Latin America splits over Nicolás Maduro capture as CELAC summit fails to condemn detention. Argentina backs President Donald Trump while Brazil and Mexico denounce intervention.
A deepening political realignment across Latin America came into focus over the weekend at a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and sharpened further Monday at the United Nations Security Council, where governments publicly split over the U.S. role in the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
At CELAC, several leftist governments attempted to push through a joint statement condemning Maduro’s detention. The effort failed after a bloc of countries consisting of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago blocked consensus, preventing the regional body from issuing a unified defense of the Venezuelan leader, Merco Press agency reported.
The breakdown exposed growing fractures within what has long been a left-leaning regional forum and underscored the erosion of automatic solidarity with Caracas.
Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, said the fractures reflect a broader regional reckoning with the consequences of socialist and narco-authoritarian rule.
„We are witnessing a regional awakening across Latin America“, Maldonado told Fox News Digital. „The failure of socialism, communism and narco-authoritarian rule has become impossible to ignore.“
The shift is increasingly visible at the ballot box, where voters in several countries — last month alone in Chile and Honduras — have moved away from entrenched left-wing governments and toward right-of-center leaders campaigning on themes of security, sovereignty, border control and law and order — messages that echo aspects of President Donald Trump’s political approach in the United States.
„The developments at CELAC this weekend reflect that reality“, Maldonado said. „The fact that several governments blocked a collective defense of Nicolás Maduro shows how divided the authoritarian left has become.
