How Fates Diverged in Hispaniola

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: The Dominican Republic reelects its popular president while neighboring Haiti prepares for a U.N.-backed security intervention, Colombia’s “total peace” strategy is challenged by a spate of attacks, and Argentines unearth Black history in Buenos Aires.

The Split Screen in Hispaniola

The eastern half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola has had a calm and optimistic week. In the Dominican Republic on Sunday, popular centrist President Luis Abinader coasted to reelection with a nearly 30-percentage-point lead over his closest competitor. Abinader’s party is set to hold on to majorities in both of the country’s legislative chambers.

At a press conference on Monday, Abinader celebrated the country’s strong economic growth, which is expected to be more than 5 percent this year. He also heralded a reduction in poverty and spoke about potential tax reform. Then, Abinader faced a question about the other side of Hispaniola, where things look starkly different.

To the west of the Dominican Republic lies Haiti. For months, the country has experienced a spate of gang violence, kidnappings, and critical infrastructure blockages. Haiti’s police forces are so overwhelmed that United Nations-backed actors, including the United States and Kenya, put together plans for a foreign stabilization mission. The force is due to begin operations soon; Kenyan police will form its largest contingent.

Asked to comment on how the Dominican Republic was planning for the impending security mission to Haiti, Abinader replied that there are things he “cannot say” but that Dominican officials are in touch with other actors to be prepared for “anything that comes up.”

Abinader’s vague answer is emblematic of the many uncertainties that surround the multinational mission to Haiti. Kenyan and U.S. officials originally hoped it could begin by this week, as Kenyan President William Ruto is in Washington for a state visit. On Wednesday, however, McClatchy and the Miami Herald reported that the intervention could be delayed until early June.

The mission’s leaders should submit their rules of combat engagement to the U.N. Security Council ahead of deployment, according to the council resolution that approved the force last October. McClatchy and the Herald reported that those guidelines had not been turned in, although on Thursday Ruto told reporters in Washington that “we have clear modus operandi” that “has been agreed under the United Nations framework.”

Meanwhile, some Republican lawmakers put a hold on $40 million in U.S. funding for the mission, questioning the fact that it was “undefined and indefinite” and lacked congressional approval, according to a May 17 letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that was seen by McClatchy and the Herald.

Haiti has a long history of harmful interventions by foreign powers, including the United States. Still, even vocal critics of Washington’s Haiti policy have acknowledged that the country’s current situation is so dire that Haitians “need a security intervention of some sort,” former U.S. diplomat Daniel Foote said at a Quincy Institute event this week.

The United States is also feeling the results of Haiti’s security crisis through increased levels of irregular Haitian migration. “Though the mission has been branded as a Kenya-led deployment, congressional aides say it is in practice a U.S.-led mission with multiple actors,” McClatchy’s Michael Wilner and the Herald’s Jacqueline Charles wrote.

While the international mission dawdles, Haiti’s gangs appear to be getting stronger. In recent weeks, erstwhile rival gangs have shared social media messaging projecting themselves as a unified group, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The guns they display are increasingly advanced; two U.S. Justice Department officials said the gangs have acquired automatic weapons.

Back in the Dominican Republic, Abinader has made one thing clear: Haitian migrants are not welcome. One of his popular campaign promises was a vow to reinforce the border wall between the two countries, suggesting Hispaniola’s divergent fates may continue for a while.

Upcoming Events

Monday, May 27, to Thursday, May 30: Antigua and Barbuda hosts the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States.

Saturday, June 1: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is inaugurated for a second term.

Sunday, June 2: Mexico holds general elections.

What We’re Following

Argentine President Javier Milei delivers a speech during the Spanish far-right party Vox’s Europa Viva 24 rally in Madrid on May 19.Oscar Del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images

More Milei effect. Spain said it was permanently withdrawing its ambassador from Argentina this week after Argentine President Javier Milei insinuated that the wife of Socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was “corrupt” at a far-right rally in Madrid. In his speech, Milei was echoing accusations from right-wing groups in Spain that have not been substantiated.

Milei chose not to meet with Spanish officials during his trip to the country, scheduling events only with opposition figures. The rift carries potential economic consequences: Spain is the second-largest foreign investor in Argentina after the United States. Milei was continuing a pattern of partisan engagement with the country: During Argentina’s presidential election last year, Sánchez endorsed Milei’s opponent.

Sánchez’s pushback to Milei this week comes as Spain has tried to stake out assertive foreign-policy positions ahead of European Parliament elections next month. Europe’s far right, meanwhile, has celebrated Milei as he arguably takes up the mantle of electoral success that was previously held by former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Trouble for total peace. Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” strategy has faced setbacks in recent days. The approach aims to strike cease-fire deals with armed groups active in rural parts of the country rather than engaging in combat. Members of one such group, Estado Mayor Central (EMC), carried out a bombing and an armed attack in Colombia’s southwest on Monday.

Previous violent incidents had caused the government to suspend its cease-fire with the EMC in some parts of the country, and Colombia’s defense minister said on Tuesday that the government would now consider fully ending the deal.

Also on Monday, Petro replaced Colombia’s army commander without citing a reason. In addition to presiding over the recent flare-up in violence, the outgoing commander was accused of surveilling his wife’s English teacher.

Buenos Aires’s Black history. A walking tour of Buenos Aires aims to educate people more widely about Argentina’s Black history, Constanza Lambertucci wrote in El País last week. Although Buenos Aires often markets itself as the “Paris of South America” and emphasizes its European heritage, Afro-descendent people accounted for one-third of the city’s population in 1778. African music traditions also inspired the Argentine tango.

More than 300,000 people in Argentina identified as Afro-descendant in the 2022 census. A group called Lunfarda Travel created a tour to highlight the capital’s Black history in 2020 and hosted more than 200 tourists from around the world in 2023. It is part of a new generation of Black activism in Argentina, which has successfully advocated for a question about African ancestry in the census and for Black independence fighter María Remedios del Valle to appear on new currency.

“We’re winning the battle against erasure,” Afro-Argentine literature professor Miriam Gomes told El País. “You have to be very myopic to think today that there are no Black people in Argentina.”

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In Focus: Chile’s Lithium Expansion

An aerial view shows pools of brine containing concentrated lithium carbonate stretching across a lithium mine atop the salt flats of the Atacama Desert in Salar de Atacama, Chile, on Aug. 24, 2022.John Moore/Getty Images

The Chilean government will open bids by the end of July for companies to process lithium domestically, officials announced last week. These firms would receive lower prices on raw lithium inputs.

Only two companies currently operate mines in Chile’s lithium reserves to produce the raw inputs needed for processing. The government will inaugurate new lithium deposits for mining and expects three or four new projects to be in under development by 2026, Chile’s finance minister said in March.

Chile’s lithium reserves are the largest in the world, and the country’s national lithium strategy is one of President Gabriel Boric’s flagship industrial policies. He aims to develop the country’s lithium industry through public-private partnerships, but critics say his strategy has been implemented too slowly since it was first announced in April 2023.

“Wake up, Chile!” Elisa Cabezón, an economist at the policy think tank Pivotes, wrote in March. This month, Chinese automaker BYD announced that it had paused plans for a battery component plant in Chile due to “uncertainty.” The plant was the type of processing facility that companies could propose in the new call for bids. Pivotes analysts blamed Chile’s slow lithium policy rollout.

Other countries in South America have moved faster to expand lithium mining in recent months. In 2023, Brazil almost doubled its lithium production in comparison with the previous year, while Argentina’s annual production grew 46 percent, according to estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey. Chile’s annual output, meanwhile, grew 16 percent.

This growth came as the global lithium industry was experiencing dramatic price swings. The price of lithium in international markets rose more than fivefold between 2021 and 2022. But battery-makers soon realized that lithium had flooded into the market more quickly than electric vehicles and other items that require lithium to function, and its price has since dropped to around 2021 levels.

Boric’s critics say Chile missed a chance to cash in on lithium during the period of high prices. But experts say much more demand is expected in the future. According to a report released by the International Energy Agency last week, the world’s projected supply of lithium will meet only 50 percent of global demand by 2035.