Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: Brazilian authorities indict former President Jair Bolsonaro, Argentine President Javier Milei promotes a short-lived memecoin, and Chilean programmers build a Latin American AI model.
On Tuesday, Brazil’s attorney general charged former President Jair Bolsonaro and 33 others with plotting to disrupt and overturn the results of Brazil’s 2022 election, saying their scheme included plans to kill the winner of the vote, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The 272-page indictment builds on recommendations from a police investigation published last November. The case now goes to Brazil’s Supreme Court, which will determine whether to accept the charges and begin a trial. If convicted, Bolsonaro could face at least 12 years in prison.
The indictment described plans for annulling election results after Lula won; arresting top judges and empowering the military; and assassinating Lula, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in the run-up to Lula’s inauguration on Jan. 1, 2023.
Those plans did not come to fruition. But other actions described in the charges did, including Bolsonaro’s efforts to cast doubt on the reliability of Brazil’s electronic voting machines, blitzes carried out by the federal highway police that slowed voters on their way to the polls, and Bolsonaro allies coaxing supporters to storm the capital complex in Brasília.
The indictment cited documents and text messages from the alleged co-conspirators, as well as witness testimony. Bolsonaro has denied the charges, saying they were an attempt to sabotage his political movement.
The indictment may be a watershed moment in Brazilian politics. If the accusations against Bolsonaro and his allies are true, Brazil has survived a brush with potential military intervention just 40 years after emerging from dictatorship.
A month into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, the indictment also takes on new international dimensions. Brazil’s ex-president has for years styled himself after Trump and earned support from some Trump confidants.
If Bolsonaro’s case goes to trial—as is widely expected—it will stand in contrast to the U.S. justice system’s inconclusive efforts to try Trump on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 U.S. election. U.S. authorities delayed and modified charges against Trump after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last July that granted presidents broad immunity for official acts; the charges were dismissed when Trump won last November.
The case against Bolsonaro may trigger renewed efforts by Trump allies to weigh in on Brazilian politics. Last year, Elon Musk’s social media site X objected to Brazilian court orders to take down allegedly anti-democratic content posted by some Bolsonaro allies, saying it amounted to censorship. The conflict escalated, and the platform was briefly suspended in Brazil.
Musk and other Trump associates have increased their criticism of the Brazilian government in recent days. Last week, Musk wrote on X that the U.S. “deep state” funded Lula’s 2022 victory. And on Wednesday, hours after the indictment against Bolsonaro was unsealed, Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the president’s Truth Social site, and video platform Rumble sued Moraes, the Brazilian Supreme Court justice, in a Florida court.
Last week, Moraes ordered that a Bolsonaro supporter’s account be removed from Rumble; the plaintiffs argued that this action amounted to stifling free expression. In a January interview with the New York Times, Bolsonaro had said he hoped Trump’s politics “really spill over into Brazil.”
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro’s allies—including his son Brazilian lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro—have cultivated close ties with Trump’s inner circle. The younger Bolsonaro spent this week hobnobbing with Steve Bannon and other Republicans at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Bannon said Bolsonaro’s indictment was based on “nothing.”
Although Brazil’s accountability mechanisms are advancing against Bolsonaro, a sympathetic Trump administration seems to be offering him a helping hand.
Friday, Feb. 21: Caribbean Community leaders wrap up a summit in Barbados.
Saturday, March 1, to Wednesday, March 5: Countries including Brazil, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago celebrate Carnival.
Week of Monday, March 3: The Trump administration could impose 25 percent tariffs on Mexican imports.
Milei’s memecoin. Argentine President Javier Milei arrived in Washington on Thursday for talks with U.S. officials fresh off a cryptocurrency scandal that has dented some of his credibility at home.
Last week, Milei posted about a cryptocurrency called $LIBRA, saying it would finance “small companies and some Argentine ventures.” $LIBRA was a so-called memecoin—a cryptocurrency inspired by an internet meme.
The value of the currency soared, then crashed within hours, and Milei deleted his post. Argentine lawyers sued Milei, alleging fraud. An Argentine industry group for financial technology companies said the case could amount to a “rug pull” scam, where promoters hype a cryptocurrency before suddenly selling it.
Argentina’s stock index fell by more than 5 percent on Monday, though it has since recovered. Milei said he was acting in good faith and that gamblers should be careful when they take risks.
Latin American AI. Chile’s government announced last week that its state-backed National Center for Artificial Intelligence would launch an artificial intelligence large language model in partnership with more than 26 other Latin American institutions in June. Dubbed “Latam GPT,” the model is designed to “reflect the cultural, social, and linguistic richness of the region.”
While scholars of regional economic development celebrated the news of the launch, they have also warned that Latin America should be doing much more to invest in local AI capabilities.
The global race for advances in AI—particularly between China and the United States—marks a “fork in the road” for Latin America, Eduardo Levy Yeyati and Soledad Guilera of Torcuato Di Tella University argue in Americas Quarterly. “Without bold action, Latin America risks remaining a passive consumer in a game controlled by foreign powers,” they wrote.
A portrait of Mexican singer Paquita la del Barrio is seen next to an urn with her remains during a tribute in her hometown of Alto Lucero, Mexico, on Feb. 19.Victoria Razo/AFP via Getty Images
Feminist for the masses. Mexicans are mourning ranchera and bolero singer Paquita la del Barrio, who died this week. Her music “transcended generations and became anthems of female empowerment and social criticism,” Mexico City’s Culture Department said in a statement.
Paquita became a household name in the 1980s with ballads that included ill wishes for men who had treated her poorly. “I sing the truth, even if the gentlemen don’t like it,” she told the Miami Herald in 2008.
Paquita toured across South America, Spain, and the United States, receiving two Latin Grammy nominations and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Billboard Latin Music Awards. One of her most famous songs is “Two-Legged Rat,” which refers to an ex-lover.
Chile has long been home to one of the region’s most vibrant start-up scenes. What year did the government begin the accelerator program “Start-Up Chile”?
2008
2010
2012
2014
The incubator birthed unicorn NotCo, which makes plant-based food products.
A sign for Camp Justice, where military commissions are held, is seen within the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base on Sept. 7, 2021.Paul Handley/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. government designated eight Latin American organized crime groups as international terrorist organizations on Thursday. They include six Mexico-based groups, Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, and Central America’s MS-13.
Trump has repeatedly warned about the dangers posed by such groups. But organized crime experts caution against terrorist designations.
For at least some of the groups, such a designation seems disproportionate. Tren de Aragua is most active outside the United States, said InSight Crime’s Mike LaSusa, who tracks the group. On U.S. soil, its limited presence mostly targets the Venezuelan migrant community—“nothing that is threatening sort of general public security here in the U.S.,” he said.
Furthermore, terrorist designations open the door to unilateral U.S. military action against the crime groups. Unilateral steps “would drastically worsen security because they would be a big obstacle to cooperation,” said Eduardo Guerrero of Mexican consultancy Lantia. “If Mexico is not participating in security policies to combat Mexico-based organized crime, it’s not going to be very effective.”
Guerrero has instead floated the idea of a North American security treaty, in which Mexico, the United States, and Canada jointly define targets and metrics for security improvements. The terrorist designations do not preclude that kind of cooperation, he said.
Latin Americans also worry that listing organized crime groups as terrorist organizations will further stigmatize migrants. Families of Venezuelan migrants taken to Guantánamo Bay in recent days have contested the Trump administration’s claims that their relatives are gang members.
For Venezuelans, “the feeling that we have right now is isolation,” said Venezuelan political scientist Alexandra Panzarelli, who teaches at two New York universities. Panzarelli is a friend of detained Venezuelan opposition activist Jesús Armas, who was swept up by Maduro government officials more than two months ago and has been given minimal contact with family.
Though rights groups say the number of political prisoners held by Venezuela is at the highest level in the 21st century so far, the Trump administration have devoted much of its Venezuela-related policymaking toward detentions and deportations rather than pro-democracy advocacy.