Welcome again to Overseas Coverage’s Latin America Transient, and Comfortable New Yr.
This week, we’re previewing a number of the largest tales of 2026: the way forward for U.S.-Mexico-Canada relations amid a commerce deal assessment and the World Cup, the race for the following United Nations secretary-general, and key elections throughout the area.
In current a long time, the politics and economies of Canada, Mexico, and the US have turn into so intertwined that leaders’ summits between the international locations earned the nickname the Three Amigos.
U.S. President Donald Trump examined the boundaries of that friendship final 12 months through tariffs, threats to desert a trilateral commerce deal, and harsh immigration restrictions that would undermine the success of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will probably be held throughout the three international locations.
This summer time, the international locations will face a deadline for whether or not to scrap, preserve, or tweak the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Settlement (USMCA) commerce deal that took impact in 2020—simply because the soccer event will get underway. The destiny of each will have an effect on the all-important North American relationship.
USMCA was negotiated throughout Trump’s first time period, changing the North American Free Commerce Settlement. It has a built-in assessment course of that is because of conclude by July 1. Mexico and Canada want to see the deal prolonged in one thing near its present type, whereas Trump’s commerce consultant, Jamieson Greer, lately stated that the US had thought of exiting the deal and changing it with separate bilateral agreements.
In non-public, U.S. negotiators seem dedicated to the deal, senior Canadian officers have stated. However Trump’s unpredictability, particularly on commerce, signifies that the destiny of the deal is an open query. U.S. tariffs on Canada and Mexico final 12 months already slowed development in each international locations; some specialists say the levies violated the USMCA.
The end result of the USMCA assessment might present readability on the place U.S. tariff ranges will finally settle. For Mexico and Canada, a pointy departure from present USMCA guidelines would drive an initially painful reorganization of their international commerce relations. Some 75 % of Canada’s exports and 80 % of Mexico’s at the moment go to the US.
The World Cup, for its half, might have an effect on public opinion of the US in Mexico and the broader area. Internet hosting the event is a chance for any nation to spice up its delicate energy. However this 12 months’s version is already marred by worries about how the Trump administration’s anti-migrant stance might have an effect on some followers, particularly these from Latin America and the Caribbean.
America hosted a global event of soccer golf equipment final 12 months. Throughout that occasion, U.S. authorities detained an asylum-seeker residing in the US who was on the way in which to a sport and later deported him. (He was initially detained for unauthorized use of a drone.) The White Home envoy for the World Cup stated final month that Trump wouldn’t rule out immigration raids at this 12 months’s event.
Such raids might have an effect on folks from Latin America and the Caribbean who’re at the moment in the US, and a few of these residing outdoors the nation is likely to be blocked from attending the event altogether due to Trump’s journey bans.
That’s the case for Haitian soccer followers, at the same time as Haiti has certified for the World Cup for the primary time in 50 years. Trump banned Haitians from getting into the US in June. As of December, the White Home had issued an exemption for soccer gamers, however not followers.
By final June, public opinion of the US in Brazil and Mexico had turned extra unfavourable below Trump, in response to a Pew survey. A World Cup characterised by deportations and blocked followers might speed up the pattern.
If Mexico offers an particularly constructive expertise for vacationers, that would hasten a special sample. The variety of guests to the nation was on monitor to interrupt a document in 2025, in response to authorities information via October. Whereas U.S. tourism is rising dimmer, that of neighboring Mexico is shining brighter.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gestures throughout the opening ceremony of the Brazil-Paraguay Integration Bridge in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, on Dec. 19, 2025.Evaristo Sa/AFP through Getty Photographs
Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Haiti, and Peru will all maintain presidential elections this 12 months, and the contests within the first two international locations may have implications properly past their borders.
Due to time period limits, Colombia will bid farewell to leftist President Gustavo Petro, who sought—with blended success—to depart from the hard-line warfare on medicine, to extend Bogotá’s foreign-policy independence from Washington, and to spur a world coalition of nations to maneuver away from dependence on oil and gasoline.
Petro’s approval ranking sits at round 40 % or decrease, which bodes poorly for his ally and potential successor, Iván Cepeda. With a extra conservative president, Colombia’s power and safety insurance policies might take a pointy flip, and it might be part of the area’s column of pro-Trump international locations.
A loss for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who’s looking for a fourth time period in workplace, might have an analogous consequence. A rightward shift in Brazil could be consequential for the area. It could lead on the nation to scale down its ambitions to form the agenda of worldwide south international locations, an indicator of Lula’s administration. It may also gradual Brazil’s work on street, rail, and port infrastructure initiatives to higher bodily combine South American economies.
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, who took workplace in November, goals to open the nation’s lithium reserves to extra non-public funding. In the meantime, Brazil’s legislature is debating a draft essential minerals coverage that may channel a number of the nation’s uncooked supplies into native processing vegetation.
China is pitching itself as a companion for Latin American governments to spice up their home industries associated to essential minerals. The Trump administration has introduced up essential minerals in its talks with a number of Latin American governments and pledged to cooperate on essential minerals investments with Argentina. The European Union has additionally touted the matter as a possible space of cooperation.
Whether or not Latin American international locations can use their essential minerals as a springboard to industrial development and domestically made applied sciences is a query that can outline the century, not simply this 12 months. But it surely’s clear that if Latin American international locations don’t set their very own essential minerals insurance policies, superpowers could also be considering setting the foundations of engagement for them.
Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, speaks throughout a U.N. Safety Council assembly on U.S. navy actions towards Venezuela, at U.N. headquarters in New York on Dec. 23, 2025. Angela Weiss/AFP through Getty Photographs
The United Nations will select its subsequent secretary-general this 12 months, and a casual customized stipulates that it’s Latin America and the Caribbean’s flip to area the chief. In current months, calls have additionally grown for the U.N. to call its first feminine secretary-general. Lula is amongst those that got here out in favor of electing a lady to the place final 12 months.
Chile’s outgoing administration nominated former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet for the place, although President-elect José Antonio Kast has not stated whether or not he’ll keep the nomination. Costa Rica nominated former Vice President Rebeca Grynspan. Each have senior U.N. management expertise.
Mexican Pure Sources Secretary Alicia Bárcena and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley are additionally being informally eyed as candidates.
The Trump administration, in the meantime, has thrown its weight behind a male candidate: Rafael Grossi, the Argentine head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Argentina’s authorities formally nominated Grossi, who has steered a renewed give attention to the U.N.’s authentic mandate to stop warfare. The Trump administration has criticized U.N. efforts to handle gender and local weather points on the worldwide stage.
Echoing some U.S. critiques, Bachelet and Grynspan have additionally referred to as for the U.N. to turn into extra environment friendly and return to its first ideas. However a profitable candidate will want backing from far past Washington.
The toll of organized crime in Latin America has turn into one of many area’s prime election points. It has additionally attracted main consideration and navy sources from the Trump administration.
That doesn’t imply that the US is routinely setting international locations’ safety insurance policies, nevertheless. Final 12 months, Mexico pushed again towards the White Home’s proposed strategy to drug trafficking, which included potential U.S. strikes on Mexican soil, the Washington Publish reported. As an alternative, Mexico took its personal steps to curb cartel motion, decreasing homicides and persuading the US to again down.
In 2026, different international locations within the area will take their very own new steps on safety coverage. Chile’s Kast, who will probably be inaugurated in March, has pledged to step up the navy’s position in anti-crime patrols and lengthen incarcerations. Crime is anticipated to be a number one problem in elections in Colombia and Peru.
Some Latin American leaders could proceed to endorse purported U.S. anti-cartel actions within the area—most notably associated to Venezuela—to remain on the Trump administration’s good aspect. However there are dangers to this strategy. If the White Home escalates its stress marketing campaign towards Venezuela, it could turn into more durable to defend to Latin American publics.
