标签： South America

Just three months after winning the Colombian presidential election on a hardline anti-crime platform, President Abelardo de la Espriella has followed through on a polarizing campaign pledge by signing a executive decree rolling back long-standing restrictions on the public carry of legally owned firearms. The new order lifts a 10-year-old suspension that required even permit-holding gun owners to obtain extra, case-by-case approval before carrying their registered weapons outside the home.

The original restriction was first introduced in December 2015 by then-president Juan Manuel Santos as a short-term temporary security measure for the Christmas and New Year holiday season. What was meant to be a brief adjustment, however, was extended annually by three successive presidents from across Colombia’s political divide: conservative Iván Duque, and left-wing Gustavo Petro, turning an emergency measure into a decade-long policy.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, de la Espriella pushed back against criticism of the move, framing the policy shift as a matter of principle for his administration. “It is unjust that criminals are fully armed while law-abiding citizens are stripped of the right to defend themselves,” he stated, adding, “A man’s word is his honor, and I have honor — that is why I keep my campaign promises.” The president also emphasized that the new decree does not open the door to unregulated gun ownership, noting that strict background checks and permit requirements for gun ownership will remain fully in place. He argued the change merely removes a permanent restriction that was never intended to be permanent in the first place.

According to estimates from Spanish daily newspaper El País, the policy change will impact approximately 700,000 Colombians who already hold valid carry permits for firearms. Moving forward, these permit holders will be allowed to carry their registered firearms outside their homes as long as their permits remain active and up to date.

The announcement has drawn sharp criticism from opposition lawmakers. Ariel Ávila, a senator with the left-leaning Green Alliance Party, condemned the decree as a “serious mistake.” Ávila warned that legally held firearms will ultimately be diverted to criminal networks, arguing that only official state security forces should hold the authority to carry firearms in public as the guarantors of citizen safety, creating an ethical contradiction in the new policy.

De la Espriella has rejected claims that the reform will undermine public safety. He countered that his administration is already aggressively targeting illegal gun possession, with security forces having seized more than 15,000 unregistered firearms so far in 2026. Most of these seized weapons, he said, were linked to breakaway factions of the former FARC rebel group and the powerful Gulf Clan transnational criminal gang, the primary sources of organized violence in the country.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — At 18, Martín Taborda stepped into the Faculty of Law at Argentina’s iconic University of Buenos Aires, carrying his family’s hope that he would become the first member of his household to earn a university degree. Just two years later, that ambition has collapsed under the weight of growing economic hardship.

Unemployed and carrying $1,300 in outstanding debt, Taborda can no longer cover even the basic costs of his education: the daily bus fare from his working-class suburb to the central campus, and the textbooks required for his courses. This struggle plays out even at UBA, a tuition-free public institution that has lifted generations of working-class Argentines into the middle class.

Taborda’s story is far from unique. Data from the Center for City Studies, an Argentine non-profit that analyzes central bank economic data, shows that nearly half of Argentina’s 45 million residents currently hold outstanding debt, with more than 5 million borrowers behind on their monthly payments. Borrowers under the age of 25 face the highest delinquency rate of any age demographic, hitting 37.6% of all young borrowers.

“There is barely any work available for anyone in this country right now,” Taborda explained. He originally took out a $100 equivalent loan via a popular digital mobile payment app in 2024 to cover school expenses, but compound interest on missed payments swelled his balance to 10 times the original borrowed amount. Forced to depend on friends and family to get by, he described the emotional toll: “You start to feel like a parasite.”

This growing crisis of household survival debt has emerged as a major political challenge for President Javier Milei, eroding support among the young voters who were key to his 2023 election victory, and handing Argentina’s fragmented opposition an opening to mobilize disillusioned voters ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

Opposition lawmakers have called a special congressional session this Wednesday to debate emergency legislation, including proposals to cap predatory lending interest rates and create structured frameworks to help struggling borrowers renegotiate their outstanding balances. Labor unions and grassroots debtor advocacy groups have planned a public protest outside Congress during the debate, a direct challenge to the core principles of Milei’s radical free-market economic agenda. The shift in voter concern comes even as Milei can claim a major policy win in taming decades-high runaway inflation, with voters now prioritizing urgent struggles over jobs, stagnant wages, and household affordability.

In their legislative proposal, left-wing lawmaker Nicolás del Caño and co-sponsors framed the bill as a necessary response to a national emergency, writing, “Households took on debt just to survive, and now they cannot repay it.”

Milei has flatly rejected calls for government intervention, arguing that unpaid debts are a private matter between individual borrowers and lending institutions, not a symptom of broader systemic economic failure. Economy Minister Luis Caputo recently told reporters that private banks have already agreed to loosen repayment terms for struggling borrowers, but added, “We shouldn’t confuse empathy with public policy.”

On a recent weekday afternoon, Taborda joined a group of several dozen fellow University of Buenos Aires students in an economics department classroom for a confidential support group focused on the emotional and financial toll of unmanageable student and household debt. The meeting follows the anonymity-centered structure of Alcoholics Anonymous, designed to reduce the stigma around debt distress. When the moderator asked for a show of hands on three key questions — who had bought groceries on installment payment plans, who had borrowed via digital apps to cover basic needs, and who had taken out new debt to pay off old loans — the vast majority of attendees raised their hands.

Since taking office in late 2023 on a promise to dismantle Argentina’s decades-long discredited political and economic establishment, Milei has delivered on his core promise of cutting runaway inflation. He slashed the federal budget deficit and brought annual inflation down from a peak of 289% in early 2024 to roughly 34% by July 2025. This new macroeconomic stability has encouraged private banks to expand lending, but steep government cuts to long-standing subsidies for gas, electricity, and public transportation have driven utility and transit costs far faster than household incomes can keep up, forcing millions of Argentines to borrow just to cover daily basic needs.

In previous eras of high inflation in Argentina, regular wage increases tied to rising prices gradually reduced the real burden of fixed loan payments. Today, slower inflation means far smaller annual pay adjustments, while sky-high borrowing costs remain in place as part of the government’s tight monetary policy designed to keep inflation in check. Digital mobile payment apps, which have become the primary lending source for low-income and young Argentines, require far less paperwork than traditional banks but charge exorbitant interest rates — often reaching three digits annually — to offset higher default risk.

Vanesa Bittoco, a spokesperson for grassroots advocacy group Organized Debtors, which campaigns for flexible repayment plans tied to borrower incomes, explained how the nature of household borrowing has shifted dramatically in Argentina: “There was a time when people took out loans to buy a house, an apartment, a car. Now people take out loans to buy food to make it to the end of the month.”

At the students’ debt support meeting, attendees described feeling trapped, deeply ashamed, and increasingly hopeless about their long-term futures. This psychological distress extends far beyond university campuses: data from the University of Buenos Aires’ Applied Social Psychology Observatory shows that more than 80% of adults surveyed in Buenos Aires and its surrounding suburbs in April 2025 reported that ongoing economic crisis had severely harmed their mental well-being.

Political analysts warn that the growing household debt crisis could significantly erode Milei’s support among young voters as he campaigns for a second term in the 2027 presidential election, now just 14 months away.

“Clearly, the current economic model is hitting young people much harder than other segments of the Argentine population,” said Ana Iparraguirre, a public opinion consultant and partner at Washington-based global strategy firm GBAO. “If this crisis continues, Milei is putting his reelection at risk with the same electorate that helped him win office.”

Milei has shown little sympathy for struggling borrowers, publicly blaming the surge in delinquencies on irresponsible consumer spending. “They bought TVs to watch the World Cup and figured they’d decide later whether to pay,” he told a gathering of investors in the port city of Rosario last month. “Well, now they haven’t paid.”

The debt crisis comes as Milei’s overall national approval rating has already dropped sharply. A recent nationally representative online poll of 1,500 respondents conducted by prominent Argentine pollster Zuban Córdoba put Milei’s job approval at just 33%, down from 49% in December 2025. A majority of respondents reported that they are worse off financially today than they were when Milei first took office. The poll, fielded from July 22 to 26, 2025, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

For advocates like Bittoco, the government will be forced to act to address the crisis: “They’re going to have to provide a solution. Otherwise, they’re the ones who will have a problem.”

In a move that has sent shockwaves through Brazil’s political landscape just months ahead of October’s national presidential election, Supreme Court Justice André Mendonca—an appointee of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro—removed the nation’s top federal police official and his intelligence deputy from their posts Tuesday. The decision escalates an already bitter public feud between rival members of the country’s highest court and has pulled sitting President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reelection campaign directly into the growing crisis.

Mendonca’s ruling alleges that Federal Police Director-General Andrei Rodrigues, a Lula nominee, and intelligence director Leandro Almada oversaw the creation of six illegal intelligence reports tracking the justice’s activities through the end of August. This unprecedented action from a sitting Supreme Court justice comes amid two high-stakes, politically charged investigations that Mendonca currently leads. The first probe centers on the collapse of Banco Master, a scandal that has already implicated multiple opposition figures, while the second investigates alleged fraud in Brazil’s national pension system—a case that has already raised ethical questions tied to one of Lula’s own sons.

As of Tuesday evening, Lula’s administration had not issued an immediate response to questions from the Associated Press regarding whether it would file an appeal against Mendonca’s ruling. In a show of solidarity, William Marcel Murad, the federal police’s executive director, released a public statement affirming that Rodrigues retains the “full confidence” of the force, adding that rank-and-file agents “will not be shaken by attacks.”

The current crisis is rooted in a bitter public clash between Mendonca and fellow Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the judge who handed former President Jair Bolsonaro a 27-year prison sentence for his role in the 2022 attempted coup, a sentence he is currently serving under house arrest. Last week, Mendonca unsealed confidential federal police documents that revealed Daniel Vorcaro, the arrested owner of collapsed Banco Master, repeatedly sought legal advice from de Moraes long before his arrest.

De Moraes has previously denied any wrongdoing connected to Vorcaro, though public records confirm his wife provided legal services to Banco Master as part of a 130 million reais ($25 million) contract. Since the unsealing of the documents, de Moraes has faced growing pressure from across the political spectrum, media outlets and legal scholars to step down, and he has yet to issue a public response to the latest allegations.

Major Brazilian media outlets reported last week that Mendonca is pushing for de Moraes to be suspended from the Supreme Court until the body can rule on whether a full graft investigation is warranted. In a direct countermove, de Moraes issued a separate ruling calling for Mendonca to be investigated by the court and potentially impeached by the Brazilian Senate for conducting a private interview with Vorcaro in August that did not include federal police agents or federal prosecutors.

Tensions around the dispute boiled over on Brazil’s Independence Day this week, when tens of thousands of supporters of opposition presidential candidate Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro—son of the incarcerated former president and Lula’s October election opponent—marched along São Paulo’s main downtown artery. Many demonstrators carried signs and chanted calling for de Moraes’ removal from the court, while displaying a giant inflatable caricature of Mendonca and wearing branded shirts signaling their support for the conservative justice.

Brazil’s October election, which pits incumbent Lula against the younger Bolsonaro, is already one of the most polarized contests in the nation’s recent history, and the ongoing Supreme Court feud has amplified uncertainty about the lead-up to the vote, as well as its potential outcome.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a high-stakes three-nation tour of Latin America on Tuesday, centered on deepening ties with newly elected conservative, pro-Washington leaders across the region. The trip comes as the Trump administration ramps up cross-border military operations against drug trafficking, pushes to expand U.S. energy influence in the Western Hemisphere, and pushes for greater coordination to curb illegal migration northward.

The tour comes just one week after the U.S. finalized a major oil agreement with the post-Nicolás Maduro government of Venezuela, following a January U.S. military operation that ousted the longtime leftist leader. Rubio’s first stop is neighboring Colombia, where he will hold talks with new President Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing leader who has openly aligned his administration with Donald Trump’s policy agenda across drugs, immigration, and energy.

De la Espriella is among a growing wave of conservative leaders who have won office across Latin America in recent cycles, reversing a decades-long leftward shift in the region and backing the Trump administration’s more aggressive foreign policy approach toward the Americas. When the trip was announced last week, the U.S. State Department confirmed that Rubio would also travel on to Ecuador and Peru after wrapping up engagements in Colombia, with core discussions focusing on “enhanced cooperation in the shared fight against narcoterrorism, which threatens our hemisphere.”

The tour comes just 24 hours after U.S. forces intercepted and sank an Ecuadorian vessel that U.S. officials allege has direct ties to the transnational criminal organization Los Choneros. This action marks the latest in a string of U.S. operations targeting vessels suspected of trafficking drugs across Latin American waters. The expanded maritime campaign in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean launched one year ago, running parallel to the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented migrants in the U.S., a large share of whom originate from Latin America.

The sunken vessel is the fifth targeted by U.S. military forces in the region in less than two weeks. In the vast majority of these operations, local conservative governments — including the three Rubio is visiting — have provided either formal cooperation or quiet tacit approval.

A key shift in U.S. tactics was on display in Monday’s operation, however: unlike most strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels that began in September 2025, all crew members were removed from the vessel before it was sunk and transferred into the custody of Ecuadorian authorities. This adjustment follows more than a year of offensive strikes that have killed at least 227 people the Trump administration labels “narcoterrorists” — a classification the administration has never supported with public evidence. The U.S. military carried out at least two of these deadly strikes just last month, before shifting focus to intercept floating refueling stations that officials say support illicit maritime drug smuggling networks.

In a pre-trip video statement released Tuesday, Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula framed Rubio’s visit as the starting point for “rebuilding a strategic alliance with the United States, our main partner in the region.” Bula confirmed that talks will center on security cooperation, including counternarcotics efforts, bilateral trade, and alignment on what both sides call “shared democratic values.”

Since taking office last month, De la Espriella — nicknamed “El Tigre” for his hardline approach — has made cracking down on drug trafficking and overhauling Colombia’s immigration policy central to his agenda, promising to deport thousands of undocumented migrants, mostly Venezuelan nationals, in a move he says will reduce national crime rates. Shortly after his inauguration, he brought Colombia into the U.S.-backed Americas Counter Cartels Coalition, rebuilding security cooperation with Washington that was badly strained during the 2022-2026 progressive administration of Gustavo Petro. He also formally closed the peace negotiations with illegal armed groups that Petro initiated, calling the process a failed effort that only worsened Colombia’s violence crisis.

In his first month in office, De la Espriella has ordered at least three airstrikes against illicit armed groups and expanded nationwide military counter-narcotics operations. But the new security approach has already drawn sharp criticism: multiple civilian minors were killed in the airstrikes, and opposition leaders and Colombia’s state Ombudsman’s Office condemned the president after he publicly displayed the bodies of alleged criminals wrapped in plastic bags alongside seized ammunition, as part of a public relations push to showcase his administration’s results.

Last week, De la Espriella announced that his government had killed Naín Andrés Pérez Toncel, alias “Bendito Menor,” a top leader of the illegal Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada armed group in northern Colombia. Perez Toncel was the first high-profile target named after the president labeled dozens of illegal armed group leaders “legitimate military targets” following his election win.

Colombia continues to grapple with ongoing competition between illegal armed groups for control of territory key to drug trafficking and illegal mining, even a decade after the government signed a landmark peace deal with the former FARC rebel movement that demobilized most of the group’s fighters.

After meeting De la Espriella in the Caribbean coastal city of Barranquilla — where the two sides are set to sign a civil nuclear cooperation agreement and a critical minerals trade pact — Rubio will travel to Quito, Ecuador, for a short working visit. There, he will meet President Daniel Noboa, whose administration has steadily expanded joint counternarcotics operations with U.S. military forces over the past two years.

Rubio will wrap up his regional tour in Lima, Peru, where he will hold talks with new President Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori’s recent election win marks another major rightward shift in Peruvian politics, aligning the country more closely with U.S. regional policy priorities.

Four decades after the 1982 Falklands War, when British forces repelled an Argentine invasion of the remote South Atlantic archipelago, the long-running sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina has reignited, driven by new plans for offshore oil exploration in the resource-rich waters surrounding the islands. In the latest escalation of tensions, the Argentine government under President Javier Milei has confirmed it will pursue criminal charges against Israel-based energy firm Navitas Petroleum and multiple subsidiaries and senior executives tied to the company, over its planned oil operations in waters claimed by Argentina as part of its sovereign territory.

The legal action comes just days after Milei used a high-profile national address to harden his administration’s stance on the territory, which Argentina refers to as Las Malvinas. The announcement has dashed earlier hopes among diplomatic observers that the president’s fiery speech was merely a political gesture, and that he would return to his earlier, more conciliatory approach that prioritized strengthening bilateral ties with the UK.

Prior to his recent shift, Milei faced sustained criticism from Argentine veterans of the 1982 conflict, who accused the leader of being excessively soft on the Falklands sovereignty issue. In his primetime address last Thursday, the president moved to address that criticism, firmly restating Argentina’s long-held claim. “The Malvinas are Argentine, historically and legally… there’s no debate about that,” Milei told the nation, adding that ongoing oil drilling activity in the archipelago’s waters represents a “clear and urgent danger” to Argentine national sovereignty.

Milei also rejected the outcome of a 2013 public referendum held by the Falkland Islands government, in which 99.8% of participating residents voted to retain the territory’s status as a British Overseas Territory. The president argued that the islands were “usurped” by British forces, meaning the resident population “have no legitimate right to self-determination” over the territory’s future.

The British government quickly pushed back against Milei’s remarks, reaffirming what it called its “unwavering” position that the Falkland Islands remain a legitimate British Overseas Territory, with the right of local residents to self-determination fully respected under international law.

Navitas Petroleum, which is publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, holds a controlling 65% stake in the Sea Lion offshore oil development project, scheduled to begin commercial production in the North Falkland Basin by 2028. Located roughly 209 kilometers off the coast of the Falkland Islands, the Sea Lion field holds an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil, making it one of the largest undeveloped offshore oil reserves in the South Atlantic.

In its official statement released Monday, the Argentine government argued that any resource exploration and extraction activity in the area without explicit authorization from Buenos Aires violates Argentine national sovereignty legislation. “The state will continue to pursue actions deemed necessary to counter any act which breaches the sovereign rights of the Argentine Republic,” the statement read.

As of Tuesday, Navitas had not issued a formal response to the announcement of criminal charges. Last week, shortly after Milei’s national address, the company noted that the president’s comments were “not expected to have a material effect on the development activities of the Sea Lion Project, including the timetable for completion of the Project’s development.” Rockhopper Exploration, which holds a minority stake in the Sea Lion project, has also not yet commented on the latest legal action. Both firms have previously confirmed that their exploration and development rights for the project are covered by valid licenses issued by the Falkland Islands government.