The Latin American Report # 675

Chilean President-elect José Antonio Kast paid his first foreign visit this Tuesday after his crushing, uncontestable victory against the left-wing coalition represented by communist Jeannette Jara, in a sign that far-right tunes increasingly lead the political charts in the region. "We are going to have a very good relationship between Argentina and Chile, as never seen before," Kast told the press at the Javier Milei's Pink House, advancing that he will visit other countries that can provide "good examples" of governance for Chile.

At the antipodes of that right-wing fraternity is the so-called culture war against communism and the "enemies of freedom," connected to the larger and more powerful agenda of the Trump administration. As expected, one of Kast's first clashes in this regard has been with the controversial Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who warned him first about the potential implementation of an aggressive deportation policy targeting (illegal) Venezuelan immigrants in Chile. "You may be a confessed and convicted [Pinochet lover], but be careful if you touch a hair of a Venezuelan[;] Venezuelans are to be respected," Maduro had expressed.

"He is a dictator, a narcodictator, who today is going through difficult times due to the pressure being exerted by the United States, and surely later perhaps other countries, because drug exportation is not acceptable," responded Kast this Tuesday, an ultracatholic lawyer father of nine. Kast speaks of creating a "humanitarian corridor" to carry out his plan of mass deportations, which threatens about 300,000 irregular migrants according to estimates. "We have proposed to different sitting presidents that we must have coordination to open a humanitarian corridor for the return of these people to their respective countries," he said from Argentina.

Another early spat has taken place with the head of the House of Nariño, Gustavo Petro, although so far it has been the outgoing government of Gabriel Boric that has responded to the Colombian leader, who had stated that "the winds of death are coming" in relation to Kast's arrival at The Mint. For her part, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pointed out that "[beyond] the fact that he won democratically and was recognized by all political forces, what is striking is his recognition of Pinochet."

Colombia

The so-called "armed strike" ordered by the National Liberation Army (ELN in Spanish) in Colombia is already reported to have claimed the lives of two police officers—hit by a roadside bomb while patrolling the southwestern city of Cali—and also caused mass displacements, both classic consequences of the measures associated with the declaration of that state, which, although illegal, largely ends up being realized due to the strength of the mentioned guerrilla group in certain areas of the Colombian geography like the department of Norte de Santander.

The ELN portrays that the three-day-long "armed strike", formally ending today, is a manifestation of rejection of the U.S. military build up in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, but also of government-led violence against them and "the people". This seems to be a very left-wing initiative but ends up limiting people's basic freedoms, in a rather insurmountable contradiction. In the Cauca department, mass displacements are reported after a series of explosions and armed harassments, one of them attributed to the Central General Staff, the largest dissident group of the defunct FARC-EP, while the relationship between these actions and the ELN, also active in that zone, is investigated.

A community council denounces that the panorama translates into "confinement, displacement, widespread fear, and a direct threat against the life, physical and emotional integrity of the families inhabiting the territory." Petro is increasingly explicit in his criticisms of this guerrilla, reproaching them for supposedly abandoning their revolutionary ideals to become mere "drug traffickers dressed up as guerrillas."

Trump vs. Venezuela and Colombia

This Thursday, the Trump administration has decided to designate the Colombia-based Gulf Clan as a foreign terrorist organization and also as a specially designated global terrorist group. Thus, its logistical apparatus, particularly maritime transport of drugs, is now a potential target of the attacks that, since September, have been conducted by U.S. military forces in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. At least it is now a new national security objective to justify those attacks, because concrete evidence about the latter never surfaces. Everything the official statements say is that the attacked boats belong to designated terrorist organizations.

The Secretaries of State and War briefed Congress—behind closed doors—about the so-called Operation Southern Spear, whose death toll currently stands at 95, and which is heavily disputed from a legal standpoint, especially after it emerged that in the first attack on September 2, U.S. forces finished off two survivors from the first missile. Pete Hegseth did not commit to publishing an unedited, full version of the video, which only members of the congressional committees overseeing the Pentagon have seen. By the way, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who defends the legality of the attacks, spoke openly about what the ideal end goal of the U.S. deployment is for him. "I want to address the question, is it the goal to take [Maduro] out? If it's not the goal to take him out, you're making a mistake," he argued.

On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/IQfCVvUpau

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 16, 2025

Update on Honduras

Nothing new under the sun. At 2:30 pm local time, the special scrutiny process, first expected to start the past Saturday, still has not begun, although the opposition parties, which command the presidential race, seem to have agreed to address their differences about it.

This is all for today’s report.