James Bosworth on the "Orange Wave" Happening Across Latin America

James Bosworth (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:25)

Tracy, we're recording this April 7th, 10.3 in the morning. Of course, by the time this comes out, we have no idea what will be going on with the war in Iran. But one reason we may be in the war in Iran in the first place is because of, frankly, how smooth the operation went to remove Maduro, and Trump found a political partner he can work with in the form of Adelce Rodriguez in Venezuela.

Tracy Alloway (0:53)

Yes. He seemed to enjoy getting access to a lot of oil from Venezuela. I guess the thinking is, perhaps he tried to repeat that in Iran with, so far, varying degrees of success.

Joe Weisenthal (1:05)

Yeah. Maybe no success at all. Yes.

Tracy Alloway (1:08)

I'm being facetious.

Joe Weisenthal (1:09)

Perhaps generous. But this idea that's like, okay, remove Maduro, and here is someone who was part of the government, like, okay, you know what, we're going to be friends with the Americans now. We're going to play ball. Certainly don't want to, the next in charge didn't want to end up in the same person.

He didn't want to end up in the same position. I almost afraid he had slipped and said the same prison. Though that would have also worked, but didn't want to end up in the same position as Maduro. So, okay, there's this partnership. But it also occurs to me, even setting this aside, doesn't it feel like we're in some sort of, I don't know if golden age is the right word, but there's so many iconic Latin American leaders right now. So obviously, you have Delcey, and then you have Sheinbaum, and you have Javier Milei, and you have Lula, and of course, Bukele. So we sort of like are in a moment where there are several very high-profile Latam leaders, all of which seem to be carving out their own lane in one way or another.

Tracy Alloway (2:09)

Well, the other reason that Latin America is really interesting at the moment is because the Trump administration has basically said that after they're done with Iran in whatever way they're envisioning Cuba is sort of next in their sights, right? And we know that Cuba has been struggling because of high oil prices. I think we touched on it a little bit when we did some of our Venezuela episodes.

Joe Weisenthal (2:29)

Yeah.

Tracy Alloway (2:30)

But there's definitely a lot to talk about in terms of that region, and what's going on with America and the war in Iran.

Joe Weisenthal (2:38)

Totally. So is Latin going to be Bukeleified, or is there going to be these extreme harsh illiberal crackdowns on crime? Is it going to be Delsified, or are there going to be a lot of client leaders? Is there going to be a populous left wave if Sheinbaum is more successful, or Lula's ongoing success? Is it going to be Libertarian if things work out in Malay? Very interesting questions. Anyway, I'm very excited to say we have a perfect guest, someone who I've been reading for a long time. He has a great sub-stack called the Latin America Risk Report, that I really find to be essential reading. He is a founder of a company called Hxagon, non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center. We are going to be speaking with James Bosworth, goes by Bos, and knows a lot about LATAM politics.

Bos, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

James Bosworth (3:27)

Thank you for having me here. I'm a big fan.

Joe Weisenthal (3:29)

Thank you so much. What do you tell us? I've become a really big fan of your newsletter, and you have a pretty wide and deep understanding of LATAM, so what do you tell us a little bit about your background?

James Bosworth (3:39)

I started a blog in 2004 It's what people did in the mid-2000s.

Tracy Alloway (3:44)

The golden age of blogging.

James Bosworth (3:45)

Exactly. It's sort of coming back now with Substack. It's exciting. So I started a blog in 2004 about Latin American politics, and I've been writing ever since now 22 years. I migrated to Substack, I think, back in 2018

And really the newsletter is the main focus of my world right now. I publish almost every day for subscribers, and that's where I've come to focus. I studied abroad in Chile in college, and I've lived in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Colombia, and I've traveled to the entire region except for Venezuela and Cuba. For some reason, I can't make it to those countries.