Latin America & the US: Stories of the Year

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio in conversation with journalist Julia Tilton from The Daily Yonder, the US's only national news organization for rural people and places.  

Transcript

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:01

Hi everyone, welcome back to Latin American Correspondent and our Christmas specials. Um I am here again today, live and in person with Julia Tilton from The Daily Yonder, the US's only newspaper for rural people and places. Uh and today we're going to be looking at uh the big stories, our sense of the big stories of 2025, and then what we think are going to be the sort of the underscore moments of 2026. We're just off the edge of a square in the little few houses to the north of Mexico City. It's all very Christmassy here, despite it being a hot sun, there's a lot of snow, iconography. I can't see a santa, but I'm sure he's around somewhere. Definitely here drilling, uh, so and some Christmas music. So I hope that uh the the external sounds don't uh don't distract too much from the recording. But um uh hello Julia and uh welcome to uh a sort of a strangely Christmassy scene where everybody, at least on the surface, seems to be exceedingly happy about the holidays.

Julia Tilton: 1:13

Hi Jon, it's uh it's good to be here. Yeah, lots of bright colours, uh puffer jackets, which I find um quite funny coming from Maine in the United States, which is of course has real snow at this time of year, um, and the puffer coats are perhaps more warranted.

Jon Bonfiglio: 1:32

You're saying the plastic snow is not real snow? That's a controversial perspective. Julia, what a year it's it's been. I mean, you know, any news cycle is huge and complex and unremitting, but this year, boy oh boy, has this year been been a thing. Um, and of course, I guess the reason 2025 has been uh particularly present and um and ongoing and unremitting is because of the actions and the policy making of one man.

Julia Tilton: 2:08

Yes, it's hard to talk about 2025 in review um without talking about the actions of President Donald Trump in the United States. Um as we think back to what a year it has been, um, it's almost difficult to remember what was happening in January 2025, um, the early parts of the year. And, you know, I think it's important to note here that this is very much part of the strategy of the Trump administration to just emit a fire hose of news. Um, of course, the media latches onto that. And, you know, we have a never-ending 24-hour news cycle. Um, so it can be difficult to think back and remember what was happening at the beginning of this year, um, honestly, what was happening a month ago. But as we consider the sort of biggest stories from this year, something that came to my mind first were really just the trend that we've seen emerge in the United States in response to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown with the aggressive deployment of immigration and customs enforcement or ICE in U.S. cities across the country, um, often targeting Latino communities specifically and quite violently. As we near the end of the year, uh some of the actions that were taken by the Trump administration in the early months are now being ruled, as was initially thought, illegal by US courts. Um but to go back to the trend that came to mind, um, with each ICE raid in each city, there has also been an emergence of protest and not just the typical signs waving in the street protest, but really creative, whimsical, I might even say, protests in various cities. And so I wanted to just highlight a couple, um, and we can go chronologically backwards. So this past week, um, in obviously late December, uh, there has been quite a bit of news and some viral clips from protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who have taken to running laps around the hotel rooms where ICE agents are sleeping, um, often in well below freezing snowy temperatures. Um, these protesters have brought their instruments, so trombones, trumpets, pots and pans, their megaphones, their uh stereos, and have just blasted really discordant music and noises throughout the night, uh, throughout the darkness, just marching in circles around hotels where they have identified that ICE agents are staying. This protest is part of a movement called No Sleep for ICE, which first emerged in California and Southern California in the spring when uh ICE agents were deployed in Southern California. It's since taken off in other cities, Minneapolis included. Um, beyond the sort of discordant music and pots and pans banging throughout the night, there are two other examples that I want to point to as a again, sort of whimsical creative response to um this really uh sort of aggressive and abrasive um use or or really disuse of government power in Boston, which is the city closest to where I live in Maine. Uh there was a demonstration a few weeks ago that was a nod to the original tea party during the American Revolution, uh, in which protesters dumped 342 pounds of ice cubes into the Boston Harbor in what they dubbed an ice tea party to reject ice, um, with of course the symbolism of ice cubes and the nod to the city's history of protest and revolution, going back all the way to uh the formation of the United States. And then um earlier this year, we talked about this on the on the show a couple months ago now, um, but during the second No King's Day protest in September, there was an emergence of inflatable characters, uh, frogs, unicorns, you name it, um, that accompanied the anti-ICE sign holders in cities across the United States, uh, including in Oregon and parts of Colorado. Um, so again, bringing an air of creativity and joy and celebration to um this again resistance movement that has maintained itself throughout the first 12 months of the Trump administration and will be interesting to see what new kinds of creative protests emerge in 2026.

Jon Bonfiglio: 7:10

Yeah, I think one of the big standouts for me as regards the news narratives this year actually relates to the media and a real failure of the news media, just to think. I I I think we exist now at a point in which, of course, journalism is having sort of struggling existentially. I mean, this doesn't isn't new to this year. This goes back in terms of the to the sort of the funding crises that journalism is is having in 2025, but now for a number of years back, the sort of the the emergence of of course the internet, news media on the internet, but also how you fund off of that. So what we've what we've seen this year, I think, particularly egregiously, is the sort of the multiplication of a depleted, what is a depleted journalistic industry multiplied by a full frontal assault assault from the Trump administration. Just today, of course, depends on when you uh when you hear this, but uh as of uh uh today, Monday the 22nd, I think it is, of December, one of the big international stories was the fact that a third Venezuelan tanker was being pursued by the US uh administration. Of course, this is based, this is newsmaking, international newsmaking, based on the issuing of a press release by the White House. There's nothing else, there's no other news story there. We don't know what the what the tanker is, we don't know where it is. All we know is that the US administration says that it's being pursued is pursuing it, and so the international news media are just sort of taking that de facto as a uh as a story that needs to be sort of addressed and displayed, and it's pretty straightforward, but there's that little joining of the dots again as regards what actually is taking place behind the scenes. And actually, Julia and I've you know you and I have spoken a number of times, but also there's there's uh I feel like, and this is not sort of uh bigging ourselves up, but I feel like the our entry point to these things now for a number of months has been uh about how we make sense of these stories and about how you you cannot see them in in isolation. Equally today, there was a the sort of the announcement of uh uh an a new envoy, a new US envoy for Greenland, and it wasn't just a sort of a diplomatic appointment, it was pretty clear that it's uh about getting um making Greenland become come to be in service of the USA. And of course, the thing we've said a number of times, which I'm sure we've bored you all with, is the fact that how the fact uh is that uh the baseline fact is that none of these stories can be seen in isolation. And it staggers me really that this uh this new story, which isn't a new story about Greenland emerging today, has had no mention whatsoever of Venezuela within uh within the sort of the narrative. There are no column inches within the Greenland story which reference what's taking place in Venezuela at all. Um and that seems to me to be not only surprising, but also a failure of the responsibility of the international news media.

Julia Tilton: 10:07

Yeah, it's interesting to me that the news media continues down this path. I spoke earlier about the sort of drinking from a fire hose analogy, which has been broadly known for some time as the Trump administration's strategy when it comes to newsmaking. I wouldn't even say policy making, it's really just newsmaking, right? If you can release a press release and it's going to be, you know, international headlines within the hour. We knew that this was coming, right? And speaking um as a member at large of the media, we knew that this was coming in the second Trump administration, that the strategy would be to have so many things going on at once that it's difficult to, as John just said, connect the dots. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what's going on. And yet we knew that this was the strategy because it's been publicized that the Trump administration is purposefully doing so many different things at once that it's difficult to keep track. And yet there are a number of investigative journalists, of independent journalists that are keeping track and are connecting the dots. But it's disappointing to see, particularly in the United States, that this sort of mainstream media does not seem to be willing to do that. And of course, we could have a whole different conversation about the conglomeration of media in the United States and the power that the Trump administration is exerting over particular media entities in order to get the kind of responses and coverage that it wants. You could also just call this bullying. So I don't know what will happen in 2026, whether there will be a sort of come to Jesus moment among the media that if we continue to just follow the breadcrumbs wherever they are and run around like chickens with our heads cut off, um, we're we're never really going to be able to hold the Trump administration to account. But I don't feel particularly optimistic that that will be the case.

Jon Bonfiglio: 12:20

It's an interesting point about media responsibility because generally the perspective is that media doesn't have responsibility, media reports. But actually, I think there is um it is behoven on media to stop and think exactly as you you just said, Julia, okay, how do we how do we best act in the current um ecosystem in the current climate? And of course, to some extent that also means you have to just step back and and probably not report, like you can't be overrun by everything that happens on a daily basis, and you have to sort of step back and and think. Um as regards the stories of the year, I think that generally speaking, most people are going to point to partly because it's live now, but also because it's very present and involves a potential potential action of war, the Venezuelan standoff. But actually, although that's more of a brazen US action than in the past, it's still a continuation of US policy to the region. I don't think that's that's not a it doesn't change the landscape particularly. But I do agree with you, Julia, that I think the ice raids across the USA, the ongoing ice raids, um, they feel new, they feel as though it is a particular um stepping out of beyond the existing actions in the veil. I think history will look back on these actions as particularly standouts and will will see these as a thing that will be poured over for generations uh to come. And I and I don't say this lightly, I think that they are not that they remind us of the Kristall Knact, they remind us of actions leading up to World War II and the persecutions of the Jews and other minorities uh for a reason. It is uh unlike anything I've ever seen, um, and uh there is little doubt that we're in the middle of this at the moment, but that history will regard these, will pour over these, will magnify these for for years to come. Outside of the BMOF, Julia, outside of US policy and US actions, anything else in Latin America which has caught your eye or your ear, which you think is is of note in 2025 or which you may point to in 2026?

Julia Tilton: 14:53

Yeah, well, I know this perhaps relate does relate back to the United States, but I know we've spent uh a couple of episodes talking about Argentina. Um, of course, that that is a region and an area where I have some interest. Um, of course, it relates to the United States because of the multimillion dollar bailout, billion, maybe billion with a B dollar bailout from the United States to Javier Miley's government in Argentina. Um I will be curious how that unfolds. Um, and something which we have not yet had a chance to discuss, um, but Argentina's um recent change to their law respecting glaciers is of course a point of interest for me in coverage of environment, um, not only for what it means for Argentina and potential development close to, of course, one of one of the world's purest sources of fresh water and a point of interest for climate change and protecting um vulnerable resources from uh environmental damage, but also how it may play out in other parts of the world and in other governments that have legislation relating to glaciers or to other kinds of um environmental treasures worth protecting. Um I will be curious in 2026 whether other governments take note or if Argentina is sort of an outlier.

Jon Bonfiglio: 16:22

Yeah, the glacier law. I mean, we live obviously in a world in which uh what wouldn't you extract is the general perspective. But maybe you can just sort of briefly detail what you mean by the glacier law because it is uh clearly making um uh the news in in Argentina uh and is uh another example of, of course, the the Malay administration's perspective that uh whatever is there should be put in service of the nation state, should be extracted and put in uh to economic service of the of the nation state. Yeah, maybe you can just sort of scratch beneath the surface of that a little bit in terms of what it is and what it means.

Julia Tilton: 17:00

Yeah, so my understanding is that um prior to Malay's administration, there was legislation in place at the federal level that protected Argentina's glaciers, many of which are located in the Andes at high elevations, um, that are of course a source of fresh water. Glaciers take tens of thousands to millions of years to form. Um, and with climate change, they are at increased risk of degradation, of melting as temperatures get warmer. The change in legislation allows for increased development close to the glaciers in regions that had previously been conservation land that had previously been protected. And actually, as I'm talking through this, it's not dissimilar to the Trump administration's opening of drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Um, there are certainly some parallels to be drawn there. The drilling, of course, in reference to oil and the ever uh present sort of expansionism that is present in the Trump administration. Um, that was a uh significant policy action of the Trump administration, something that had beleaguered the Biden administration, but which the Biden administration didn't act on. Um and so I suppose it is um fascinating to draw parallels between Malay and Trump here on this environmental front. Of course, there are many other parallels that we could draw. Um, but again, to look toward 2026, whether other governments in Latin America, I would look to Chile perhaps, um, which also is is a is a steward of glaciers, um, to see what the future will hold.

Jon Bonfiglio: 18:49

José Antonio Cast, uh new president, G UN to be invested in March. Um he's of course of the same milk. Of course, these this policymaking, I don't think you would have Malay's glacier law without I don't think they even exist, they've emerged in parallel. The the the I think one one of the things you can definitely say, sorry to bring it back to this, but to the Trump administration, is that I don't think I've ever known a an administration internationally anywhere be as creative with policy making um as the Trump administration has been. And clearly it sees it's this opportunity to define, I mean, Musk said this a while ago, as a uh it's a it's a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I've actually described it both with Javier Millet and Donald Trump. Like these generally speaking, when you have um an administration, it's an evolution of what's gone before, but with both Trump and Millet, and I think with a number of other right-wing uh presidents, leaders that are coming to the fore in Latin America, this is about nation building. This is about taking things back to a start starting point and re um Reinitiating a sort of a national project, a national experiment. I would also extend, I mean, it's for slightly different reasons, but I think the other story that I would bring up as being defining this year and which is clearly going to run into next year is related to energy, but not about the production of energy or the use of resources. Rather, the fact that maybe it's a little known or little seen narrative. But for a couple of years now, further back if you look at Venezuela and Cuba, but we've seen power grids, national power grids, fail regionally. Broadly speaking, these were all grids that were established a couple of generations ago. And as so often happens in Latin America, there is this sort of sense you establish something and it doesn't need any maintenance or ongoing upkeep, and those chickens are coming home to roost now. So you're seeing the failure of national power grids right across the region, whether it's Argentina, uh Ecuador, of course, as we said before, Venezuela, a number of countries in Central America, Puerto Rico would be another one, uh, Dominican Republic, uh, Mexico in part as well. So what the region does as regards its uh lack of strength, lack of financial economic clout in terms of being able to reinvest in these power grids and how it evolves from there is um is going to be a key question for these uh for these democracies, democracies, non-democracies going forward. And of course, when uh power grids fail, uh the citizenry gets more and more frustrated with the with standard operating procedure and standard political structures, and then is driven, as we've already seen a number of times, towards the political fringes. Uh Julia, as always, a real pleasure to have you with us. Uh to to be recording this uh live with you. I think the the spirit of Christmas present has been relatively graceful to us in terms of not suddenly having a band walk past and playing outside our right ear. So I think with that, we're going to call it a day before something else uh happens. And uh, yeah, as always, let's see what happens in 2026.