Jorge G. Castañeda
Jorge G. Castañeda, former Foreign Minister of Mexico (2000-2003), is a Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.
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2009-12-18
| Three years ago this month, Mexican President Felipe Calderón donned military fatigues and declared a full-scale war on drugs, ordering the Army into Mexico’s streets, highways, and villages. Like George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, it was a war of choice, and it should never have been waged, because it can never be won.... read |
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2009-09-18
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In early September, Colombia’s biggest businesses surprised everyone by declaring their wholehearted support for the country’s president, Alvaro Uribe, in his deepening conflict with Venezuela. But Uribe will probably have to step down as president before Colombia can enlist allies in its case against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.... read |
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2009-06-18
| After 47 years, the Organization of American States, at its annual General Assembly, has repealed its suspension of Cuba’s membership. The outcome signals the growing assertiveness of Latin America's hard-left regimes, as well as the unwillingness of its democracies to confront them.... read |
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2009-03-18
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In El Salvador, for the first time ever in Latin America, a former guerilla organization has achieved its aims through the ballot box. For the FMLN's leaders, unlike even Nicaragua's Sandinistas, remain largely allied with the region's "revolutionary" left, with no moderate faction to balance them.... read |
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2008-12-18
| This month, Mexico’s Felipe Calderón celebrates his second anniversary as president, having taken office in December 2006 under adverse circumstances. Calderón has had to govern in a persistently difficult environment - an economic crisis, a lame duck US president, and a legacy of corruption - and his own penchant for legislative minimalism hasn't helped.... read |
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2008-10-23
| If immigration is to become a less heated issue in the US, America's next president must address the needs of Latin America’s economies. This means supporting improvements to existing and pending free-trade agreements between the US and Latin America.... read |
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2008-10-09
| Great strides have been made in recent years in ending impunity for the perpetrators of humanity’s most terrible crimes, not least because 107 states have acceded to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. But now that progress is being threatened by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's use of violence to blackmail the world into postponing ICC action against him.... read |
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2008-09-12
| For the next American president, fixing the international mess inherited from the Bush administration will be no simple task. While Latin America will not be a priority for either an Obama or McCain administration, continuing the United States’ neglect of the last seven years is no longer viable.... read |
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2008-06-24
| Colombia's FARC guerillas, the last of a dying breed in Latin America, appear to be on the brink of defeat. But caution is in order, because Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's repudiation of support for the FARC should not be taken at face value, and because Colombia lacks the ingredients needed to achieve a sustainable peace. ... read |
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Raúl Castro’s China Strategy
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Jorge G. Castañeda 
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Raúl Castro’s strategy is to pursue pro-market economic reforms under continued Communist rule, with no progress on democracy or human rights. But that is unacceptable in Latin America, which has made huge progress in transforming advances in democracy and respect for human rights into a regional legal order.... read
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2006-03-03
| A debate on immigration is beginning in the United States Senate, which will take up several proposals. These include a hateful bill – which the House of Representatives has already approved – that provides for the construction of a wall along the US-Mexican border and makes unauthorized entry into the US a felony.... read |
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2005-12-07
| Venezuela’s recent legislative elections confirmed trends that have repeatedly brought the country into the headlines in recent years. President Hugo Chávez showed once again that he enjoys broad support among the nation’s poor and desperate, and that he is miles ahead of his opposition in terms of political skill, cunning, and ruthlessness. Yet at the same time voter turnout is declining with each passing election under Chávez, and the questionable fairness of the electoral process has grown increasingly apparent.... read |
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2005-09-21
| Corruption is not exactly a new phenomenon in Latin America. Indeed, corruption scandals have been a fixture on the region’s landscape since time immemorial. So there is nothing in principle new or surprising about the ongoing, almost endless drama that has engulfed Brazil’s President Luis Ignacio “Lula” da Silva, his political organization – the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, or Workers’ Party) – and much of the country’s political elite. But this scandal, unlike many others before it, is taking place in a consolidated democratic environment, and on the left.... read |
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2004-12-21
| A perception has been growing over the last few years – and picking up strength in recent months – that Latin America is swinging back to the left. The unimpressive – and sometimes dismal – results of economic reform seem to have generated a backlash that has elected leftist presidents across the continent, starting with Hugo Chávez’s victory in Venezuela at the end of the 1990’s, and continuing with those of Ricardo Lagos in Chile and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, and more recently that of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay. More left-wing victories seem to be in store in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia.... read |
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2005-03-22
| In recent weeks, many observers of the Latin American military situation have detected what could be the beginning of a new arms race in the region. Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva was photographed boarding the Tikuna, his country’s first conventional, domestically built submarine. He used the opportunity to highlight his support for the Brazilian military.... read |
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2004-06-10
| When the NATO Allies gather in Istanbul, much of the talk will concern the divisions between America and Europe over Iraq. But Europe is not alone in its estrangement from the United States under President George W. Bush's leadership. Among the vast list of unforeseen consequences springing from the US fiasco in Iraq is the vital fact that, across Latin America, anti-Americanism is on the rise and is rapidly generating myriad grim effects on the region's politics.... read |
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2005-06-23
| Bolivia is not a typical Latin American country by any definition. But for Haiti, it is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and it is even less stable, with a history of more than two hundred coups since independence.... read |
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2004-09-20
| Whatever John Kerry does about Latin America if he is elected President of the United States in November, the election could initiate a sea-change in US-Latin American relations - even or perhaps mainly if George W. Bush is reelected. Kerry has never shown much interest in the region, while Bush has largely ignored it since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But the unlikely nature of a shift in relations does not make it any less necessary.... read |
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2006-06-06
| There are two ways to interpret Latin America’s recent election results. First, and most obviously, the supposed turn to the left is running out of steam, fast. In recent weeks, the hyper-nationalist Ollanta Humala, a clone of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was defeated in Peru, the conservative Alvaro Uribe won a landslide victory in Colombia, with 62% of the vote, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador has fallen behind in Mexico’s July 2 presidential election. All of these isolated developments seemingly contradict the leftward trend in Latin America.... read |
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Mexico’s Next Revolution
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Jorge G. Castañeda
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While it might take days or even weeks before Mexico’s cliff-hanger presidential election is officially settled, it seems almost certain that right-of-center, liberal candidate Felipe Calderón will be the country’s next president. He may not have won by more than a percentage point and his 36% of the vote is hardly a mandate. His opponents will challenge the results in the streets, the courts and the political arena, and he will face a strong, though divided, opposition in Congress. Still, winning is better than losing, and Mexico is better off today than it was yesterday, when many thought the left-of-center populist contender, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, would receive a thumping endorsement from the electorate. ... read
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Free Trade with a Human Face
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Jorge G. Castañeda
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If immigration is to become a less heated issue in the US, America's next president must address the needs of Latin America’s economies. This means supporting improvements to existing and pending free-trade agreements between the US and Latin America.... read
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