☀ Domingo Brief — Panama’s Copper Mine Restart

Welcome back to the Domingo Brief! This week, we’re keeping up with Venezuela’s newest oil dilemma, Brazil’s bigtime egg purchase, and more.

Trivia of the Week 🎯

About 58% of you correctly guessed catracho as the colloquial Spanish term used to refer to people from Honduras. The term originates from a mispronunciation of the surname of Florencio Xatruch, a Honduran who led a famed expeditionary force to Nicaragua to fight American freebooters commanded by William Walker in 1856. The term was actually coined by Nicaraguans, who had trouble pronouncing Xatruch’s Catalan last name. In fact, most of Central America has developed nicknames for the people of its various individual countries. Guatemalans are chapines, Salvadorans are guanacos, Nicaraguans are nicas, Costa Ricans are ticos, and Panamanians are istmeños. Latin America loves a good nickname!

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

🇦🇷 Argentina’s foreign imports have surged as President Javier Milei’s policies to strengthen the peso while loosening import restrictions take effect. Items like Brazilian bread, Italian pasta, and Uruguayan butter have become increasingly visible on supermarket shelves, while overseas solar-cell and tractor purchases have exploded. The country’s inbound trade has risen 30% in the past six months compared to the previous period, and while this strategy has helped tame inflation, it poses significant risk as Argentinians spend more dollars abroad and foreign reserves run dry.

🇧🇷 Brazilian entrepreneur Ricardo Faria has agreed to purchase American egg producer Hillandale Farms for $1.1B. Faria, the owner of Global Eggs, a Luxembourg-based company which also operates Granja Faria in Brazil, has claimed the purchase was not dominated by the recent avian flu that drove up egg prices in the United States and caused it to boost imports from Brazil. With this said, the move marks the latest in a series of high-profile acquisitions by Brazilian egg companies, representing an international expansion strategy which includes markets in Europe.

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