☀ Domingo Brief — RIP Pepe

Each Sunday, take two minutes to catch key stories and opportunities shaping Latin America.

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Latinometrics
May 18, 2025 • Reading Time: 3 minutes

Welcome back to the Domingo Brief! This week, we’re following the loss of a Uruguayan icon, Bolivia’s ongoing political turbulence, and more.

Trivia of the Week 🎯

About 83% of you correctly guessed the Iguazú and Paraná rivers as the two converging bodies of water at the Triple Frontier border shared by Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Near the confluence of these rivers sit the Iguaçu Falls and the cities of Puerto Iguazú (Argentina), Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), and Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), with the majority of the region’s population concentrated on the Paraguayan side of the border. In total, the Triple Frontier has a population of about 950K people, making it the most populous tripoint in the world.

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

What musical subgenre inspired a cultural movement in Monterrey, México characterized by outlandish hair styles, baggy clothes, and low-to-the-ground dancing?

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🇧🇴 President Luis Arce has announced he is abandoning his bid for reelection leading up to Bolivia’s August election. Arce’s five-year term has been defined by political and economic turmoil, particularly as his relationship with former president Evo Morales, also of the left-wing political party Movement for Socialism (MAS), has fractured. Morales has seized upon Bolivia’s popular discontent with Arce, advancing his own ambitions of seeking a fourth term as president despite constitutional term limits legally barring him from doing so.

Latinometrics: Despite Morales’s insistence on running for president in the August election, Bolivia’s constitutional court upheld the country’s two-term presidential limit this past week. Morales remains defiant of the decision, citing it as a violation of his human rights and a wider pattern of foreign interference. He is currently holed up with his firebrand supporters in the rural department of Cochabamba in northern Bolivia.

🇧🇷 Ibovespa, the Brazilian stock market, surged to an all-time high on Tuesday, showcasing investor bullishness on Brazil amid improving global trade relations. Trading volume on the exchange reached approximately R$16.7B, a boost which follows the weekend announcement of a 90-day tariff reduction agreement between the United States and China. The stabilization of global trade flows caused a rally in wider financial markets which extended to emerging economies, while the strengthening of the Brazilian real relative to the U.S. dollar also provided a boon for the country’s inflation outlook.

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