Americas and Carribean

An estimated 600,000 Haitians live legally on US soil, most of them in New York City and Florida. Another 500,000 are waiting—certainly in vain—for entry papers. In September, the Trump government ended a special “Temporary Protected Status” for an estimated 300,000 Haitian migrants, and possibly another 500,000 migrants temporarily settled in the U.S., including Afghans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The Trump regime is claiming that the violence-plagued Caribbean nation of ...

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States has undergone massive deindustrialization in recent decades, with the country's manufacturing sector supposedly withering as it lost ground to China. This narrative has fueled debates about industrial policy, economic nationalism, and the reshoring of manufacturing production. But what if this story is only partially true? What if, instead of disappearing, American industry simply changed its address?  ...

This paper develops a continuous-time optimal control model to analyze the economic effects of the U.S. administration’s newly imposed “reciprocal tariffs,” which are determined by bilateral trade deficits. The model focuses on a small, open developing economy integrated into global value chains and facing limited policy space. We demonstrate how reciprocal tariffs, endogenously linked to the trade balance, affect production, consumption, capital accumulation, and overall welfare. W ...

The author of this opinion, Gabriela Keseberg Dávalos, is a 2013 alumna of the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Program.On August 17, 2025, Bolivians did what once seemed unthinkable: they voted the Movement for Socialism (MAS) out of power, after almost two decades of dominance. For a country where last-minute surprises are the political norm, this outcome feels extraordinary. But the verdict is clear: MAS, the party that defined Bolivia’s politics for an entire generation, ...

The multilateral, rule-based trading system underpinned by the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been undermined by the unilateral imposition of U.S. tariffs. Crucially, the foundational principle of non-discrimination among WTO members has been abandoned. While many countries have attempted to negotiate with the U.S. to resolve tariff disputes, they have simultaneously sought to deepen trade ties with each other through plurilateral and regi ...

This Paper was originally published on springer.comBrazil went from a quite impressive economic performance during much of the twentieth century to a period of mediocre growth from 1980 onwards. This shift has positioned the country as a textbook case of the “middle-income trap”. This paper aims to demonstrate how certain transformations in the international economy since the 1980s—notably the globalization of firms and industries—combined with a set of domestic challenges, disrupte ...

This paper aims to demonstrate how certain transformations in the international economy since the 1980s¾notably the globalization of firms and industries¾combined with a set of domestic challenges, disrupted the path of industrial and technological development that Brazil had pursued since the 1930s. In essence, growth strategies based on the scale of the domestic market ceased to be effective. The innovation and economic challenges the country now faces cannot be addressed without ...

- Brazil’s latest tax reform will replace five taxes on consumption with one single VAT to promote greater efficiency and sectoral isonomy. - Forecasts produced by a detailed ICGE model point to sizeable gains in GDP exceeding 4% in the long run, even if spatially unequal. - Exceptions to the rules reduce potential benefits in efficiency terms. - Policies meant to promote regional development and close the gap deepened by the reform partially achieve their goal at the expense of ...

The Brazilian economy is stuck in a so-called middle-income trap—growth that stalled long before Brazil caught up with the living standards of the highly industrialized countries. After exhibiting a stellar performance in the decades before the 1980s, the economy has since been unable to sustain growth for long periods. The predicament can be summarized using a medical analogy: Brazil has been suffering from both productivity anemia and public sector bloat. On the one hand, it hasn ...

The surprising victory of Javier Milei, the unconventional ‘anarcho-capitalist’ candidate, in the August primaries ahead of Argentina’s October 2023 general election, can be largely credited to his commitment to dollarize the Argentine economy, a move perceived as the ultimate solution to bring an end to the nation's economic turmoil. The potential shift from the local currency to the dollar has sparked concerns about Argentina's bilateral currency swap line with China. This swap l ...

This report is part of a partnership between the Policy Center for the New South and the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.   The creative economy is a constantly evolving activity, driven by the cultural industries, which make up a large and interconnected sector. Arts and culture impact the creative economy in major areas: education, innovation, collaboration, and clustering. The cultural industries are one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the global economy. This sect ...

This publication was originally published in Project Syndicate    WASHINGTON, DC – The world economy remains beset by challenges, from tight monetary, financial, and fiscal conditions to the effects of the war in Ukraine. These headwinds are impeding global growth – which is expected to slow to 3% this year, compared to 3.5% in 2022 – and damaging lives and livelihoods, with poverty and food insecurity on the rise, particularly in developing countries. In addressing ...

This Book was originally published on springer.com   This book examines regional structural challenges on Colombia’s path to sustainable social cohesion and regionally inclusive growth. These challenges can be divided into three main groups: (i) those that focus on competitiveness and the supply side, (ii) those that arise from critical business cycle issues on the demand side, and (iii) those concerning environmental sustainability, employment and social inclusion.&nbsp ...

Earlier this month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told congressional leaders that the government could run out of cash as early as June 1, if the debt ceiling is not raised in time. In January, the Treasury reached the current legally established ceiling in nominal terms ($31.46 trillion). The funds currently available to make government payment flows tend to exhaust by the end of this month. According to the Treasury Department: “Failing to increase the debt limit would ha ...

Nallely Garza is a 2022 alumna of Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program. Learn more about her here. On March 1, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, confirmed during Tesla’s Investors Day the construction of its next Gigafactory in Monterrey, Mexico, which will represent an investment of 5 billion dollars and the creation of around 6,000 new jobs. The question is, “Why Mexico”? What are the factors that made Mexico win this investment against other countries? Mexico’s automo ...

China’s rate of economic growth has slowed. Chinese GDP ended 2022 up 3%, but this was the lowest growth rate in the last 40 years, except for 2020, the first year of the pandemic. In addition to problems in its real-estate sector, China’s severe ‘COVID zero’ confinement policy is one of the causes. The post-‘COVID zero’ reopening of the Chinese economy has improved its growth outlook. In the International Monetary Fund’s annual report on China, published in early February 2023, 5. ...

The pandemic has hit Latin America hard, and its economic recovery has been slower than in other regions. In addition to the legacy of higher public indebtedness, the pandemic left scars on the labor market and the human capital formation of future workers. The COVID-19 crisis has receded in Latin America but has left a significant toll. Reported deaths from the pandemic are currently low and converging to global levels. The average excess mortality during the pandemic was among t ...

En attribuant le prix Nobel d'économie 2022 à Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond et Philip H. Dybvig, le jury Nobel a voulu distinguer des travaux, remontant aux années 1980, qui permettent de mieux comprendre l'implication des banques dans les crises. Travaux pionniers, également, dans l'élaboration d'une théorie bancaire, où l'analyse historique est présente avec Ben S. Bernanke qui a longuement étudié le rôle des banques dans la crise de 1929, afin de ne pas renouveler les erreu ...

Despite the United States' disastrous record in both Iraq and Afghanistan, President Joe Biden is right in asserting that the world faces a confrontation between autocracy and freedom. And that a choice will ultimately have to be made. This makes people cringe, particularly in Europe, which remains polarized on the subject. ...

“Be there “, tweeted the President of the United States, “will be wild”. January, 6, 2021, was     supposed to be a historic day. The members of Congress would certify the electoral vote- declaring Joe Biden, the Democrat as 46th   President. Instead a band playing “God bless America” or “Hail to the Chief”, gunfire was heard and insurgents forcing their way into Congress on Capitol Hill, chanting “ Hang Mike Pence”, the Vice President, who was hid ...

Le président des États-Unis, Joe Biden, malgré les états de service catastrophiques de son pays en Irak ou en Afghanistan, n’a pas tort d’affirmer que le monde va vers un affrontement entre l’autocratie et la liberté. Et, qu’en fin de compte, il va falloir choisir. Cela fait grincer des dents, surtout en Europe qui est divisée sur le sujet. ...

The Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Alumni (ADEL) Portraits are a series of journalistic insights that delve into the stories and backgrounds of impactful young leaders of the ADEL community, now 350 alumni strong. These portraits are more than a biography as they capture the motives, success stories, career shifts, and vision behind each emerging leader’s pursuit of positive impact. From Morocco to South Africa, Germany to Canada, Brazil and the United States, these young leade ...

The insurrection of 6 January 2021, when supporters of then President Donald Trump stormed the US Congress in Washington DC, “is widely viewed as a seminal moment in the history of US democracy,” noted the British The Guardian (January 9, 2022). “Never before had the modern nation witnessed such an organized, violent attempt to overthrow the elected government. Never before, not even at the height of the Civil War, had the Confederated flag flown over the halls of Congress.” This w ...

Although it has largely gone unnoticed in France, the agreement signed on December 3, 2020 between the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP) is a major shift in the long-standing relations between the EU and countries in the Global South. The EU established a development assistance policy as early as the Treaty of Rome in 1957, signed the first cooperation agreement in 1963, and nowadays is often the largest donor to these countries, ...

The pros and the cons of regional market integration are well exemplified by the experience of Uruguay, a small, open economy in MERCOSUR, which is a highly protectionist trade bloc, dominated by Argentina and Brazil. With access to such large markets, Uruguay did raise its growth rate during the first decade of MERCOSUR, the 1990s. However, market integration as implemented in MERCOSUR was also problematic in that Uruguay suffered from the high protectionism of Argentina in the for ...

The contrast between Argentina’s rich natural resource endowment and its poor economic performance has been the focus of much socio-political and economic analysis. When it created MERCOSUR with its immediate neighbors, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay in 1991, it had access to a trading bloc with a combined GDP of US$ 419 trillion (2019), making it the 5th largest economy in the world. Joining the MERCOSUR was a break from its protectionist past. But it did not last. Argentina greatl ...

The White House  classified the speech as “remarks by President Obama to the People of Africa”, their representatives gathered at Mandela Hall, Addis Ababa,  Ethiopia, July 28, 2015. It was the first address by a US-President to the African Union. He was standing before the audience as “a proud American” and “the son of an African”. His father, Barack Hussein Obama, who grew up near a small village in Nyanza Province, Kenya, won a scholarship to study economics and made h ...

He is 81 years old, and obviously, his job is not joyful. Or, rather some people he is dealing with, are not just angry about him, but outright murderous. Just a few days before Christmas, a man identified as Kuachua Brillion Xiong, was stopped by police on a highway in the state of Iowa, his car loaded with an AR 15 assault rifle, ammunition, and body armor (Des Moines Register, December 30, 2021) The  25-year-old Californian resident was on his way to Washington, DC- to kill ...