The echoes of two military operations in less than a week, one in Mexico and one in Tehran, will reverberate across Latin America.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
How Latin America reacted to the death of Khamenei
The joint US-Israel attack on Iran this weekend is impossible to ignore anywhere in the world, as the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was the second regime decapitation led by Donald Trump’s government in less than two months, following the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.
While Caracas already took note of Trump’s willingness to follow through on his threats against enemy governments — with interim President Delcy Rodríguez toeing the Washington line since January 3 — question marks remain about the large repressive apparatus led by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, as well as other loyal Chavistas.
Trump’s doubling down on Iran will provide food for thought for these remaining Chavista figures as they decide whether to cooperate, fight, or escape the country. The fact that Venezuela’s foreign ministry initially published a press release condemning the bombing but immediately deleted it (presumably after pressure from the US) is an illustration of this dynamic.
Venezuela had some notorious links with Iran, ranging from drone manufacturing to passport issuance. Maduro’s former Vice President Tareck El Aissami — who at different points controlled Venezuela’s oil industry, internal security and even drug trafficking — was repeatedly linked to Iran’s Lebanese allies Hezbollah. Weeding out ties with enemy countries like Russia, China, Cuba and Iran has been a priority of Trump since January 3.
Speaking of Cuba, Havana’s government is likely to be the most concerned after this weekend’s events. As The Brazilian Report has explained, the Castro family is currently in talks with the US to avoid a fate similar to Venezuela’s.
While the Castros reportedly offered to open up the economy in exchange for remaining in power, Trump is likely to demand more, including moving Cuba into a Western-friendly stance after decades of hostility. An attack on the island, which seemed a distant possibility a few months ago, would become increasingly plausible if the sides do not reach an agreement.
👉 Why it matters. According to The Atlantic, “Trump has told confidants that he believes that his legacy could be defined by overthrowing the regimes in Venezuela, Iran and potentially Cuba.” This means that the three goals could be interconnected in the White House’s view.
Polymarket users give an 18% chance that Trump orders an invasion of Cuba this year (up from 8% on February 8), and a 35% chance that he orders strikes in the country in 2026.
The stakes are real: six newly created accounts on one platform netted more than USD 1 million by correctly predicting the US would strike Iran by February 28, according to analytics firm Bubblemaps SA. The unusual activity has fueled speculation that some bettors had inside knowledge of the attack.
Still, wars are relatively easy to start, but become much more unpredictable once the first shots are fired. If things don’t go as planned and Trump gets dragged into a longer conflict in the Middle East, that could distract the US military from its stated priorities in the Western Hemisphere.
Elsewhere in Latin America, leftist governments have been critical of the attacks, albeit using mild rhetoric. The usually fiery Gustavo Petro, who has warmed up to Washington in recent weeks, said “Trump made a mistake this time,” while Chile also condemned Iran’s retaliation. Guatemala urged all sides to “respect international law” and “protect civilian lives.”
The strange left-right coalition in charge of Peru expressed a vague “vote of peace,” and Bolivia’s centrist President Rodrigo Paz said his government would be “responsible and prudent in a highly sensitive international context.” Right-wingers in Ecuador, Honduras and Panama focused on Iran’s response against US allies in the region, while Argentina was more explicit in its support of Washington and Jerusalem.
Looking ahead, market turmoil will be worth monitoring. Oil prices surged by 14% since the weekend, and most Latin American countries are net energy importers, meaning their finances could take a hit. A global risk-off environment could also be a problem, as shown by today’s selloff in stocks and bonds across the region.
DRUG WARS
The US’s most-wanted cartel fugitives
While US and Mexican sources say that Washington did not play a direct role in last week’s operation to capture Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel (CJNG) leader “El Mencho,” beyond intelligence gathering, his death still meant that one of the biggest drug traffickers on the continent was struck off the US’s list of most-wanted criminals.
US authorities offered a USD 15 million reward for information leading to El Mencho’s arrest, and had pushed Mexican authorities to move ahead with his capture. Now that he is out of the way, a look into the largest remaining rewards for fugitive Latin Americans could give us an idea of who could be hit next.
If we start by looking at other Mexican drug syndicates, only one competed with CJNG in terms of strength and influence: the Sinaloa Cartel. Its long-time leader, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was arrested and extradited to the US in 2016, as was co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in 2024.
But two of El Chapo’s sons, who have warred with Zambada allies to inherit the cartel, remain at large: Jesús Alfredo Guzmán, for whom the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has offered a USD 10 million bounty, and Iván Guzmán, for whom the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offers the same sum.
Outside of Mexico, the Salvadoran cartel Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) might have seen its power severely diminished in its home country, but the US is still looking for its Honduran leader, Yulan Archaga Carias, also known as “Porky,” who has a USD 5 million reward on his capture.
Further south in Colombia, the US is offering that same sum for a man with a similar nickname, Wilver “El Porco” Villegas-Palomino. While multiple cartel leaders in the country have already been captured and extradited, Villegas-Palomino is seen as a key player in the bloody Catatumbo region, on both sides of the Venezuela-Colombia border, which is controlled by ELN guerrillas.
👉 Why it matters. Large sums of money have been a good predictor of US foreign policy targets in the region, with Venezuela’s former President Nicolás Maduro as the clearest example. After raising his reward to USD 50 million, Trump defied international law to seize him and try him in a New York court, where prosecutors dropped charges that he led the “Cartel de los Soles” organization, but kept other drug trafficking allegations.
Other Venezuelan leaders, such as Diosdado Cabello and Vladimir Padrino, also have large bounties on their heads (USD 25 million and 15 million, respectively), although the current truce between the US and Venezuela has seemingly put them on hold.
Finally, there’s the curious case of Uruguay, a country rarely associated with drug violence but home to Sebastián Marset, who leads a transnational cocaine trafficking network reaching Paraguay, Bolivia and parts of Argentina. He rose to infamy after being accused of assassinating anti-mafia prosecutor Marcelo Pecci while he was on his honeymoon in Colombia.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Last Friday’s quiz split the room — but Montevideo edged it, with 38% of you correctly naming Uruguay’s capital as home to Mercosur’s parliament and executive committee. Brasília and Asunción each snagged 27% (partial credit for trying), while 8% went with Buenos Aires. So close, yet so wrong.
QUICK CATCH-UP
💃 Mexico City authorities estimated that around 400,000 people attended Shakira’s free concert in El Zócalo, the country’s central square. Just one week after the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel staged attacks in more than 20 states, the performance was another sign of the dual life that the country has grown accustomed to, with brutal drug violence coexisting with eventful celebrations.
🚛 The trade war between Ecuador and Colombia has continued to escalate this week. Colombia raised its tariffs from 30% to 50% and added more than 100 products to its list, in response to a similar escalation from Ecuador, whose President Daniel Noboa is protesting about the lack of proper controls at the border.
😤 During a yearly congressional address, Argentine President Javier Milei returned to the confrontational style that made him famous before reaching the presidency, hurling insults back and forth with opposition lawmakers for much of his presentation. After winning last year’s midterms, Milei has already been able to pass some key laws in the assembly, including a labor reform last week.
✈️ After some tension with Trump, whom she initially praised for his ousting of Maduro, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado made vows to return to her country in the coming weeks. Machado originally went into hiding after denouncing a rigged election in 2024, and ended up winning a Nobel Peace Prize last year.