LatAm in Focus: How Is a Changing World Reshaping Perspectives in the Americas?

Around 60 percent of Latinos who can cast a ballot have roots in Mexico, and more than half of people in the United States say it's important to maintain friendly relations with their neighbor, per surveys from the U.S.–Mexico Foundation (USMF). “In every single aspect of regular daily life of an average American: in prices, in water and also security and the geopolitical relationship between United States and the world, I think Mexico is playing a huge role,” said USMF Managing Director Enrique Perret. In a conversation with host Carin Zissis, Perret also explains why U.S. voters are souring on tariffs on Mexican goods. “We now have 19 months with tariffs, and I think people are saying, ‘That’s enough. You used the tool, but now it’s affecting the prices of goods in America—the price of construction, vehicles, food, everything.’”

Partnerships aren’t only evolving up north. Across the region, Latin Americans are paying closer attention to the vacillations of an increasingly multipolar world, international relations analyst Monica Hirst told AS/COA’s Luisa Leme. Drawing on results from the 2026 edition of the AMLAT Radar survey of 10 Latin American countries, Hirst outlines how concerns about poverty, inequality, and sovereignty are driving more “pragmatic” perspectives on foreign policy. “You don't have a perception in the region that there are hegemonic powers in place,” she said, adding, “What you see is that United States still stands out for military might, but China stands out for science and technology [and the] European Union still stands out for [the] defense of human rights and democracy.”  

Our guests

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Mark Hugo Lopez is director of race and ethnicity research at Pew Research Center. He is an expert on issues of racial and ethnic identity, Latino politics and culture, the U.S. Hispanic and Asian American populations, immigration, and the U.S. demographic landscape. In addition to writing extensively on these topics, Lopez frequently appears in national and international media in both Spanish and English. He received his doctorate in economics from Princeton University. 

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Gabriel Piña is a senior researcher focusing on race and ethnicity at Pew Research Center. He holds a doctorate in public affairs from Indiana University and a master of public policy from the University of Minnesota. 

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Enrique Perret is the managing director at the U.S.–Mexico Foundation as well as president and founder of the Foundation’s North Capital Forum, an initiative that seeks to promote North America as an economic, social, and political powerhouse. He is also a Fellow at the Milken Institute, where he contributes to initiatives focused on economic development and regional competitiveness. Perret previously worked for the Mexican government, during which time he focused on leading governmental commitments and business development strategies between the United States and Mexico. 

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Monica Hirst is a Brazilian scholar and independent international relations analyst who specializes in regional security, Latin American foreign policy, and regional cooperation. She is currently co-coordinator of the Latin American Conversatorium at the Institute for Social and Political Studies at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Hirst also teaches in the MA in international studies at Torcuato di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

This episode was produced by Executive Producer Luisa Leme, Editorial Manager Chase Harrison, and Associate Producer Khalea Robertson. Carin Zissis is your host.  

Read the surveys referenced in this episode:  

• Pew Center for Research on presidential approval ratings among U.S. Latinos and the relationship between party affiliation and ethnic self-identification;  
• USMF quarterly surveys on U.S. voter attitudes towards the U.S.–Mexico relationship;
• The 2026 AMLAT Radar Survey.  

Share and subscribe at Apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Access other episodes of Latin America in Focus and send us feedback at latamfocus@as-coa.org. 

The music in the podcast is “Me gusta soñar” performed by the C4 Trio for Americas Society. Find out about upcoming concerts at musicoftheamericas.org. Share your love for Latin America: Join Americas Society.  

Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.   

Carin Zissis: Can you remember the last time you changed your mind about something?

I'll go first. I've now got BTS on my favorites playlist now. Chase, you go.

Chase Harrison: I decided I now find the Minions really funny. How about you, Luisa?

Luisa Leme: Uhh, I don’t know. I probably changed my mind about my outfit about three times this morning.

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Zissis: Changing our minds about anything—a restaurant, a song, a politician—we've all done it. And entire countries have done it, too.

Since 2025, the U.S.-Mexico Foundation has been tracking Americans' opinion of Mexico and found that U.S. voters' positive view of their neighbor has rebounded since late last year. Americans are also less likely to support tariffs on Mexican goods than at the start of polling.

Leme: Carin, another study we'll learn more about, AMLAT Radar, found that the 10 Latin American countries polled now see China as offering the best development model for the region, displacing Washington.

Harrison: And minds change inside the United States, too: A Pew Research poll found dwindling approval of Trump among Latino voters who cast ballots for him in 2024.

Zissis: Hi, this is Carin Zissis of AS/COA Online and you're listening to Latin America in Focus, a podcast series where we give you the context of big issues affecting the Americas today.

Subscribe on all major audio platforms and follow Americas Society/Council of the Americas on social media.

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Zissis: We're kicking off this new season in a countdown to the U.S. midterms. And in this episode, my colleagues Luisa Leme, Chase Harrison, and I sat down with experts to learn how people's perceptions in the United States and in Latin America are changing.

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Zissis: Chase, let's start with Latinos in the United States. Donald Trump had record-high levels of support among Latino voters in 2024. But polling shows his approval across this bloc is dropping—and it's doing so faster than among non-Latino Trump voters.

Harrison: That's right, Carin. It's one of a few reasons the Latino vote could be decisive in this upcoming U.S. midterms. Another reason? More than 4 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in this election for the first time. Four million!

From the Pew Research Center, I spoke with Mark Hugo Lopez, director of race and ethnicity research, and Gabriel Piña, senior researcher.

Harrison: Mark, Gabriel, midterms are often seen as a referendum on the president, voters' first chance to register their opinions on how everything's going. What do we know about U.S. Latino voters and how they're approaching this midterm? What have they thought about the first two years of the second Trump presidency?

Mark Hugo Lopez: While Latinos make up about one in five Americans, they make up about one in seven or so potential voters. You’re gonna see a number that actually exceeds 38 million this year. That's a projection from us for November. 

But it's not necessarily just that number that's important. What's important is how much it's changed since the last midterm. And here, more than 4 million additional Latinos have entered adulthood or have become U.S. citizens, and they're now eligible to vote. Already, Latinos are the second-largest group of potential voters in the country. And thinking about these 4 million additional Latinos, three-quarters of whom are young people who came of age, means there's a lot of first-time voters, and getting them to register and getting them to vote are all gonna be part of the challenge for anybody who wants to engage Latino voters.

And if you look at how Donald Trump has done with Latino voters over the past, uh, three elections—'16, '20, and '24—he made gains among people who voted. Many Latinos and many Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 did not turn out to vote in 2024. So what matters here is who turns out to vote.

That said, when we take a look at the last two years, I think there are some really important findings to keep in mind and that are, in some ways, striking. Uh, for example, uh, we've seen Latinos generally have a poor opinion of the president's job performance. The share who approve of the president's job performance was already below 50 percent back in February of 2025 when the president started his second term. But it has only continued to fall since then, going from about 34 or 35 percent then to about 24 or 25 percent now in our most recent survey from July. 

Latino voters who voted for Donald Trump back in February of 2025, more than 90 percent said that they approved of the job the president was doing, just like other Trump voters from November of 2024.

But among Latinos who voted for Trump, the share who say that they approve of his job performance has declined and declined more sharply than it has among other Trump voters. In June of this year only two-thirds of Latinos who voted for Donald Trump say that they approved of the president's job performance.

What's also important for this upcoming election: Many Latinos are not quite yet paying attention, but issues like the economy, issues like immigration, have certainly been top of mind for many Latino voters and Latinos in general, um, as inflation has, uh, has risen and the cost of living has gone up, the cost of housing. Um, all those things have been playing a role in how Latinos see both their own positions today and how they see the position of Latinos generally in the United States.

Harrison: What do we know about how Latinos perceive the economy and their own opportunities in that economy?

Lopez: Unemployment, uh, inflation, the cost of healthcare are all issues that are top of mind for Latinos. More than half cite those as big problems or very big problems for the country. Um, so many Latinos are feeling the pressure, particularly of inflation. But interestingly, the most recent numbers from July, the federal government reports that the unemployment rate for Latino workers was at 4.8 percent. That's above what it is for the general public at 4.4 percent. But still, Latinos' unemployment rate has not shifted much over the course of the second Trump administration. 

What has shifted is their feelings about how hard it is to make ends meet. One-third in our survey of October from last year told us they had trouble paying for electricity, they had trouble paying for gasoline, or for transportation, or for healthcare. These were all things that had been pressing on Latino families, just like other Americans too, I wanna stress, but it's what has been top of mind for Latinos.

Gabriel, I wonder if you wanna add something here about getting ahead in, in, in today's economy.

Gabriel Piña: Yeah, it's not clear that this is one group that's experiencing the same things. It's really a group that has multiple different experiences, and looking at them as one big group sometimes, uh, hides all those little differences.

We have asked Latinos whether their identity is something that helps or hurts them, and Latinos are divided. We find a group that says, "Yeah, it helps a lot or a little." Another group that says, "Well, it doesn't really make a difference." And another group that says, "Well, it hurts."

So one thing that’s always striking is to see the differences in views, uh, between those who voted for Trump in the 2024 election and those who voted for Harris. When I was talking about the hurt and helps, for example, you see that those who voted for Trump say, "Well, my Latino identity really doesn't make a difference." Whereas for Harris supporters, they are much more likely to say that it makes a difference. You see that Harris supporters are more likely to say that sometimes this hurts. 

So there's a different, again, view, a different way of relating to your identity that may have some impacts on how people act and what experiences they have.

Harrison: One factor I wanted to talk a little bit about was geography. In the 2024 election, there was a large story about how the spike in Trump voters among Latinos was really pronounced in certain regions, for example, the South Texas border with Mexico. When you were digging into the figures, were we seeing major geographic differences with Latino perceptions?

Lopez: I would say that one of the things I think that's interesting in the 2024 election is when we compare it to 2020, Trump made gains among Latinos. His share of Latino voter support went up from 36 percent in 2020 to 48 percent in 2024. And when you take a look at, uh, what happened across the country, yes, places like South Texas, those counties in South Texas which had traditionally gone Democrat, some of them ended up being places where Donald Trump won the majority of support in those counties. But those counties are, like, 95 to 98 percent Hispanic, and so, essentially, Hispanic voters really shifted in South Texas. 

But we see similar stories around the country, and in fact, it's interesting that there seems to have been a shift toward Donald Trump in just about every congressional district or every, uh, precinct that has a significant Latino population around the country. So that includes places like Los Angeles. That includes New York and the Bronx. That includes places like Philadelphia. So it's not just the story of South Florida. It's not just the story of South Texas. This was an across-the-board gain for Donald Trump among Latinos of many different demographic groups and across the country.

Harrison: President Trump will be top of mind for voters when they go into the ballot box for the midterm, but he won't be on the ballot. They'll likely be voting for a Democrat or a Republican in a Senate race, a House race, or a governor's race. Have we seen shifts in how Latino voters identify with these two parties?

Lopez: We found that even though among voters Donald Trump made gains between 2016 and 2024, winning almost half of Latino voters' support in 2024, there hasn't been much change in the partisan identity of Latinos.

And so when you take a look at our most recent data from this year, more than half of Latinos say they're Democrats or identify with the Democratic Party. About a quarter say the same about the Republican Party, but those numbers haven't changed much over the course of the last 20 years. So who turns out to vote can make a huge difference in how we talk about Latino voters.

Harrison: And Gabriel, I was interested in what you said about this divergence happening around Latino identity with Harris voters versus with Trump voters. Is this changing the way that both parties are approaching Latino voters because their main blocs, or their main Latino blocs view themselves differently?

Piña: Yeah, that's a good question. I think something that we wanted to highlight in one of our reports is that it's not just about the policies, it's not just about the economy, but also the way that Latinos see themselves.

For example, um, when we ask Trump supporters what they call themselves, 40 percent say, "I call myself American," the most often. Whereas when we ask Harris supporters, they say, "I use the country of origin." Uh, and this is not because they are more likely to be immigrants; it's just because they, they think of themselves differently, right? So there's something there, right? 

So the political difference, like what you were saying about the geography, it's important, but what's going on with these groups? There’s more than just the politics and the way that they see, uh, the left and right. There’s something about the way that they are living and the way that they experience their Latinidad that is not the same.

Harrison: On an issue like migration, how does that play out if we look even further back than the 2024 election and at previous elections?

Lopez: That's a really great question. And certainly if one takes a broad, sweeping look at the last, say, 20 years or so of elections, um, there hasn't really been an election where immigration has been the top issue for Latinos or some aspect of it is the top issue for Latinos going into either a presidential election or, like this year, going into a midterm. It's often been the economy.

What's interesting here is that when it comes to specific aspects of immigration policy, here's where you start to see some differences by party. So, for example, Democrats overwhelmingly support things like protections for people in programs like DACA, uh, or support for temporary protected status programs, more so than, say, Latino Republicans. 

But this is where the interesting part really comes in then. So, on the one hand, yeah, there is a political divide between Latinos who are Republican and Democrat on issues around immigration policy. But when you take a look at how Latino Republicans compared to other Republicans, you oftentimes find that Latino Republicans might lend majority support to, say, a notion that we need more border security. However, their level of support is not as high as it is among other Republicans. And this is consistent across a number of policy issues like support for, say, deporting people who are in the country without authorization, who, um, may have committed a crime, or may be here without authorization and haven't committed a crime but are in the country illegally.

And you'll see that there are some differences there where Latino Republicans support those things, but not to the same degree that other Republicans do. This has been consistent, by the way, over the course of the last two decades or so of Pew Research Center Hispanic surveys. Uh, we've seen a similar pattern. 

So there's always some sort of a divide, but with Latino Republicans being somewhere in between Latino Democrats and other Republicans nationally.

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Harrison: Check out the podcast notes to read the Pew researchers’ interpretation of the National Survey of Latinos.

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Zissis: Did you know that 11 percent of the U.S. population is of Mexican descent, accounting for 60 percent of the Latino voting bloc? It makes us think of the close ties between the United States and Mexico, top trading partners with intricately linked economies.

So I spoke with Enrique Perret, managing director of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation. His organization has been taking the temperature of this crucial relationship with a quarterly survey on how people in the United States see Mexico.

Enrique, tell me how it started. Why did you decide to launch this series?

Enrique Perret: Well, I think the first thing, Carin, is that something that you can't measure, you can’t change, right?

And for many years, I think we have been expressing that, you know, the perception of Mexico in the United States is it's not fair that Mexico is the biggest exporter, importer, the largest trading partner of the U.S. That, you know, we have a, a huge diaspora community in the U.S. That, uh, it's one of the most complex relationships. 

And perception in the new generation in America is very different from people in their 60s or 70s. The perception about Mexico in Florida is very different from California, because in California, 43 percent or 44 percent of the total population are Mexicans or Mexican Americans. 

So we wanted to understand that on a regular basis, every three months, to understand trends and to understand how you can change that perception, right?

Zissis: Let's start with some of the things that are consistent over time. We consistently see that more than half of U.S. voters say it's important to have friendly relations with Mexico. We see that tourism and economic ties have consistently come up as the top reasons that U.S. voters say Mexico is a good neighbor. We also see that cartel activity consistently leads as a reason they see it as a bad neighbor. So I wanna know: what's changed over time as you've done these surveys?

Perret: So, I think one thing very, very important is that I think the U.S. voters have learned to, uh, let's say, identify or differentiate the Mexican population, Mexico as a country, and the Mexican government, right? 

I mean, sometimes governments do some stuff—new regulations, shutting down the borders, putting tariffs here or there—and that can build a perception of a good friend or a good ally or a good neighbor. That doesn't mean that the entire population represents those actions or is, you know, in favor of those actions.

Because you remember, Carin, Mexico was against free trade or globalization in the late ’80s, early ’90s. And then we, we learned that it was good for Mexico, and now the majority of Mexicans are in favor of globalization and trade, right?

And I think Americans have learned to do the same thing with Mexico. And you mentioned it, tourism, you mentioned trade. And obviously culture. I mean, everybody in the U.S., uh, manifests some positive regarding Mexican food, right? Whether you are a MAGA in Florida or a liberal Democrat in California, you love tacos and you love, you know, the michelada and the margarita and the Caesar salad and a lot, a lot of Mexican food. So that's something that really helps, as tourism does. As you know, Mexico receives 35, 36 million of Americans every year to Mexico, Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, Los Cabos, Cancun, Riviera Maya, and so on and on.

Um, so when they express this, this need for a friendly relationship with Mexico, that's what they are thinking. It’s culture, it's tourism, it's economy, right? 

But obviously you have the other side, the cartels, insecurity, fentanyl. It's something that is also, uh, pushing back and bringing a bad perception to Mexico.

Zissis: One thing I noticed that changed over time is the portion of Republicans who, um, consider it important to have friendly bilateral ties. So the portion of Republicans saying that it's important dropped from 53 percent in March 2025 to just 41 percent earlier this summer.
But what's behind that change? Why do Republicans see it as less important to have that positive relationship?

Perret: I mean, we can explain the Republican view of Mexico right now because the U.S. has a president that is Republican and has been very, um, let's say, pushy in his narrative on Mexico regarding migration, security, cartels, fentanyl. I think those four things are the factors behind that answer from the Republican side, right?

But there have been some moments in the last 18 months, 19 months of President Donald Trump’s administration in which he had a very good call with Claudia Sheinbaum or a very good moment. In December 2025, when President Sheinbaum came to Washington for the FIFA draw, or when she went to the last game of the FIFA World Cup in New York. Those moments, I think, you can see 3, 4 percent improvement in Republicans' view on Mexico.

Zissis: The issue of unauthorized immigration is a declining concern among voters. And I was wondering if that actually contributed in a, in a way that we don't think of it. It's not necessarily a positive or a negative thing. It's just that a major issue just isn't as important, and therefore, that's an aspect of the relationship being less concerning, potentially, to Republicans as an issue. 

I know that this is not about Canada, but Canada really stood out to me in your survey, and I think it’s worth talking about Canada at this moment, when we’ve been seeing complex relations between Canada and the United States. And at this moment, when a lot of the issues that you’re covering in the survey are really relevant to the North American relationship, to trade, to USMCA. I mean, obviously Mexico and Canada, in that order, are the U.S.'s biggest trade partners. And it, and it was extraordinary to me that 71 percent of respondents say it's very or extremely important for the United States to have a friendly relationship with Canada. 

Has that view changed over the course of the polling? And do we know how it differs according to political affiliation?

Perret: I think whether you're a Republican, independent, or Democrat here in the U.S., I think most people feel that it's a bad moment in the relationship, but everything is gonna be okay in the, in the future.

And I think, even with the Canadians, you know, responding a little bit aggressively, you know, on U.S. products—retaliatory tariffs, and not buying U.S. products in Canada and all that narrative—I think in their heart, both Americans and Canadians feel that, you know, there is a relationship here that goes beyond a political moment, right?

Zissis: It's a little bit like what you were saying before about separating governments from the people.

Perret: Yeah, totally. And you can also start seeing some other factors that move the needle on those answers, and one is China, right?

As you remember, Canada’s first response to Donald Trump or to the U.S. tariffs like five or six months ago was to travel to China to try to make a deal with Xi Jinping. They talked about autos, they talked about energy, they talked about data centers, they talked about AI. It was a very hard response from, you know, your friends going in the other direction with your competitor, adversary.

I mean, all those… that agreement with China, it never happened. It was just a statement, let's say. And my fear is that some of those statements can really hurt this friendship, right? I'm worried about that, and I think Mexico and Mexicans need to be worried about the U.S.-Canada relationship. And that's why it's very important for us to continue measuring that because we don't, we don't want to have a dysfunctional relationship in North America, right?

Zissis: Some of the other findings in your survey show that most Americans oppose raising tariffs on Mexican goods. Um, all of this is coming at a really important time. The United States and Mexico have been engaged in ongoing talks related to the USMCA review. We've had, obviously, the tense moments with Canada.

So one last question for you, Enrique. As we look at the overall survey results, what's the homework assignment here? Based on what U.S. voters want out of bilateral relations and North American ties overall, what do Washington and Mexico City need to get done?

Perret: So on tariffs: like, three exercises before, we made the question about tariffs and the factors in which the U.S. voters were okay with imposing tariffs, okay? And most of the people, I think it was 70 percent, 65 percent, something around that, agreed that using tariffs as a tool to negotiate other things with other countries was okay. Okay? So the U.S. voters were okay using tariffs as a tool, let's say, to negotiate with Mexico on migration, or to negotiate with Colombia on drugs, or negotiating with China on monetary policies. So most of the voters were okay using tariffs.

But what happened was that it was too long. Now we have 19 months with tariffs, and I think people are saying, "That’s enough." You used the tool, but now it’s affecting the prices of goods in America, the price for construction, the prices of vehicles, food, you know, everything.

So, I think, Carin, here in Washington and in Mexico City, we still have this huge gap in understanding what the U.S. represents to Mexico and what Mexico represents to the U.S. I always said that Washington is now the second most important city for Mexico, right? Just after Mexico City. It's not Monterrey, it's not Guadalajara, it's not Tijuana. But in Washington, they're making decisions that really affect everyone in Mexico, either the exchange rate, you know, technology, AI, tariffs, the automotive industry, steel and aluminum, the food industry with tomatoes, avocados, berries, and many, many other things, right?

But the same thing I can say on the U.S. side. Mexico is much more relevant than what they think, right? In every single aspect of regular daily life of an average American, right? In the prices, water, and also security, and the geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and the world, I think Mexico is playing a huge role.

So I think we need to be more fact-based, and we need to showcase those facts. If it was hard, now it’s harder to put that narrative in the front, because there is so much noise. The bilateral relationship is a little bit trapped in negative arguments, and that is gonna be hard to overcome that.

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Zissis: The U.S.-Mexico Foundation releases its latest survey in September. And you can check the podcast notes for a link to all their polling results to learn more about how views of Mexico are shifting in this crucial year of USMCA negotiations.

Leme: And changes in perception are happening across the Americas, Carin. I spoke with Professor Monica Hirst, one of the co-authors of AMLAT Radar, a survey of 10 Latin American countries now in its second edition and covering views of the world and major global powers.

Zissis: And what did they find?

Leme: Well Carin, what’s interesting about this survey is that Latin Americans are pragmatic about how foreign policy is affecting their lives. I started asking Professor Hirst about whether people in Latin America view the world as a power struggle between the United States, China, and Europe, and she offered a different scenario.

Monica Hirst: I would say it is not a struggle. What we are observing and what we perceive from the answers is that there is a multipolar reality, a multipolar scenario in which China, the United States, and the European Union, they stand out for different power attributes. So what we realize is that no one can be responsible for everything, let's put it that way. 

And what you see is that the United States still stands out for military might, but China stands out for science and technology. The European Union still stands out for normative values, for soft power attributes [such] as human rights, defense of human rights, and defense of democracy. So it all depends on what you're talking about. 

What you see is that you don't have hegemonic… you don't have a perception in the region that there are hegemonic powers in place. But it's not a struggle. It's a competition.

For instance, we addressed the fight against terrorism. The fight against terrorism, you have the United States with, of course, the strongest position. But if you have a question like science and education, which used to be European or American for Latin Americans, it’s in China now.

Leme: Professor Hirst, this is the second edition of the survey, with the first one coming out in 2022. What’s changed since then? How do Latin Americans view this world in transition today?

Hirst: When we worked on the first edition of the survey, we were coming out of the pandemic in our countries and in the world in general. It was already a world of transition of the international order, but with much less knowledge of the implications of this transition. And definitely with much less conflictive realities and, of course, uncertainties regarding the future, regarding how the region would fit in this transition, and regarding the economic, political, and security implications of a new world order.

Europe and the European Union, which already appeared in the first survey as being of relatively less importance vis-a-vis China, vis-a-vis the United States, now definitely were fading away, almost out of the picture, in many issues regarding power.

Also, Latin America, four years ago, still toyed with the idea of regional integration, with the importance of regionalism, and still had relatively important regional institutions, which represented collective ideas and collective aspirations. This is something that has almost disappeared in this new survey.

It is a region much more concerned with the problems of poverty, inequality, sovereignty, and security. It is a much more pragmatic region. It is a region that is concerned with trade, concerned with investment, concerned with tangible goods. That's what it expects from the United States and from Europe and the European Union.

Also, something that wasn’t there before, and now much is more, is the implications of the U.S. security and general political crisis as a world leader, and what kind of reputational implications this has since the Trump administration.

Now, there’s something else which is very important, which is the change that we perceive regarding the acknowledgment of countries as a model for our societies. So who are those you perceive as  the best model for your country? And here, what we have noticed is that there has been a shift from the West to the East, to Asia. And it’s not only China, it’s Japan, it’s South Korea. 

So, what you realize is that, in general, the West has lost leverage in projecting a positive image of its model of development. The societies in Latin America perceive Asian economies, Asian models of development as being much more interesting. They feel a stronger attraction to these models than to Western experiences.

Leme: You mentioned that the survey was conducted in 10 countries. Did the survey uncover major differences between countries in the region?

Hirst: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You have countries that are more… If you look at sentiments, countries that have more fear than others and countries that have more hope. Venezuela shows as a country with an important amount of hope. Brazilians come up as a country with a lot of fear. So you do find a lot of differences. 

Uh, the anti-American, anti-U.S., anti-Trump sentiments are definitely the main aspect of the perceptions in Mexico, much more than Brazil. Brazil has a much more moderate perception regarding the U.S. in general, regarding Trump in particular, no? 

What we see also is that the societies in Latin America do not necessarily follow the foreign policy orientations of their governments. They can have different perceptions, but they do have perceptions! This is very important. Our survey shows that Latin Americans think, feel, and react to what's going on in the world. And they are willing to stand up for their rights and their assets.

Sovereignty is the second most important [concern]. It’s trade and sovereignty. But not a militarized sovereignty. It's another kind of sovereignty that has to do with new areas: technology, knowledge, raw materials. 

It's a different world. That's the point. It's a different world. This is a region that's concerned. It's a region committed to democracy, and it's a region open to different possibilities of connections and articulations with the foreign world.

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Zissis: There’s a lot going on in Latin America, and a look into perspectives helps us lay down the context of what we’ll be covering in upcoming episodes.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Carin Zissis. This episode was produced by Associate Producer Khalea Robertson and our Executive Producer Luisa Leme.

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Latin America in Focus has over 200 episodes on key issues that help you better understand the region. Check out past episodes on our website at www.as-coa.org/podcast.

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Opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Society/Council of the Americas or its members.