Americas Quarterly's new issue cover

Share

Americas Quarterly's New Issue: What Lies Ahead for the Region in 2025

The magazine explores challenges to watch this year in Latin America, like Trump's return to the White House, climate disruption, and organized crime.

New York, January 14, 2025 — “The return of Donald Trump is the biggest question mark amid what otherwise seems like a fairly placid outlook for the region this year,” write Americas Quarterly (AQ) editors in the magazine’s new issue, which analyzes the key challenges Latin America will face in 2025.

In the issue’s cover story, Editor-in-Chief Brian Winter says that Trump’s top domestic priorities of reducing migration and drug flows mean he will be more focused on Latin America than in his first term, “and perhaps more than any U.S. government since the 1990s,” he writes.

Trump, however, is not the only risk. Climate related disasters shook the region in 2024 and must be regarded now as serious economic and political issue, writes Winter. Organized crime is evolving in new ways, with cocaine production increasing, new smuggling routes and the flow of money seeping deeper into politics. On the positive side, Latin American economies are in decent health and resilience has always defined the region, says the expert.

Emilie Sweigart produces a snapshot of political and economic key indicators in 12 of the region’s largest economies, including factors such as inflation, remittances inflows, fiscal balance, and GDP.

Luiza Franco and Nick Burns write about how Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s “golden boy”, Gabriel Galípolo, takes the helm of the country’s central bank at a delicate moment for the institution. And Susan Segal highlights how Latin America is an opportunity for Trump, as a region eager for greater U.S. attention.

Also in this issue:

  • AQ Company Profile: Rich Brown explains how Colombian unicorn Rappi prepares for an IPO in turbo mode.
  • Guyana’s expansion, powered by its oil boom, is still a work in progress, with the government resorting to cash transfers and free college tuition before elections this year, writes José Enrique Arrioja.
  • Long View: Luiza Franco looks at what the construction of a bridge between Brazil and Bolivia says about regional integration and relations between both countries.

The full issue is available at americasquarterly.org. 

View the PDF.

To request interviews with the authors, or to request publication permission, please contact AS/COA Media Relations at mediarelations@as-coa.org