited for his time till 2007. But since then he has eroded democracy by his authoritarian way of rule. He has promoted his wife and children to positions of power. Most of the other leaders of the Sandinista revolution have turned as opponents to Ortega’s family regime.
US, Europe and some Latin American countries including Costa Rica have condemned the elections as a fraud. The US has imposed sanctions on Nicaragua and personally against Ortega’s family members. Due to the political oppression and economic difficulties, over 100,000 Nicaraguans have migrated to Costa Rica as refugees and thousands have sought asylum in the US.
Nicaragua has joined Venezuela as another sham democracy in Latin America. Both the Bolivarian revolution of Venezuela and the Sandinista revolution of Nicaragua had started off with lofty socialistic ideals. Both have now betrayed their ideals and given a bad name to socialism and revolution, besides ruining the two countries.
Bitfarms, yet another Argentine unicorn
Bitfarms, the company founded by two Argentine founders Emiliano Grodzki and Nicolás Bonta in 2017, has become the ninth Argentine start-up to reach unicorn status, following the success of other Argentine unicorns such as Mercado Libre, Globant, Despegar and OLX.
Bitfarms runs vertically integrated mining operations and operates five industrial scale facilities with 21500 machines located in Québec, Canada using 69 MW of hydroelectricity. It is listed both on Wall Street and the Toronto Stock Exchange
The company has announced that it will set up a new facility in the duty-free zone of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. It plans to install in early 2022 over 55,000 machines which will use up to 210 megawatts of electricity. With a favourable year-round climate, the facility in Patagonia does not require expensive liquid immersion cooling to keep the miners cool and operating optimally. The miners will be cooled with fans, similar to how they are cooled in their facilities in Québec. It is also intended to provide geographic production diversification to reduce risk.
Bitfarms has also announced another plan to set up a mining facility in Paraguay ( country with power surplus) which will operate with 8000 machines using 10 MW of hydroelectric power.