Caribbean & Central America - May 2025

We begin this May 2025 edition of the Latin American Regional Report: Caribbean & Central America by considering agreements relating to security and the Panama Canal inked by Panama and the US during a recent visit to Panama by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth which are proving contentious.... Read More

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth paid a visit to Panama in early April where he met President José Raúl Mulino, Security Minister Frank Ábrego, and the administrator of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), Ricaurte Vásquez.... Read More

The US deportations of alleged members of Venezuelan criminal organisation Tren de Aragua (TdA) and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), one of two main street gangs in Central America, to El Salvador’s notorious maximum security prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot), has made international headlines in recent weeks [SSR-25-04].... Read More

In late March Nicaragua’s 92-member unicameral legislature, which like all institutions is controlled by President Daniel Ortega’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), approved changes to the country’s military code.... Read More

Tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on 2 April on all imported foreign goods have set alarm bells ringing throughout Central America, with key economic sectors likely to be negatively affected.... Read More

On 23 April leading teachers’ union Asociación de Profesores (Asoprof) began strike action in protest against Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino’s controversial reform of the social security system (CSS) – protests which other unions have since joined.... Read More

A new report from international charity Oxfam has found that tax evasion costs Central American governments a combined US$17.5bn per year.... Read More

A little over a year since the nine-member transitional presidential council (TPC) assumed power on 25 April 2024, the TPC’s failure to improve the lives of Haiti’s 11m citizens has been near total, prompting United Nations (UN) Special Representative for Haiti María Isabel Salvador to tell the UN Security Council on 21 April that Haiti had reached a “potential point of no return” and that the country faced “total collapse”.... Read More

At one level the economic outlook for the Caribbean this year is “business as usual”: supported by recovering tourism and remittances, the sub-region will see growth above the Latin American average, coupled with a degree of price stability.... Read More

In an extended interview with Granma, Cuba’s state-controlled newspaper, published in late March, Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy explained what is being done to restore power supply across the island.... Read More

Excelerate Energy of Texas, a liquid natural gas (LNG) producer, announced in April that it had agreed to pay US$1.05bn to acquire the Jamaican assets of New Fortress Energy.... Read More

HONDURAS | New staff-level agreement reached with IMF.... Read More