Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Lula and Trump up the ante The USTR’s opening of a Section 301 investigation into Brazil this week and Lula’s fiery rhetoric in response makes it even harder to see a way in which Brazil avoids punitive US tariffs. The hit to... 18th July 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Lat Am in Trump’s firing line, good news on inflation The broad-based falls shown in the CPI figures for June suggest that the inflation picture in Latin America has become a bit better, supporting our view that central banks in many places will deliver... 11th July 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Chile’s communist candidate, Mexico’s weak economy The victory for communist candidate, Jeannette Jara, in the Chilean governing coalition’s presidential primary election was received warmly by markets – her presence on the ballot is seen as... 4th July 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: US-Mexico trade, Argentina’s rebalancing Timely trade figures out of Mexico this week show that, even though its producers appear to be struggling to make goods USMCA compliant, exports held up reasonably well last month. And leading... 27th June 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Diverging rate decisions, Middle East war & Lat Am While Chile’s central bank this week flagged that it will resume its easing cycle soon, Brazil’s hiked interest rates and didn’t close the door to additional tightening. But despite Brazilian... 20th June 2025 · 7 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Colombia’s fiscal plans, Mexican exports The Colombian government’s fiscal plans due to be released later today are likely to see a much less ambitious budget deficit target and a suspension of the fiscal rule, which will raise further... 13th June 2025 · 7 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Colombia’s fiscal drama, no TACO for Mexico this week We doubt that the Colombian government will manage to assuage investors’ concerns about the country's public finances when it publishes its fiscal plans next Friday. Elsewhere, the political wrangling... 6th June 2025 · 7 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Mexico’s judicial election, Argentina’s bond sale Mexicans head to the polls on Sunday to elect almost 900 federal judicial positions and thousands of positions at the local level in a major overhaul of the country's judiciary that has raised... 30th May 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Brazil’s robust Q1, Milei’s victory, Panama protests Data out of Brazil next week are likely to show that the economy rebounded in Q1 and inflation rose in the first half of May, supporting the case for the central bank to deliver one final rate hike in... 23rd May 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Copom: to hike or not to hike? China’s charm offensive The minutes to the Brazilian central bank’s monetary policy meeting last week have added fuel to the debate about whether the tightening cycle is now over. But perhaps the bigger point is that, when... 16th May 2025 · 6 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Lower oil prices, Banxico on track for another 50bp cut The downward revision to our oil price forecast is likely to exacerbate public finance risks in some of the region's major oil producers, notably Colombia and Ecuador. But other countries, especially... 9th May 2025 · 6 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: BanRep’s dovish shift, Copom nearing an end The unanimous decision by Colombia's central bank to lower its policy rate by 25bp, to 9.25%, earlier this week suggests that the Board is more dovish than we’d thought. That will raise fears, similar... 2nd May 2025 · 6 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Mexico’s weak economy, US support for Argentina The latest data out of Mexico suggest that, despite repeated tariff threats, the economy eked out positive growth in Q1 and avoided a technical recession. But activity is still extremely subdued... 25th April 2025 · 7 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Argentina’s new exchange rate regime, Noboa’s victory The smaller-than-expected fall in the Argentinian peso following the easing of capital controls suggests that the move has released pent-up hard currency flows back into the economy. Our sense is that... 17th April 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Argentina’s IMF deal #23, tariff relief, Hegseth in Panama One key feature of Argentina's latest IMF deal – which the Fund's Board is set to vote on today – is likely to be a shift towards a more flexible exchange rate and an easing of capital controls. While... 11th April 2025 · 5 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Latin America Weekly: Getting off relatively lightly Governments across Latin America are likely to be breathing sighs of relief following US President Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday - they've ended up facing tariff rates at the lower end of... 4th April 2025 · 5 mins read
