The Reactionary Backwash: Year 2025 in Review for Latin America and the Caribbean

Photograph Source: Erik Cleves Kristensen – “Fuera el Imperialismo” – CC BY 2.0

2025 saw progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) delegitimized and displaced. Right-wing forces have seized on drug-related crises to attack the so-called Pink Tide governments, driving a reactionary backwash and putting new, neoliberal administrations in power. The irony is that the rise in drug use and crime is driven by neoliberalism’s failure to meet social needs. But this has been successfully cloaked.