Welcome again to Overseas Coverage’s Latin America Temporary.
The highlights this week: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva kicks off an Asia tour in India, one other Peruvian president is impeached, and Uruguay celebrates the world’s longest carnival.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Brazil and Argentina final yr, and this week, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is main one of many largest-ever Brazilian delegations to India, together with 11 authorities ministers and lots of of enterprise leaders. The journey marks Lula’s second to the nation throughout his present time period.
Brazil and India share membership in a number of multilateral groupings, however their bilateral relationship has lengthy underperformed its potential, in keeping with Hari Seshasayee, an skilled on India-Latin America relations. “India has had a ‘neighborhood first’ coverage for a few years,” he instructed Overseas Coverage.
Not like its engagement with Africa, India doesn’t convene common summits with Latin American nations, nor has it produced a method white paper for the area that’s similar to these issued by China or the European Union. Though Indian commerce and funding in Latin America have grown previously decade, the non-public sector has led that effort.
That dynamic now seems to be altering. Since returning to workplace in 2023, Lula has sought to deepen ties with Asian companions. This accelerated after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a few of his steepest tariffs on Brazil and India, which turned to one another to diversify their partnerships.
Elevated cooperation is already underway. Forward of Lula’s journey, Brazilian aerospace agency Embraer signed an settlement to fabricate plane in India, and Brazil’s well being minister introduced new funding to import Indian parts for so-called good hospitals powered by synthetic intelligence.
Brazil and India are hedging towards instability and great-power competitors with their rising cooperation. As Trump shakes up the worldwide system, “the character of the worldwide order that can emerge can be very a lot decided by the conduct of center powers,” mentioned Hussein Kalout, a world advisory board member on the Brazilian Middle for Worldwide Relations.
Uncommon-earths cooperation and AI are each focal factors of Lula’s go to this week. At a world AI summit in New Delhi, he delivered a speech arguing that the know-how’s advantages should lengthen to the worldwide south and that regulation is important to curb its dangerous results, akin to disinformation.
Brazil’s government department has already launched a sweeping AI motion plan, and lawmakers are anticipated to cross a regulatory framework within the coming weeks. Nonetheless, Brazil’s method to AI coverage has triggered some pushback at dwelling, and never solely from tech firms fearing pink tape.
Ronaldo Lemos, the founding father of the Institute for Expertise and Society of Rio de Janeiro and one of many authors of Brazil’s 2014 web invoice of rights, instructed Overseas Coverage that Brazil’s draft AI authorized framework leans so closely into regulation that the nation stands to overlook out on financial advantages.
Brazilian officers, for his or her half, have argued that their proposed AI insurance policies strike a steadiness between innovation and safeguarding towards potential hurt.
If enacted in its present type, Lemos mentioned, the AI motion plan “would trigger vital stagnation within the synthetic intelligence innovation sector.” He famous that the laws does little to handle the necessity for large-scale training and workforce retraining. Although the plan mentions retraining, Lemos mentioned it’s an space the place Brazil can study from India.
Lula’s look on the summit in New Delhi is on the very least subjecting Brazil’s AI insurance policies to better worldwide debate, and it might yield new approaches and partnerships. After India, Lula will journey to South Korea, a know-how powerhouse that has additionally signaled its intention to improve its relationship with Brazil.
Tuesday, Feb. 24, to Friday, Feb. 27: The Caribbean Neighborhood (Caricom) holds a leaders’ summit.
Saturday, March 7: Trump will host a number of Latin American leaders in Miami.
AI-assisted raid. The U.S. seize of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ignited contemporary controversy this week after the Wall Road Journal and Axios reported that the U.S. Protection Division used the AI mannequin Claude within the Jan. 3 army operation. The experiences didn’t specify how the instrument was used however famous that AI will be utilized to duties akin to scenario-planning and drone management.
Claude’s developer, Anthropic, didn’t touch upon whether or not the know-how was used within the raid however careworn that there’s a utilization code for the product; the code prohibits its use to facilitate violence. In current days, Anthropic and the Pentagon have reportedly been at odds over the corporate’s request for assurances that its know-how won’t be used for mass surveillance or to function absolutely autonomous weapons.
Earlier this month, a number of Latin American nations, together with Chile, Ecuador, and Panama, have been among the many signatories of a world pledge selling the accountable army use of AI. The US didn’t signal it, nor did Colombia, which has deployed AI-equipped armed drones in operations towards drug traffickers.
Canada-Mexico ties. Representatives from greater than 200 Canadian firms are in Mexico Metropolis this week looking for to spice up commerce and funding amid combined indicators from the USA on the way forward for North American free commerce. A follow-up mission is within the works for March, when a prime Canadian commerce official mentioned he expects that particular investments could be introduced.
The way forward for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Settlement will seemingly not be clear till no less than July. Within the meantime, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is pitching one other potential commerce pact that might hyperlink the European Union with the Complete and Progressive Settlement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, of which each Canada and Mexico are members.
Dancers carry out on the Llamadas Parade, held on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8, 2025, in Montevideo, Uruguay.Santiago Mazzarovich/dpa through Reuters Join
The longest carnival. Carnival festivities wrapped up this week throughout a lot of Latin America, apart from Uruguay, the place they are going to proceed by March as a part of the world’s longest Carnival celebration.
As elsewhere, Uruguay’s celebration is closely formed by the nation’s Afro-descendent inhabitants. Drumming traditions delivered to South America through the trans-Atlantic slave commerce laid the inspiration for the candombe music custom. Throughout Carnival, candombe bands parade by the streets alongside costumed dancers.
One other central ingredient of Uruguay’s Carnival traces its roots to Spain. In 1909, a touring Spanish opera troupe carried out within the nation, inspiring native variations. At present, musical theater performances generally known as murgas happen throughout each Carnival, typically satirizing social and political themes of the day.
At this yr’s festivities, some murgas made critiques of the U.S. gas blockade on Cuba and the rising use of ChatGPT in school rooms.
The phrase “carnival” is believed to derive from Latin. What does it imply?
Spring celebration
Finish of winter
Costume parade
Take away the meat
That may be a reference to Lent within the Christian calendar, throughout which some observers hand over meat. (“Meat” in Latin is carnis, so Spanish and Portuguese audio system could have guessed this.)
New interim Peruvian President José María Balcázar is seen after his election on the Nationwide Congress in Lima on Feb. 18.Ernesto Benavides / AFP through Getty Photographs
This week, Peru swore in its eighth president in a decade. After impeaching and eradicating President José Jerí on Tuesday, the nation’s Congress chosen left-wing politician José Balcázar as his interim substitute. Balcázar will lead the nation till the tip of July, when a brand new president—chosen throughout normal elections in April—will take workplace.
The event continues Peru’s cycle of fast presidential turnover. Jerí was impeached solely 4 months after taking workplace, following the impeachment of President Dina Boluarte. And Balcázar belongs to the identical celebration as former President Pedro Castillo, who was elected in 2021 and impeached in 2022.
Jerí got here beneath scrutiny final month after experiences surfaced that he had met with a Chinese language businessman holding a authorities contract with out formally registering the encounter as required. As criticism mounted over so-called “Chifa-gate”—a reference to Chinese language-Peruvian delicacies—journalists additionally uncovered new proof a few 2024 rape allegation towards Jerí, which he denies.
Although Peru’s economic system has largely remained secure regardless of the frequent presidential turnover, its democracy has not fared as nicely.
“Peru’s democracy is falling aside,” Human Rights Watch’s Juanita Goebertus wrote in a press release. “The fixed modifications of president are simply the tip of the iceberg in a rustic the place Congress always legislates in favor of organized crime, judges and prosecutors worry retaliation for doing their jobs, and prison teams are increasing.”
