The Latin American Report # 648

This is an interesting AP report on the struggle of hundreds of small communities descended from maroon slaves who grew up in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, have cared for it for generations, and are demanding the official demarcation of their lands, now in the context of the COP30 being held in the city of Belem. "Our life is this struggle to ensure that the forest stays alive. Sometimes the price we pay is very high," an activist tells AP, in a veiled reference to the advance of aggressive agricultural settlers, primarily cattle ranchers or soybean producers. "If you can't prove that the land belongs to the community, agribusiness ends up doing what we call in Brazil `grilagem,´ which is forging false documentation in their favor," denounced the activist.

By the way, these people use a non-invasive technique to harvest the increasingly demanded açaí from the palm trees. This product is among those exempted this Friday from the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, who has had to backtrack and undo several punitive trade measures to contain a significant drop in his popularity, probably linked to the affordability problem. "Today I am happy because President Trump has already started to reduce some of the tariffs he had applied to certain Brazilian products," said the head of the Palácio do Planalto, boasting of his phlegmatic character in handling the diplomatic crisis with the White House, clumsy based on the judicial processes against former president Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of Trump.

"When the US president decided to impose super tariffs on the entire world, everyone went into crisis and got nervous[, but] I don't usually make decisions when I have a 39-degree fever, I wait for it to go down," said Lula, using a very creative metaphor. The revocation of tariffs also applies to beef, coffee, and other fruits like mango, pineapple, and coconut.

Traditional acai berry dishes surprise visitors to Brazil climate summit, no sugar added. By ⁦@MSavarese⁩, video from ⁦@LucasDumphreys⁩ & photos ⁦@JFernandoLlano⁩https://t.co/Kj1EyO0UtP

— E. Eduardo Castillo (@EECastilloAP) November 12, 2025

Colombia

Gustavo Petro boasted about the seizure of 14 tons of cocaine in Colombia's main Pacific port, "without a single death" in the operation. According to the head of the House of Nariño, it would be the largest seizure by the Police since 2015. Here, there is obviously a veiled reference to the conflict posed by the deadly US deployment in Caribbean and Eastern Pacific waters, with more than 80 alleged drug traffickers killed since September in attacks against drug-carrying suspected vessels. There is no clarity on whether the latter is part of a psychological warfare campaign against Venezuela, while Washington insists on presenting the effort as solely directed at drug trafficking. Drug trafficking which, incidentally, it associates with the so-called Cartel of the Suns, allegedly led by Nicolás Maduro.

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Paraguay

In another very notable development in the fight against drug trafficking, Paraguayan authorities recently seized more than 11 tons of marijuana in a department bordering Brazil, ten of it chopped and distributed in bags, and one pressed. The action was part of Operation Guaraní Shield, aimed at reinforcing security on the borders with Argentina and Brazil because of the bloody events that occurred in two Brazilian favelas at the end of last month. Below I share visual information from an anti-narcotics operation earlier this month in Paraguay (source).

Ecuador

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa returned in the early hours of this Friday to his country, after a two-day official visit to the United States about which he provided no account; there was no information about his official agenda. This is problematic in terms of transparency, especially since it occurs after his first major electoral defeat this past Sunday, when he was after the electorate's blessing to advance strategic reforms. In the case of the United States, the proposal to eliminate the prohibition on the installation of foreign military bases in Ecuadorian territory was particularly important. Washington had nurtured the possibility of restarting the base they had for years in the town of Manta, Manabí province. In many ways, Noboa has tended to adopt an authoritarian attitude in the exercise of power.

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This is all for today’s report.