South and Central Americans have caught MAGA fever big-time, even as many lefties in the United States push to copy Latin America’s big-government failures.
The latest: Abelardo de la Espriella’s victory in Colombia’s presidential election after President Donald Trump endorsed him.
De la Espriella beat left-winger Iván Cepeda by vowing to crack down on crime and corruption and to rescue the economy, in part by cooperating with Team Trump.
His supporters even wore hats that read “Make Colombia Great Again.”
While Cepeda pushed for greater power for public-sector unions and more concessions to violent rebels, Colombia’s incoming leader aims to roll back government spending by 40%, trim the state headcount and slash taxes. Good for him — and Colombia.
This Latin trend started with Javier Milei’s 2023 victory in Argentina, after vowing to take a chainsaw to Big Government and embrace free-market economics.
Milei’s rapid success won him widespread popularity throughout Latin America (and beyond).
Also fueling the rightward turn: Trump’s trademark appeal, particularly his focus on fighting drugs, gangs and terrorists, and the hope of US aid in similar fights in Central and South American countries.
Since Milei’s win, right-leaning or centrist pols have captured the top office in Chile, Peru, Honduras, Bolivia and Costa Rica.
In Ecuador, tough-on-crime President Daniel Noboa snagged a full four-year term last year after winning a snap election in 2023.
In 2024, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, won reelection in a stunning landslide — with 83% of the vote — after crushing gang violence.
Brazil may be next in October, as polls show right-leaning Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro in a dead heat with far-left President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
It’s a stunning shift all across the region, driven by Milei’s success, Trump’s support and the disasters wrought by lefty policies.
The main exceptions are Mexico, where the ruling party’s been rewriting laws to kneecap any opposition, and outright tyrannies such as Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela (whose rulers still resist free elections despite Trump’s ouster of Nicolás Maduro).
All while US progressives push for more of the very failed policies our neighbors are abandoning.
No wonder Democrats are talking about drastic steps to lock in their own power — packing the Supreme Court, stacking the Senate by granting statehood to DC and Puerto Rico and so on — when they next control Washington: They don’t dare give Americans another chance to kick them out after they wreak disaster.
