Is Latin America Caught Between Rebalancing and Hegemonic Erosion?

Andres Malamud and Luis Schenoni recently published an article about Latin America being caught between strategic rebalancing and hegemonic transition:

The current international landscape lends itself to two competing interpretations. One understands it as a process of strategic rebalancing: a temporary hardening of U.S. leadership aimed at managing the decoupling from China in a bipolar world. The other conceives it as a hegemonic transition, in which U.S. primacy is being structurally eroded by China’s rise.

I find this binary approach a bit frustrating. As I've argued, Latin America has increasingly played the field and does not have to choose between alignment or non-alignment. Javier Milei loves Trump and also works closely with China. I guess it depends on what we mean by "alignment." No matter how much Trump (or Marco Rubio) talk about China, we are not in another Cold War. It's not all or nothing. 

I don't think it's useful to view hemispheric relations in terms of a U.S.-China rivalry. Autonomy doesn't mean choosing sides--it means diversifying. As they write:

As one Latin American foreign minister confided to us, “active non-alignment or strategic autonomy sound very appealing and entertain academics, but the truth is that these concepts are beyond our grasp. We are vulnerable, and all we can do is try to play the game of political maneuvering”.

This nails it perfectly. There is no alignment or non-alignment. There is strategizing for your country's interests. Now more than ever, even with Trump, there is more room to do that. 

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Postponing Venezuelan Elections

To the surprise of no one, the Venezuelan regime says it can't even discuss elections anymore. It would distract from saving Venezuelans from the earthquake and would even be downright disrespectful.

In the short term, the earthquake works well politically for Delcy and Jorge Rodriguez precisely because they can wrap themselves in a cynical show of concern for the Venezuelans they've long neglected and postpone giving up power. But there are already complaints about corruption in the form of stealing goods meant for the victims (a la Anastasio Somoza). Unless the situation changes drastically, Venezuelan support for the regime--which is already deeply unpopular--will worsen.

The Trump administration seems totally uninterested in elections so this works just fine for them too. This all boils down to the Venezuelan people themselves. At what point do they get fed up and test the repressive institutions of the regime? It's also not at all clear how Maria Corina Machado will fit into this. At a certain point, which is impossible to determine ahead of time, Marco Rubio will have to either allow elections or actively go against the Venezuelan people. He's getting closer and closer to the latter.

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Historical U.S. Policy and Current Realities

On his blog Henry Ziemer makes what he calls his most controversial opinions. One is "It's all the United States' Fault, That Matters Less Than You'd Think." In sum:

Everywhere you look in the region, the scars of past U.S. interventions and policy failures are painfully obvious. Still, I don’t think it follows that U.S. engagement today is by necessity pernicious or counterproductive. Nevertheless, I often find myself encountering a certain type of commentary that substitutes historical grievances for an actual understanding of current events.

My controversial take is that I don't find this very controversial. I think it would have been much more controversial to say in the past. When I started my dissertation research, Augusto Pinochet was still Commander in Chief so the 1973 coup remained very present. And don't get me started on how U.S. influence in that coup was actually much lower than is often assumed anyway. But it's not so present 30 years later.

Additionally, it's clear that especially in the post-Cold War era, sometimes U.S. policy is a positive force. The U.S. engineered the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 but also was a driving force (starting under George W. Bush) behind CICIG, an anti-corruption effort that was bearing fruit until another U.S. president, Donald Trump, looked the other way when corrupt Guatemalan officials got rid of it. In other words, the fact of the 1954 coup isn't related to policy decisions today, even though we may say it contributed to (but did not create) a long-term culture of authoritarianism and impunity.

My sense is that we see fewer op-eds these days that start by using the examples of 1954 Guatemala and 1973 Chile, which were often staples. U.S. policy toward Venezuela has no particular historical referent at all. Cuba policy may be an exception because the embargo actually started in the early Cold War and never stopped. There is more acknowledgment of Latin American agency, which is a welcome change.

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The U.S. and Maria Corina Machado

María Corina Machado wants to come back to Venezuela even more badly now because of the earthquake, which also largely coincides with the Trump administration trying to shove her to the side. The administration is not happy.

U.S. officials say they are frustrated with María Corina Machado, the exiled Venezuelan opposition leader, for requesting help facilitating her return to Venezuela in the aftermath of two devastating earthquakes, according to two White House officials.

They said Ms. Machado’s multiple requests were ill-timed, and one official called them a “political stunt.” The United States, as well as dozens of other countries, has been focused on giving aid to Venezuela on Saturday.

There are several things to untangle here.

First, I hate, and I mean hate, when politicians accuse other politicians of politicizing something. This earthquake is extremely political and deserves to be politicized. Usually this is meant to stop debate or change. In any event, she's been wanting to go back for months--it's not as if this is the first time she's pushed to do so.

Second, MCM is the most popular politician in Venezuela and so it is entirely reasonable for her to return as soon as possible. The U.S. wants long-term authoritarianism to give space to reap benefits from the oil industry while not having to worry about the messiness of democracy.

Third, giving her strong signals not to return is entirely imperialist. I am curious about what precisely U.S. officials have told her beyond vague discussions of waiting for more stability. That's been working up to this point but it's starting to show signs of strain. At a minimum, her return entails figuring out a passport because hers is expired and also having private security.

Fourth, if the Venezuelan regime response continues to be a problem, such as blocking private aid and preventing journalists and others from traveling freely, MCM's arrival could be hastened. Indeed, a transition could be hastened.

As always, things can change quickly.

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Political Fallout of the Venezuelan Earthquake

The huge earthquakes that hit Venezuela would be devastating under any circumstances, but they come in a country whose leadership has dismantled infrastructure while the U.S. had also been dismantling its own systems of humanitarian aid. The political fallout will be unpredictable and ongoing, but Marco Rubio has already said something concerning:

Mr. Rubio said that the earthquakes, which have killed at least 164 and destroyed hundreds of buildings, represented a “setback” for Washington’s multiphase plan to recover Venezuela’s moribund economy and ensure democratic elections.

Don't be surprised if Delcy Rodríguez latches onto this argument, namely that the already vague last part of the "plan" (which must be put in quotations to indicate that it is not exactly a plan) can be postponed in the name of rebuilding. You can't have elections until we get things back up to speed, that sort of thing. 

Both the U.S. and the Venezuelan regime have been cagey about elections because neither want them very much. Both are getting what they want--oil, money, and power. Having elections means giving up some or all of the three.

It is impossible not to think of the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake, which helped spark rebellion because of the Somozas' naked corruption. Venezuelans were already wondering when they were going to benefit from the U.S. invasion and they're now going to need rapid and effective (and even mostly corruption free!) response, which Maduro/Rodríguez are definitely not known for.

All of this is so awful for the Venezuelan people, who are getting hit from all sides.

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Modest Control of Venezuela

There is a line in an opinion piece in The Economist from late May that I just happened to see and really caught my attention. The argument is that an attack on Cuba is a bad idea.

Cuba is not Venezuela. Its dictatorship is more deeply entrenched and ideological. Perhaps Mr Trump might be able to replace the top communists with more pliable leaders, but even the modest degree of control he has established over Venezuela would be difficult to replicate.

The word "modest" grabbed me and despite all appearances it feels right. On January 2 Venezuela was a dictatorship with a high level of poverty and a lot of despair. Now in June none of that has changed except the despair is exacerbated by unfulfilled hope. U.S. control has been narrowly focused on funneling Venezuelan oil profits into a Citibank account in the United States.

One could reasonably argue that it's not inability to control but rather indifference about controlling. I have to chew on that but I don't think the U.S. can control an election campaign once it gets going. Or rather, it can throw its weight around but it'll be really hard to control the pent up desires of millions of Venezuelans. And at some point the Chavista rift will blow open and that won't be controllable either, except by brute force.

In other words, at this moment U.S. control is more tenuous than it seems and is based a lot on acquiescence, a "wait and see" attitude by everyone, a sort of honeymoon. Honeymoons end and reality sets in. When that happens we'll really see how strong U.S. control is.

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U.S. Manipulation in Venezuela

The latest U.S. effort to maintain control of Venezuela is to shove Maria Corina Machado aside and instead favor Dinorah Figueroa, who is president of the unofficial National Assembly elected in 2015. She is a legitimate member of the opposition but very clearly not the head of that opposition. Figueroa admitted she has differences with MCM. But now she's negotiating with Jorge Rodriguez. Further:

“María Corina es la líder, pero aquí estamos hablando de institucionalidad y yo soy presidente de la Asamblea Nacional.”

Clear as mud, and she didn't refer to the Panama Manifesto, which gave MCM the role of negotiating with Delcy Rodriguez. So a big question now is whether MCM cedes that role, which is also admitting that the whole thing can be scrapped if the U.S. demands it.

This is a delicate game for the U.S. to play and obviously we can mostly expect blunt instruments from the Trump administration. Delcy Rodriguez is very unpopular and Venezuela is primed to unite behind a single candidate. The U.S. is introducing a split. They seem to see MCM as too divisive and that may well be linked to the notion that she is not manipulable. She has stayed publicly mum, which right now seems like a good idea.

Overall, we have an unstable combination of an increasingly divided Chavismo and a potentially divided opposition. The Chavista division is clear and driven by anger at the eager cooperation with the imperial power. Beyond personalities, we'll have to wait and see what drives the opposition's division or whether it can be bridged.

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Latin American Exports in 2026

It's 2026. In the context of 25 years of expanding its reach to the rest of the world and the U.S. proving itself an unreliable partner, and even sometimes a threat (both militarily and with tariffs) we should expect that Latin America would be strengthening its ties outside the region, with China a notable example. From the recently published IDB report on trade:

China’s imports from LAC are estimated to have increased by 5.1% on average in 2025 compared to 2024 as a result of a strong recovery in the second half of the year. In contrast, total Chinese imports remained virtually flat throughout 2025 (0.1%). In the first quarter of 2026, the country’s imports from LAC expanded by an extraordinary 29.3% year-on-year, while its total imports also grew vigorously (22.7%). LAC’s share in China’s imports reached 9.6% in the first quarter of 2026, slightly below the 2025 average of 9.8%.

US imports from LAC remained relatively stable in 2025, increasing by an average of 4.9% compared to 2024. Total US imports grew at a similar rate (4.4%). However, the first quarter of 2026 constituted a stark contrast: while total US imports contracted by 13.6% year-on-year, imports from LAC grew by 4.0%, raising the region’s market share from 20.2% in 2025 to a record high of 21.8%.

Stable trade with the U.S. (and the EU) but very strong with China precisely at the time the U.S. is flexing its muscles in Venezuela. Diversification is the name of the game.

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Shield of the Americas Backs Rodrigo Paz

The Shield of the Americas put out a statement about the Bolivian crisis through the U.S. State Department. Its source and wording suggests that the other governments had little (and perhaps nothing) to do with it. 

The member countries of Shield of the Americas denounce ongoing efforts to overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected government of President Rodrigo Paz in Bolivia. We stand with Paz’s democratic government as it fights back against attempts to drag Bolivia backwards through cynical efforts to prevent the delivery of food, medicine and other vital supplies to the Bolivian people through fake road blockades. Mob rule cannot replace the decision that a majority of Bolivians made at the ballot box to turn the page on two decades of corrupt governments. Those who are funding these protests with dirty money from drug trafficking and transnational crime should be held accountable. Those who have legitimate grievances should take advantage of the government’s willingness to dialogue, and denounce those who would abuse their causes to regain power.

I love the reference to "fake road blockades," which are somehow both fake and highly disruptive, and it's pure Trump. The Shield of the Americas is the exact mirror image as all the various and sundry leftist organizations that sprouted up under Hugo Chavez's era. It's right-wing, controlled by the United States, and will lose or gain members depending on elections. Its driving force is the U.S. while the old leftist ones were Venezuela. Even the inflammatory language is the mirror of Chavez's devil empire rhetoric.

As such, it will have a similar longevity as the others.

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Cuba Sanctions

The latest round of U.S. sanctions on Cuba include Miguel Díaz-Canel, the entire Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, and even the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which are the neighborhood-level groups that keep tabs on everyone (and are copied in Venezuela).

The point, of course, as with charges against Raúl Castro, is to provide the veneer of legal rationale for invasion. This is where it gets sticky. The Cuban and Venezuelan governments are dictatorships that do not care about their own citizens, so no one should feel sorry for them and they deserve sanction of some kind. But they are not a threat to the United States. Maybe China or Russia's presence is slightly enhanced, but not much more than that. Cuba doesn't fund guerrillas anymore. Its main export was to help Venezuela attack its own people and doctors (a complicated topic I am not diving into at the moment).

But U.S. policy is hurting the Cuban people even more. Yes, the command economy is a disaster, but it's really because of the U.S. that Cubans can barely function at the moment. The U.S. is directly causing the food shortages.

In short, the Cuban people are getting double-barreled by two governments that have no interest in their well-being.

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What is Chavismo These Days?

Yesterday I mentioned the growing number of leftist Venezuelans criticizing the government of Delcy Rodríguez. A great example not only of that but of the redefinition of Chavismo can be found in a recent interview that Elías Jaua gave. Jaua was, among many other things, Hugo Chávez's Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the past he called for Venezuela to copy Cuba with a fully state-controlled economy and society. In short, he's hardcore.

He argues that Maduro starting deviating from Chavismo in 2018 as he opened up the economy to capitalism. And what is Chavismo? This is where it gets interesting:

There is a Chavismo within the United Socialist Party (PSUV) – no one can dispute that  – but I believe there is a broader, and much larger, Chavismo, with a cultural, political, and symbolic identity rooted in a metanarrative that exists outside the PSUV and the Great Patriotic Pole. That sector currently lacks clear leadership and organizational structure, but it retains its values. It may have circumstantial views of the situation, but essentially it continues to uphold the principles that launched this process: sovereignty, participatory and protagonist democracy, democratic pluralism, freedom, political ethics, debate, speaking the truth, and social equality. It also holds a vision of a multipolar world, in solidarity with international struggles. These were, in essence, the core tenets of Chavismo from its inception and remain relevant for a significant portion of the Venezuelan population that is Chavista or was once Chavista.

It's interesting because much of it is very clearly antithetical to what Jaua and Chávez were doing in the years before he died. Democratic pluralism was eroding, ethical behavior was overwhelmed by extreme corruption, there was stifling of open debate, and lots of untruths. Regardless, now Chavismo is mutating into something that no one can argue against. Who doesn't want democracy, debate, and speaking the truth? Well, many Chavista didn't, but they claim to now.

As far as the path forward goes, I can't really argue with any of this. I don't know if he really believes it or not.

The priority is to regain independence. If we hold elections, that is with candidates for what? For governor of the colony? Anyone who truly wants to hold the presidency of the Republic of Venezuela must first raise their voice in favor of the immediate restoration of the country’s sovereign rights over its resources and revenues and the assertion of political self-determination.

In any case, I argue that any eventual electoral process should be the result of a national agreement, renationalizing politics and not waiting for a call from the White House one day announcing that there will be elections in six months. That would be very shameful. I believe that Venezuelan political forces would be obligated, as part of that strategy to reclaim and demand the restoration of Venezuela’s sovereignty, to also commit to the international community and the Venezuelan people to seek a political, democratic, and electoral path forward.

I would love it if Venezuela demanded its sovereignty and called for its own national elections, with full participation by all. For years now, Venezuelan leaders have been too scared to allow free elections because they know they'll lose. Jaua has to know an election would likely be bad for the left, so I hope he and others actually let it happen. 

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Chavismo vs Delcy

Increasingly you can find Venezuelan leftists denouncing Delcy Rodríguez for a traitorous submission to the United States, with either the tacit or explicit nostalgia for Hugo Chávez. As happens with so many dead politicians, his warts are being brushed over.

Along these lines, I found it interesting to see an article in Aporrea, a leftist publication, denouncing the colectivos, which have often been celebrated as protectors of Chavismo. The colectivos are still active and attacking people. But now they're attacking on behalf of a corrupt puppet of the United States who has strayed too far from "true" Chavismo.

En este entramado, el papel que han jugado los grupos parapoliciales —mal llamados "colectivos"— como fuerzas de choque y de represión al servicio del gobierno del PSUV es el reflejo más concreto del carácter autoritario del Estado y un enorme obstáculo para que el pueblo encuentre una salida propia a la crisis.

This is where the right and left in Venezuela can converge. They will never agree on who should lead the country (not to mention Chávez's legacy) but they can agree that armed thugs protecting an illegitimate government should be disbanded even though they don't necessarily agree on precisely why the government is illegitimate.

And I love this:

Ante la agresión gringa, se mostraron dóciles, pasivos y desprovistos de todo el coraje nacionalista que tanto pregonan. La contradicción es tan enorme como indignante:

​¿El valor de estos grupos solo alcanza para apalear a adultos mayores, pensionados y obreros desarmados?

They colectivos are too cowardly to take aim at the United States. It's much easier to attack unarmed workers. 

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CRS on Ineffective U.S. Policies

The Congressional Research Service published a report on U.S.-Latin American relations last week. One of its concluding paragraphs hits the nail on the head with its typical straightforward, "just the facts, ma'am" tone.

The extent to which these initial successes will translate into the achievement of some of the Administration's strategic objectives remains to be seen. For example, there are few signs to date that many governments in the Western Hemisphere intend to significantly restrict or roll back PRC capital flows or technology. Likewise, available data suggest that the Administration's policies have not coincided with a reduction in drug trafficking into the United States or a reduction in the U.S. goods trade deficit with other Western Hemisphere partners. More broadly, the Administration's use of tariffs, sanctions, and the threat of military force to advance its agenda appears to be contributing to backlash in some parts of the region, including a deterioration in public opinions about the United States and some governments exploring alternative economic and security partnerships.

In other words, Trump administration policies continue to prompt Latin American governments to pursue and deepen non-U.S. relationships, including with China. 

Oh, and bombing random boats doesn't have any impact on drug trafficking. Neither did removing Nicolás Maduro.

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Ongoing Repression in Venezuela

Simon Romero has a very interesting look at Venezuela in his most recent NYT article. It is about the crumbling and decaying coastal city of Cumaná, but that in particular isn't what interested me. Rather, it was the underlying repression his trip indicated.

First, in a car trip that went from dawn until dusk, they went through 20 military checkpoints. That's 13ish hours, so more than one per hour. On the NYT website you can see a video of what that looked like. It's anxiety producing. It is a very effective way to keep track of people and know who's moving around.

Second are these two paragraphs:

Others in Brisas del Golfo said they were afraid to speak to a reporter. They said they still feared retribution from the leaders of their Communal Council, the organizational cell in Venezuela that manages local governance and serves as the eyes and ears at the street level for the governing party.

Council leaders monitor social media posts and everyday conversations, these residents said, and could limit subsidies like basic food staples or cooking fuel if they believe someone is disloyal to the state.

The Communal Councils are an important part of the repressive structure. You're in an apartment hallway or a yard and you criticize the government and that might affect whether you get food. It is spying at the local level and it's really effective. Petty, power-hungry people have control over basic goods.

These are dictatorial measures that remain in place no matter what Delcy Rodríguez says about prisoners being released or national unity. That's why Venezuelans abroad are hesitant about returning when they've been politically active.

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