Canning Insights

Rock-bottom approval ratings, an economy in recession and an increasingly hostile congress are not on their own sufficient to initiate impeachment proceedings against Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. However, they make the conditions for such a process more likely. In another bad week for Rousseff, her mentor and predecessor, Lula da Silva (2003-2011), faced a criminal investigation; an opinion poll found just 7.7% of Brazilians approved of her administration; the government was forced to revise down its fiscal surplus target (with the economy now predicted to shrink by 1.49% this year), and the speaker of the federal lower chamber of congress, Eduardo Cunha, declared his open opposition to the executive.

Greece, seen from Latin America

Daring prison escape of Mexico’s ‘El Chapo’ leaves Peña Nieto reeling

The capture of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, the leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug-trafficking organisation (DTO), in February 2014 was lauded as the most significant blow against drug-trafficking for over a decade, underpinning the credibility of President Enrique Peña Nieto. As such, Guzmán’s escape from maximum security prison at the weekend is a significant setback in the fight against drug-trafficking, and a sharp blow to Peña Nieto’s credibility and that of Mexico’s institutions.

Brazil and Mexico, the world’s seventh and fifteenth largest economies respectively, account for 55% of Latin America's population, over half of its GDP and 58% of its exports. Yet bilateral merchandise trade between the two in 2014 was a relatively trifling US$9.2bn, down from a record high of just US$10.2bn in 2012. Despite numerous attempts to forge closer ties over the past twenty years, self-interest has repeatedly scuppered approximation. There are signs, however, that recent engagement may result in a more significant and productive relationship.

With pressure mounting on Santos Farc backs off

Colombia’s armed conflict is not just being fought on the ground but in the head. And in the intense psychological war conducted over the course of the last week the guerrillas blinked first. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) announced that the unilateral ceasefire it suspended on 22 May would be revived for one month on 20 July. This in the wake of a plea from the ‘guarantor nations’ of the peace process for both sides to take urgent measures to de-escalate the conflict after President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the government negotiating team in Cuba, Humberto de la Calle, stressed that Farc aggression over the last month had brought the prospect of the abandonment of the process closer than at any stage since it began in October 2012. Santos complemented his rhetoric with action, replacing the military high command with some of the most successful operational figures in the armed forces.

More symbolism than substance as Rousseff travels to US

“From now on, I hope that next time President Obama wants to know what is going on in Brazil, he will call me directly.” President Dilma Rousseff’s answer to the inevitable question about US-Brazil relations in the wake of spying revelations raised a smile from the US president. Almost two years have passed since Rousseff cancelled a trip to Washington following reports that the US had spied on her personal emails. But whereas in 2013, Rousseff could afford such a gesture, her position is much weaker now. From the US perspective, the relationship with Brazil is far from essential, though some of the praise lavished on Rousseff and her country suggest that Washington wants to ensure Brazil does not wander too far into China’s sphere of influence. Though the two presidents inked a number of agreements, most significantly on climate change, the real value of the visit was that it happened at all.