Pink tide
[5] The Latin American countries viewed as part of this ideological trend have been referred to as pink tide nations,[6] with the term post-neoliberalism or socialism of the 21st century also being used to describe the movement.
[32][33] In 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum won the Mexican presidency in a landslide, a continuation of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's left-wing government,[34][35] and Yamandú Orsi's victory in Uruguay marked a return to power for the Broad Front.
[40] The left's social platforms, which were centered on economic change and redistributive policies, offered an attractive alternative that mobilized large sectors of the population across the region, who voted leftist leaders into office.
[41] National policies among the left in Latin America are divided between the styles of Chávez and Lula as the latter not only focused on those affected by inequality, but also catered to private enterprises and global capital.
[45] With China becoming a more industrialized nation at the same time and requiring resources for its growing economy, it took advantage of the strained relations with the United States and partnered with the leftist governments in Latin America.
Chinese trade and loans, which were more favourable than those provided by the International Monetary Fund, resulted in economic growth, a steep fall in poverty, a decline in extreme income inequality, and a swelling of the middle class in South America.
[53] In the 2015 Argentine general election, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's favoured candidate for the presidency Daniel Scioli was defeated by his centre-right opponent Mauricio Macri, against a background of rising inflation, reductions in GDP, and declining prices for soybeans, which was a key export for the country, leading to falls in public revenues and social spending.
In Ecuador, retiring president Rafael Correa's successor was his vice-president, Lenín Moreno, who took a narrow victory in the 2017 Ecuadorian general election, a win that received a negative reaction from the business community at home and abroad.
[56] In mid-2016, the Harvard International Review stated that "South America, a historical bastion of populism, has always had a penchant for the left, but the continent's predilection for unsustainable welfarism might be approaching a dramatic end.
[70][71] In 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum won the Mexican presidency in a landslide, a continuation of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's left-wing government,[34][35] and Yamandú Orsi's victory in Uruguay marked a return to power for the Broad Front.
[40] In Venezuela, the first pink tide government of Chávez increased spending on social welfare, housing, and local infrastructures, and established the Bolivarian missions, decentralised programmes that delivered free services in fields, such as healthcare and education, as well as subsidised food distribution.
[40] In Bolivia, Morales's government was praised internationally for its reduction of poverty, increases in economic growth,[81] and the improvement of indigenous, women,[82] and LGBT rights,[83] in the very traditionally minded Bolivian society.
[40] Rafael Correa, economist from the University of Illinois,[84] won the 2006 Ecuadorian general election following the harsh economic crisis and social turmoil that caused right-wing[citation needed] Lucio Gutiérrez's resignation as president.
[91] Some of the initial results after the first pink tide governments were elected in Latin America included a reduction in the income gap,[7] unemployment, extreme poverty,[7] malnutrition and hunger,[2][92] and rapid increase in literacy.
[103] Under the Obama administration, which held a less interventionist approach to the region after recognizing that interference would only boost the popularity of populist pink tide leaders like Chávez, Latin American approval of the United States began to improve as well.
Origins of the term may be linked to a statement by Larry Rohter, a New York Times reporter in Montevideo who characterized the 2004 Uruguayan general election of Tabaré Vázquez as the president of Uruguay as "not so much a red tide ... as a pink one".
According to the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think-tank based in Washington, D.C., 2006 meetings of the South American Summit of Nations and the Social Forum for the Integration of Peoples demonstrated that certain discussions that used to take place on the margins of the dominant discourse of neoliberalism, which moved to the center of public sphere and debate.
[107] In the 2011 book The Paradox of Democracy in Latin America: Ten Country Studies of Division and Resilience, Isbester states: "Ultimately, the term 'the Pink Tide' is not a useful analytical tool as it encompasses too wide a range of governments and policies.
[108] A 2007 report from the Inter Press Service news agency said how "elections results in Latin America appear to have confirmed a left-wing populist and anti-U.S. trend – the so-called 'pink tide' – which ... poses serious threats to Washington's multibillion-dollar anti-drug effort in the Andes".
[110] Writing in Americas Quarterly after the election of Pedro Castillo in 2021, Paul J. Angelo and Will Freeman warned of the risk of Latin American left-wing politicians embracing what they dubbed "regressive social values" and "leaning into traditionally conservative positions on gender equality, abortion access, LGBTQ rights, immigration, and the environment".
They cited Castillo blaming Peru's femicides on male "idleness" and criticizing what he called "gender ideology" taught in Peruvian schools, as well as Ecuador, governed by left-wing leaders for almost twenty years, having one of the strictest anti-abortion laws worldwide.
