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- ☀ Domingo Brief — Secretary-Elect Marco Rubio
☀ Domingo Brief — Secretary-Elect Marco Rubio
Each Sunday, take two minutes to catch key stories and opportunities shaping Latin America.
Latinometrics
November 17, 2024 • Reading Time: 3 minutes
Welcome back to the Domingo Brief! This week, we’re following Paraguay’s soccer triumph, an attack in Brasilia, and more.
Trivia of the Week 🎯
Only about a fifth (22%) of you correctly guessed Morro da Providência as Brazil’s first favela. Founded in 1897, the hilltop comunidade in Rio de Janeiro’s city center was created by returning victorious veterans from the Canudos War who were promised land in the then-capital but saw those promises not upheld. They took over the hill, which was known the Morro da Favela after the local favela plant, and were joined in later decades by freed slaves and eventually European migrants working in the nearby port and city center. Favela went on to refer to these sorts of slums nationwide.
Each week, tune back in for the answer to the previous week’s trivia question. No cheating!
Which of these Latin American presidents is not related through family to one of their predecessors? |
🇧🇷 Brazil’s Supreme Court was the target of a failed bomb attack on Wednesday, with the bomber ending up as the only casualty. This comes in the midst of growing polarization which was only exacerbated early last year with an attack on the Brazilian Congress in support of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. Today Brazil’s progressives accuse the political right of attacking the country’s democratic institutions, while their conservative adversaries allege that many of those institutions (most notably the judicial system) has been weaponized against them.
🇨🇺 Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American US Senator born in Miami, has been nominated to become the first-ever Latino Secretary of State in his country’s history. Nominated by President-Elect Donald Trump, Rubio is expected to be approved by the Senate given the control Republicans will have over the chamber beginning on January 20th. Rubio is historically an internationalist known for generally hawkish views. He’s been critical of leftwing governments in both Latin American autocracies (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela) and democracies (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico). In contrast, he has shown appreciation for conservative allies in Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Latinometrics: As the probable top diplomat for the US for the given future, Rubio’s deep interest in the region and his boss’s prioritization of regional issues such as migration and crime have led analysts to expect this incoming Trump administration to be more heavily focused on Latin America than ever before. Whether this will turn out to be a positive or negative for the region remains to be seen.
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