President Trump’s interference has succeeded in tilting close elections in Latin America – for now. But that’s not the same as building lasting influence. @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social and @alsfeinberg.bsky.social explain: carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

Trump Can Play Kingmaker in Latin America. He Can’t Build Lasting Influence.

In Colombia and elsewhere in the region, the United States is trying to shape election outcomes—but at what cost?

carnegieendowment.org

Petro's claims to being a champion of democracy have been tenuous for quite a while, but his latest adventures in election-truthing are a new low. Another failure in the global Left's never-ending search for totems of "authentic progressivism" in Latin America.

Outgoing Colombian president alleges Israel meddled in presidential election

President Gustavo Petro cast doubts over far-right Abelardo de la Espriella's narrow victory in Sunday's election, charging that Israel is 'the only entity' with the cyber capabilities to interfere wi...

haaretz.com

HOW FIDESZ LOST - June 22, 10am ET Join Róbert László (Political Capital), András Léderer @hungarianhelsinki.bsky.social, @viktoriaserdult.bsky.social (HVG), Áron Tímár (De! Action Community), Tom Carothers @carnegieendowment.org & me to draw lessons from Hungary's democratic resistance t.ly/R8zpM

How Fidesz Lost: Cross-Sectoral Mobilization in Hungary’s 2026 Election

Please join us for a conversation with Political Capital’s Róbert László, Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s András Léderer, HVG’s Viktória Serdült, De! Action Community’s Áron Tímár, and moderator Zsuzsa...

t.ly

The Cheese and the Worms was easily the most impactful book I read in college. Heartened to see so many others similarly moved.

Guillaume Calafat@gcalafat.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Carlo Ginzburg est mort cette nuit. Son intelligence, sa virtuosité historienne, son inventivité, son regard sur le monde, les mots et les anomalies vont beaucoup nous manquer. Des loups garous aux Caffres, de la microstoria à Piero Della Francesca, son œuvre est immense.

USDA has launched a "Food for Peace" assistance programme: www.fas.usda.gov/programs/foo... The catch? It requires all commodities to be procured in the US 😵‍💫 Electoralism flying in the face of locally led development and cost-effectiveness.

“John Gregory Dunne was a writer of high taste who delighted in the distasteful, an arch and erudite stylist with the gutter-bound soul of a tabloid hack.” —Charlie Lee

What Happened in Vegas | Charlie Lee

An impulsive trip to America’s “idiot Disneyland” thrust John Gregory Dunne among characters who, like him, sought distraction from their private miseries.

nybooks.com

Agreed that corruption *could* be a fruitful talking point for the American pro-democracy movement. But also worth noting that it will be harder to pull off than in Hungary, where petty corruption is rampant. Most Americans don’t have day-to-day experience of bribery and clientelism.

Edward Luce@edwardluce.bsky.social · 4mo ago

People will be closely studying how Hungary's opposition pulled off their win in such a pro-incumbent system. Important to note that the theme was corruption. Democrats need to get much better at calling out Trump's corruption.

You won’t like what comes after Western liberal abstraction.

Under mounting U.S. pressure, Latin American countries are hedging, avoiding rigid alliances and steering clear of great-power clashes. @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social outlines how countries across the region navigate a complex geopolitical environment, for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/o...

Opinion | Latin Americans Already Have a Serious Partner — and It’s Not Trump

nytimes.com

Foreign policy isn’t ordinarily the highlight of the State of the Union address. But President Trump’s discussion of his administration’s actions abroad in last night’s speech amounted to little more than a “victory lap.” Aaron David Miller explains: carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

Trump’s State of the Union Was as Light on Foreign Policy as He Is on Strategy

The speech addressed Iran but said little about Ukraine, China, Gaza, or other global sources of tension.

carnegieendowment.org

Can’t sleep. Thinking about the full-body Scientology ads on my DC Metrobus route.

Just finished Dag Johan Haugerud’s superb Oslo Stories Trilogy, and can’t get over how much Ella Øverby resembles a young Sandrine Bonnaire. #Filmsky Dreams (2024) vs. À Nos Amours (1983)

From Kosovo to Greenland, FP’s Nick Danforth conducts a postmortem on the liberal international order.

Who Killed the Liberal International Order?

A contested idea has seen many alleged deaths.

foreignpolicy.com

THREAD 🧵: The Epstein files are real. The antisemitism they're fueling is also real. And right now, the second part is getting almost no attention.

There’s a robust literature on whether or not it’s strategic to make democracy the center point of an opposition campaign against an illiberal executive.

Nied@nied.bsky.social · 7mo ago

You want to know why Chuck Schumer is talking about affordability & not Trump being a fascist? It's because we already tried talking about him being a fascist *& everyone ignored us*.

While President Trump’s plan for Venezuela is a serious departure from decades of previous U.S. policy, it has roots in a model from the early 20th century. And that doesn’t look good. @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social and @alsfeinberg.bsky.social explain ⬇️

🆕Washington wants to manage Venezuela’s oil reserves. That experiment was tried in Latin America and the Caribbean before—by Theodore Roosevelt. It failed by the 1930s. @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social and @alsfeinberg.bsky.social lay out the history of U.S. fiscal receivership @carnegieendowment.org⏬

The U.S. Plan for Venezuela Has a Precedent. It’s Not Good.

Lessons from early twentieth-century “fiscal receivership” efforts should be a warning for Venezuela.

carnegieendowment.org

How many Nadhim Zahawis can join Reform until voters realize that their right-wing populist party is itself an extension of the political establishment?

It’s interesting that, as migration and mobility have become the center point of public debate, both right and left have moved away from a framework of individual rights to one of collective rights.

Loved this from @mikealbertus.bsky.social in The Atlantic today. It seems to me that the Venezuelan opposition will struggle to capitalize on popular upset with Rodríguez’s capitulations to U.S. domination. Hard to both celebrate Maduro’s ouster and denigrate its foreseeable consequences.

Happy to see this piece in print in the Winter 2026 issue of @foreignpolicy.com.

This sort of argument about “setting a precedent for Russia and China” always strikes me as flimsy. Revisionist powers don’t need to wait around for some pretext to behave revisionistly! They can just invent one!

Chile elected José Antonio Kast in Sunday's presidential runoff, setting up the most conservative government in the Chile's democratic history. Ahead of the runoff, @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social spoke about the growing signs of a rightward shift in Latin America www.instagram.com/reel/DRiJEjz...

With the final votes counted in Argentina’s midterm elections, Milei has found his expectations exceeded and his mandate renewed. foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/29/m...

Milei’s Midterm Miracle

Did Argentine voters endorse their president’s economic overhaul—or cow to Trump’s threats?

foreignpolicy.com

🆕Argentina’s midterms gave Javier Milei's far-right party an unexpectedly strong showing. But the election also exposed a new global norm: U.S. partisan interventionism. @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social and Adrian Feinberg write for @foreignpolicy.com ⤵️

Milei’s Midterm Miracle

Did Argentine voters endorse their president’s economic overhaul—or cow to Trump’s threats?

foreignpolicy.com

Good article. Despite the authors' reservations about democracy multilateralism that is too ideologically narrow, their explanation for why earlier attempts at more global eforts did not take off suggests that different efforts by smaller "affinity groups" of governments would be an OK development.

Carnegie Endowment @carnegieendowment.org · 8mo ago

With the U.S. pulling out of democracy support, leaders from Spain and the Americas have formed a new global initiative to protect democracy. But these leaders face challenges at home and abroad. @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social and Adrian Feinberg explain: carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

With the U.S. pulling out of democracy support, leaders from Spain and the Americas have formed a new global initiative to protect democracy. But these leaders face challenges at home and abroad. @oliverstuenkel.bsky.social and Adrian Feinberg explain: carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

The New Democracy Defenders

With U.S. democracy support receding, progressive leaders from Spain and Latin America have pioneered a global initiative to combat backsliding. Can it succeed?

carnegieendowment.org