Issue: 2/2026
Dear readers,
“Brazil is the country of the future – and always will be.” Though this remark is sometimes attributed to Stefan Zweig, he in fact only coined the first part; it is not known who added the sarcastic second half. However, in a certain sense, the phrase also applies to relations between Latin America and Europe, which at times resemble a promise forever left unfulfilled: There is much talk of a “natural partnership”, and the idea of an “Atlantic triangle” linking North America and Latin America with Europe dates back to the interwar period of the 20th century. And the reality? Few world regions struggle as much to attract political attention in Europe – and particularly in Germany – as Latin America. Below, we outline just two examples.
Upon examining the amount of space devoted to various world regions in the last four coalition agreements at the federal level in Germany, the “natural partner” comes in at a distant last. Meanwhile, traditional German development cooperation in the region is declining, while resources are increasingly being concentrated in other regions, such as on the African continent. Of course, there is the banal fact that one region will always come last; therefore, it makes little sense to call for prioritisation and then criticise this prioritisation once concrete decisions have been made. Nevertheless, a striking gap remains between potential and reality in relations between Europe and Latin America.
In this issue of International Reports, we deliberately seek to focus on the geographically and politically heterogeneous region stretching from the Río Grande to Tierra del Fuego and ask what needs to happen for this abstract partnership narrative to be translated into concrete cooperation. There are several reasons why this undertaking has failed to materialise more fully to date, and some of these are outlined here – though likely not exhaustively.
One key factor in the past was undoubtedly the absence of any real sense of urgency. From a European perspective, relations with Latin America were nice to have but were ultimately not truly relevant, let alone crucial. European integration functioned, as did the traditional transatlantic partnership with the United States. Since 2016, however – and certainly since Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025 – deep cracks have begun to appear in this partnership. In terms of defence policy, Washington is increasingly withdrawing from Europe while simultaneously making our continent, among others, the target of an aggressive tariff policy.
In her contribution to this issue, Patricia Enssle is not alone in suggesting that it was precisely this US policy that helped steer the EU–Mercosur trade agreement through the European institutions, at least on a provisional basis. The new geopolitical situation has prompted Europe to pursue greater foreign policy diversification than in previous decades. The idea that the transatlantic partnership also includes a country such as Canada is now common sense, yet there is much in favour of taking this idea even further. As Johannes Hügel and Nikolaus Rischbieter point out in their article, Mexico is deeply interlinked with the rest of North America – not just in terms of migration – and should therefore be included when we speak of the “transatlantic partnership”. Another question is whether we should go further still and regard all of Latin America as a transatlantic partner: After all, the Atlantic does continue south of Florida and Yucatán. What is clear, in any case, is that in a harsher international environment, the entire region is increasingly coming into focus and should continue to do so, even if it clearly cannot – and does not wish to – assume the role that the United States has played for Europe to date.
A second reason for the often-limited interest in Latin America in the past lay simply in the perception that developments there had little direct bearing on us: There was no immediate security threat to Europe and no export market whose crisis would directly put our economy at risk. What is more, the flow of Latin American migration has generally been directed towards the United States rather than towards Europe, and almost never towards Germany. For precisely this reason, Latin America has once again moved to the top of the United States’ list of strategic priorities, as Hardy Ostry underlines in his article. Nonetheless, we too should reconsider our relative lack of interest.
On the one hand, Latin America offers enormous opportunities, particularly with regard to raw materials, as Christina Stolte compellingly explains in her article on a possible lithium partnership with Bolivia. On the other hand, it can no longer be taken for granted that security threats originating in Latin America will not spill over into Europe. Pablo Zeballos illustrates this point using the example of transnational organised crime, with the same state-eroding methods now being applied in Antwerp and Rotterdam that were perfected over decades in Medellín and Sinaloa.
Thirdly, it may indeed have been the very “natural quality” of this partnership between Europe and Latin America – that is, the cultural proximity and shared underlying values that are endlessly invoked in summit declarations and strategy papers – that exacerbated one of the fundamental flaws of European – and especially German – foreign policy in recent decades: namely a lack of pragmatism. We often struggle to accept socio-political differences in other countries while at the same time taking a pragmatic view of potential shared interests. This is even more true in the case of partners whom we tend to regard as culturally close to us. That has to change because neither today nor in past decades has Latin America been governed exclusively by administrations that would have been politically acceptable in Germany’s domestic political discourse. Since there is little reason to assume that this situation will be different in the foreseeable future, Maximilian Hedrich is correct when – in his interview on the political situation ahead of the elections in Brazil – he reminds us that even if the outcome is not one we favour, we still have an interest in keeping channels of communication with the government of this important country open. At the same time, in terms of our own mission as a political foundation, cooperation with democratic forces remains vital – in particular with Christian democratic actors. During a period when Christian democracy is under pressure in both Europe and Latin America and party systems are undergoing profound transformation, strengthening and networking with like-minded partners is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, a key part of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s mission is to resolutely oppose extremist forces on both the left and the right in addition to opposing authoritarian tendencies.
Fourthly and finally, the Iberian countries – particularly Spain – have long managed to portray Europe’s relations with Latin America as being essentially in their own domain and have tended to define much of the agenda in this area. That may well be in Madrid’s interest; however, whether it is also in the broader European and German interest is another matter entirely, as Martin Friedek and Ludger Gruber demonstrate in their article. The current Spanish government in particular has put a marked ideological slant on relations with Latin America, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez inviting left-wing Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum of the MORENA party to a democracy summit in Barcelona despite that party’s mixed record in this respect – with judicial reform being a case in point – while at the same time having virtually no access to governments in the region with opposing political orientations, such as in Buenos Aires. German and broader European policy on Latin America should clearly set itself apart from this approach.
We Germans and Europeans continue to have many friends in Latin America. Our soft power remains considerable, though it did suffer during the pandemic due to the slow provision of European COVID-19 vaccines. When asked in our interview for the present issue about the international allies of a future free Venezuela, Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado was quick to refer to the Western democracies – meaning not only the United States, but also Europe. However, this underlying goodwill is by no means a free pass. Indeed, if we fail to offer concrete partnerships, Latin American states will increasingly turn elsewhere, particularly towards Asia, whose growing role is examined in the article by Andreas Klein. Thus, even if we are understandably preoccupied with the urgent crises in Europe and the Middle East, it is essential for us to devote greater attention to Latin America. We hope this issue will contribute to that goal.
I hope you find this report a stimulating read.
Caroline Kanter is Editor of International Reports and Head of the Division European and International Cooperation of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
