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U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russia's President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017.
What We’re Watching: Trump to meet Putin, Indigenous voters in Bolivia shift right, Lula’s anti-Trump strategy goes global
Trump to meet with Putin, proposes trilateral summit with Putin and Zelensky
The Kremlin confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with US President Donald Trump “in the coming days” to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war. The location of the meeting isn’t yet clear. Trump also reportedly told a group of European leaders yesterday he will hold a (so-far unconfirmed) trilateral summit with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump has been trying without success to get Putin to end the war – threatening further sanctions and secondary tariffs on Russian trade partners. Will his personal powers of persuasion do the trick?
Amid economic turmoil, Indigenous voters in Bolivia shift right
With the Bolivian election just 10 days away, economic grievances are causing Indigenous voters – who represent 62% of the population – to abandon the ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, which has long acted as their standard-bearer and has held power for most of the last 20 years. Natural gas exports have plummeted and inflation has risen to a 40-year high. MAS now trails conservative rivals in polling. Bolivia’s election could be a bellwether for socialist difficulties elsewhere in the region: ruling left-wing movements in Chile and Colombia also face a challenging path to reelection in the next 12 months.
Brazil’s Lula goes global with anti-Trump stance
But if some LatAm leftists are looking cooked, at least one other is cooking. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is giving no ground in his clash with Trump, telling Reuters he won’t “humiliate” himself by calling the White House. The US president has threatened Latin America’s largest economy with steep tariffs over the prosecution of right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump pal, on charges he plotted a coup after losing the 2022 election. The aging Lula, now in his third term and debating a fourth, has gotten a bounce at home from telling the gringo president to stuff it. But his recent spate of high-profile international media interviews suggests he’s leaning into the “anti-Trump” role at the global level, too. Narendra Modi, take note?
Palestinians wounded in an Israeli strike near a humanitarian aid distribution centre are rushed to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
HARD NUMBERS: Gaza aid point killings rise, US states approve opioid settlement, and more
59: Israeli forces on Tuesday killed at least 59 Palestinians trying to access a food and aid distribution point in Gaza. This marks the deadliest day in a recent wave of shootings near the distribution points. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in similar incidents since a private group backed by Israel and the US, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, launched aid distribution sites in Gaza.
7.4 billion: All 50 US states approved a $7.4 billion settlement with Purdue over the pharma giant’s role in the opioid crisis. $6.5 billion of that will come from the owners of Purdue, the Sackler family. Unlike past opioid settlements, this one allows individuals to keep suing the Sacklers in civil court for another 15 years.
70,000: Nearly 70,000 people have already applied for the “Trump Card,” a VIP visa program that offers US residency to foreigners willing to cough up $5 million for the privilege. The program was officially launched last week.
6: Recent clashes between police and supporters of former Bolivian president Evo Morales have left six people dead and hundreds injured, deepening a political crisis in the gas-rich Andean country ahead of this fall’s presidential election. The courts have banned Morales, who was ousted amid protests in 2019, from running for a fourth term.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini brief the media at the European Council in Brussels, Belgium, on December 11, 2017.
What We’re Watching: Pressure on Israel, Jitters in Bolivia, Podcasts for Democrats
Israel under fresh pressure
The UK and EU threatened Tuesday to revise trade ties with Israel unless PM Benjamin Netanyahu stops the new offensive in the Gaza Strip and allows sufficient humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave. This comes after the UK, Canada, and France threatened Israel on Monday with “concrete measures,” like sanctions. Netanyahu and his far right coalition allies say they are intent on destroying Hamas, though critics warn Israel is becoming a “pariah.”
The Morales of the story: Bolivian heavyweight to defy election exclusion
Bolivia’s socialist powerbroker Evo Morales, who governed from 2006 until he was ousted in protests in 2019, is officially ineligible to run in this August’s presidential election because of term limits. Yet he has pledged to mobilize his supporters to defy this rule, setting up a potentially destabilizing contest as his once-formidable leftwing MAS movement splinters into rival factions.
Democratic donors try a pivot to podcast
Faced with the vast array of conservative or MAGA-friendly online influencers who helped Donald Trump to win the 2024 election, Democrats and their donors are now trying to cultivate a creator economy of their own ahead of the 2026 midterms. There’s lots of money and pitches, but can you really create a viable ecosystem of influencers overnight? Authenticity, the heartbeat of any political campaign, is hard to create in a lab. You’re either a born killer or you’re not.
NATO likely to respond if Russia sends North Korean troops to Ukraine
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
With reports of North Korean troops in Kursk, what is the likelihood of NATO directly intervening in the Ukraine-Russia war?
I do think that North Korean troops fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war is a major escalation, will lead to tougher sanctions, will lead to greater likelihood the Americans decide to allow for Western missiles to be used to target targets inside Russia. But the ultimatum that's been given is that if Russia deploys North Korean troops inside Ukraine itself, then NATO will respond with combat troops in Ukraine. That is a major escalation in this war. It is meant for the Russians to take it very seriously. I hope that Putin accordingly decides to keep those North Korean troops in Russia itself. And I know that the Chinese also are very concerned about where this is going. So, we'll watch this very closely.
Moldova's pro-Western President secured a second term after narrow runoff win. Does her victory reflect Western strength against Putin?
I'm not so sure. I mean, first of all, of course, lots of efforts by the Russians themselves to interfere monetarily, disinformation in this election, the way they did successfully in Georgia. In the case of Moldova, you have an awful lot of Moldovans voting that were outside Moldova legally, but that's what turned this race. It wasn't the people on the ground. And it was, as mentioned in the question, very tight indeed. This helps them stay on track with the European Union membership. But there's a very large Russian population in breakaway Transnistria with Russian troops on the ground. And I suspect that Putin and the Kremlin has no interest in giving up on this. So, it's going to keep going in the coming years.
How is the political rift between Bolivia's government and the former President Evo Morales affecting the country's stability and economy?
Well, Bolivia, extremely mountainous, very easy to shut down the economy. Just roadblocks in some of the mountain roads that are hard to move along and that means that you can't get goods through and massive inflation. And that's what's happening right now. And he, though he's from the same party as the president, believes that he's being mistreated. They're going after him for all style of corruption. Does appear to be legitimate charges, but he has leverage with a lot of Bolivians that are turning out in his favor. So I suspect if they don't come to some kind of compromise, this is going to hurt the economy there quite a bit. Not the only place we have instability in the world. And then we'll see what happens in the US later today. Be good and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Bolivia's former President Evo Morales speaks during a press conference, in Cochabamba, Bolivia October 4, 2024.
Did Bolivia’s ex-president stage an assassination … on himself?
The day after former Bolivian President Evo Morales claimed to have survived an attempt on his life on Sunday, Interior Minister Eduardo de Castillo accused Morales of staging an attempt on his own life. Morales, for his part, claims the government attempted to kill him amid a massive power struggle that has divided the ruling party.
What does each side claim? Morales said in a radio interview that a convoy carrying him through Chapare — a rural bastion of both Morales voters and coca production — was stopped by masked men with weapons who shot at his car and wounded his driver before the convoy fled.
De Castillo, on the other hand, said in a news conference that Morales’ car had failed to stop at a drug checkpoint and ran over a police officer while attempting to flee, leading to a chase and small arms fire.
What’s the beef? Morales is technically from the same Movement Toward Socialism party that currently holds power in La Paz, but he and his erstwhile protegé, President Luis Arce, are in a bitter feud. Both men want to stand for election as president next year, but Morales has been found ineligible by the constitutional court (not that this will stop him).
We’re watching for more clarity about what really went down, and whether Morales still commands the populist charm that kept him in office from 2006-2013.
Photo taken on April 22, 2012, shows the Pantanal wetlands in western Brazil.
Hidrovia Project threatens Pantanal’s survival
The Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland that stretches between Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia, is under threat from the proposed Hidrovia Paraguay-Paraná waterway project, which aims to transform 434 miles of the Paraguay River into a commercial shipping route, driven by the demands of industrial agriculture, particularly soybean farming.
The Germany-sized wetland has already been degraded by agricultural expansion and drought, but scientists say the project could “end an entire biome” by shrinking the wetland and leaving hundreds of thousands of hectares of land vulnerable to wildfires. In 2024, fires there were the worst on record, with nearly 3.7 million acres burning across the Brazilian Pantanal by early August.
The argument for creating the waterway is that barges would be faster and cheaper for transporting goods like soybeans from Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia to the coastal seaports in Uruguay and Argentina where they are shipped to North America, Europe, and Asia.
However, due to droughts decreasing flooding in the region, scientists believe that even with dredging, the water level in the river would still be too low to allow navigation. Since 1985, the Pantanal has lost about 80% of its surface water – more than any other biome in Brazil.
A member of the military police walks amid tear gas as Bolivia's President Luis Arce "denounced the irregular mobilization" of some units of the country's army, in La Paz, Bolivia June 26, 2024.
Bolivia's coup lasts just hours
It was over almost as quickly as it began. On Wednesday, Bolivian state television broadcast images of armored military vehicles ramming the door of the government complex in La Paz on Wednesday, as soldiers occupied the capital city’s central square in an apparent coup attempt.
President Luis Arce called on irregular popular militias to fight back, but just hours later the soldiers had withdrawn from the square and top General Juan José Zuñiga, apparent leader of the coup attempt, was arrested.
Bolivia has experienced several years of upheaval since 2019, when leftwing populist Evo Morales -- the country's first Indigenous president -- was ousted amid mass protests over election irregularities after seeking an unconstitutional third term in power.
Morales was succeeded by interim president Jeanine Añez, an ultra-conservative opposition Senator, who led a deadly crackdown on protests by Morales’ largely rural and indigenous support base. In 2020, Arce, a one-time ally of Morales’, won the presidential election, and two years later, Añez was sentenced to a ten-year jail term over accusations that she had illegally taken power from Morales.
Part of the backdrop to the unrest is a failing economic model. Morales' once-booming strategy of tapping Bolivia's vast natural gas resources to lift millions out of poverty has long since hit the skids because of lower prices and shrinking production.
Morales himself, still a powerful figure, had denounced the coup on Wednesday, calling on his supporters to take to the streets.
And that's where the plot thickens: Morales and his former comrade Arce are now bitter rivals, jockeying for position ahead of the 2025 presidential elections.
Bolivian Vice President David Choquehuanca and President Luis Arce chew coca leaves during the celebration of the "acullico" tradition, where coca leaves are shared and alternative products made with coca are shown, in La Paz, Bolivia January 11, 2023.
Forget “Cocaine Bear,” here comes cocaine beer
Bolivia is diversifying its coca leaf products – from soaps and shampoos to a buzzy new beer. La Paz’s El Viejo Roble Distillery has launched a coca-infused brew set to hit the market at only $2 a bottle. It will be added to the list of its other coca-flavored drinks, including rum and vodka.
When can you try it? Getting this beer to global markets may prove challenging. Although coca-leaf products are legal and crucial to the Bolivian economy, these products are not in many other countries owing to their UN narcotic classification. Still, Bolivia is trying: It has initiated the coca review process to repeal its drug status with the support of fellow cocaine-leading countries Colombia and Mexico.
The WHO began its critical review of the leaf last fall – the first of many stages in the decriminalization process. These findings are key to Bolivia, as coca leaves hold great importance among Bolivians, both spiritually among Indigenous communities, and economically by supporting over 70,000 cocaleros (coca growers) and bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars of the country’s annual GDP.
Their research must be submitted by October, and the UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs will vote next year. We’ll be watching to see whether we can toast their decision with this new coca brew.