Latin America & Caribbean

Ecuador closed 2025 with a record homicide rate and mounting human rights concerns, while President Noboa appears to emulate Donald Trump’s foreign policy and his allies target the opposition. We also analyze Noboa’s referendum defeat.

Humanitarian aid is not enough to save Cubans from the deadly impact of Trump’s oil blockade, however. They, and we, need more solidarity. Trump is threatening the whole world in order to use economic violence against Cubans.

Trump eases some sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector while maintaining the naval blockade and threatening tariffs on countries shipping oil to Cuba. Treasury Secretary Bessent says protests in Iran were sparked by sanctions-fueled economic crisis. 

An investment treaty between Ecuador and the UAE containing ISDS provisions poses risks to Ecuador’s sovereignty and may open the door to similarly harmful deals. 

In an article published in Phenomenal World, CEPR’s Alex Main and Ivana Vasić-Lalović explain how Venezuela lost access to its SDRs, and how unfreezing them could help set the country on a path to economic recovery.

CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot talked this week with KPFA’s Against the Grain about the latest developments in the Trump administration’s coercive approach to Venezuela.

CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot talked this week with KPFA’s Against the Grain about the latest developments in the Trump administration’s coercive approach to Venezuela.

The War Powers Resolution is not just a political fight, but a matter of life and death. The blockade involved in the seizure of oil tankers is, according to experts, an unlawful use of military force.

The following resource is intended to aid policymakers and advocates in understanding US sanctions policy and its lethal and humanitarian consequences.

For Trump, it’s about oil. He’s stated this repeatedly… But for Marco Rubio … he sees this change as a step towards his lifelong dream of promoting regime change in Cuba.