☀ Domingo Brief — Election Day in Chile

Welcome back to the Domingo Brief! This week, we’re tracking new US trade deals, Mexican retail holidays, and more.

Trivia of the Week 🎯

Precisely half (50%) of you were right when you guessed Mexico as the country which was famously called the “perfect dictatorship.” Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Lllosa gave Mexico this title as he felt the rule of the then-hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had been in power at the time for 61 uninterrupted years, was in truth a camouflaged dictatorship. He made such comments at a 1990 conference held in Mexico and broadcasted on local television. The PRI would hold power for another ten years before finally being defeated in 2000.

Each week, tune back in for the answer to the previous week’s trivia question. No cheating!

🇦🇷🇪🇨🇸🇻🇬🇹 The United States has released frameworks for four trade deals expected to be signed in the coming weeks with Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Guatemala. These four US partners, which together supply around 7% of total US coffee imports, will be seeking exemptions for the baseline 10-15% tariffs seen on all goods since April. Home staples such as coffee and bananas are expected to be exempted, as consumer prices have increased in recent months: coffee, for example, is up 41% year-over-year.

🇧🇷 Climate activists and indigenous protesters marched on the COP30 talks in the first mass protests permitted near the event since 2021 (as the past few years have been held in countries which forbade protests near the event). Thousands of activists marched for both an end to fossil fuel exploitation and demarcation of indigenous lands.

🇨🇱 Chileans head to the polls today in a general election that will almost surely shift the balance of power in the developed Andean republic. In addition to 23 Senate seats and all 155 lower-house seats in Congress, voters will choose between a number of presidential candidates, with a run-off second round next month all but guaranteed given no candidate will receive over 50% of the vote. Left-wing Jeannette Jara is likely to advance to the run-off, given the left has largely consolidated around her, but she faces an uphill battle against whoever emerges as the top right-wing candidate—most likely the far-right Jose Antonio Kast, who famously suffered defeat in the last election against current President Gabriel Boric.

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