Latin America and the Caribbean have always mistrusted the United States, usually with good reason. But they’ve had particular cause in recent weeks, after Mauricio Claver-Carone, a hard-right attorney from Florida and U.S. President Donald Trump’s candidate for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) presidency, intensified his campaign by attacking governments that oppose his candidacy. If he is elected this weekend, as seems likely, regional multilateralism will suffer an unprecedented setback.
Latin America, which is now the global epicenter of COVID-19, reporting 43 percent of daily deaths, was already the most unequal region in the world before the pandemic. That drama has been accentuated in recent months. Economies there are expected to shrink by 9.3 percent this year, according to the IMF. The United Nations predicted that as a result of the economic fallout from the pandemic and quarantine measures, 45 million people will fall into poverty. The impact of the crisis on vulnerable populations, mainly women and children, will bring consequences that will survive for decades.
