The US and Latin American right have long mobilized to remove challenges to their traditional privileges and control.
By Jonathan Ng ,
September 13, 2025
An activist holds a poster depicting U.S. President Donald Trump bearing devil horns during a protest in defense of national sovereignty following the U.S. government trade taxes and sanctions on Brazil, near the U.S. consulate, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on August 1, 2025.NELSON ALMEIDA / AFP via Getty Images
Earlier this month, the Trump administration bombed a civilian boat in the Caribbean, after sending warships to the region. “Instead of interdicting” the vessel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized, “we blew it up.” The attack drew harsh criticism from legal experts such as former Human Rights Watch Director Kenneth Roth, who called it “a summary execution – the crime of murder.”
U.S. officials frame the operation as a dissuasive strike against drug traffickers. Yet many experts agree that the crude display of force and ongoing naval expedition form part of an offensive against President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. The White House claims without evidence that the socialist statesman and U.S. critic is a drug cartel leader. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stresses that policy makers are ready to leverage “every asset that the American military has” toward regime change.
The drive to overthrow Maduro illuminates an established but often unrecognized pattern of imperialism in Latin America. U.S. officials and regional conservatives have long targeted leftist leaders, attacking political threats to their influence and investments. In recent decades, opposition to “Pink Tide” governments has fostered new forms of interventionism, disinformation, and legal manipulation. Trump’s naval expedition highlights this trend, which now threatens self-determination and democracy across much of Latin America.
Turning the Tide
The current cycle of conflict began in the early 2000s, as “Pink Tide” governments took power challenging Washington’s leadership and neoliberal capitalism. Leftists such as Evo Morales, the first Indigenous president of Bolivia, prioritized social programs, while promoting regional integration to counterbalance U.S. influence. In response, President George W. Bush tried to create a political terrainhostile to reform. Repeatedly, his administration strengthened the local opposition in strategic sectors — especially the judiciary and legislature — to foster political gridlock.
Morales’s election in 2005 unnerved U.S. diplomats in particular. They portrayed his progressive agenda as a reckless assault on foreign investment. In one racist description, officials labeled the Indigenous president a “[r]adical cocalero union leader” with “strong anti-democratic tendencies,” willing to “physically intimidate anyone” standing in his way.
During their first meeting, Ambassador David Greenlee bullied Morales by outlining the United States’s suffocating influence over the Bolivian financial system. “When you think of the IDB [Inter-American Development Bank], you should think of the U.S.,” Greenlee underscored. “This is not blackmail, it is simple reality.”
The U.S. embassy recommended the “careful application of carrots and sticks” to expose Morales’s vulnerability. Officials brainstormed “the freezing of certain programs,” blocking international loans, and other “shots over the bow” to signal “it will not be business as usual.” Meanwhile, the U.S. government poured money into strengthening opposition forces. Between 2005 and 2006, USAID heavily redirected funding in Bolivia toward conservative civic groups and politicians, continuing a long-time agency tradition of operating as a screen for foreign intervention.
The embassy became a hotbed of political intrigue, as a revolving cast of right-wing leaders and activists lobbied for U.S. assistance. Privately, former President Jorge Quiroga urged Ambassador Greenlee to “block further debt relief for Bolivia.” Another U.S. ambassador himself hosted meetings and a cocktail party for opposition members.
Tensions peaked in 2008 when conservative activists in the Media Luna region organized an illegal referendum seeking political autonomy. The embassy reported coup rumblings, noting that “opposition-aligned” forces were “contacting Bolivian military general officers regularly” for support. “If called upon to put down ‘insurrection,’ they claim they would side with the Media Luna.”
So would the United States. USAID programs aimed to “strengthen regional governments as a counter-balance to the central government.” The opposition mobilized the Media Luna region, but failed to topple Morales. In response, his administration ousted the U.S. ambassador and DEA officials for helping instigate the unrest.
Morales proved fortunate. In 2012, USAID-backed forces ousted the progressive President Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, who had sided in agrarian conflicts with displaced peasants and sought land reform. Across Latin America, Washington supported opposition-dominated civic and state institutions in order to tip the balance of forces against the left. Wielding “carrots and sticks,” they aimed to reassert a political order that preserved U.S. investment and influence, while locking the left out of power.
Waging Lawfare
Above all, the United States deepened cooperation with foreign judges, prosecutors, and other law enforcement officials. In multiple countries, conservatives substituted legal combat and disinformation for open warfare against the left. They waged “lawfare” in the courts and press, immobilizing progressive leaders through judicial harassment and character assassination. Lawfare operations were slow-motion coups with a legal façade: court disputes and impeachment procedures that made military force unnecessary.
They gained notoriety in Brazil, where the United States played a major role in Operation Car Wash, a politically motivated anti-corruption probe that ran from 2014 and 2022, which investigators pursued to undercut the Workers’ Party. Brazilian prosecutors held secret meetings with U.S. officials investigating bribery without informing their own Ministry of Justice. “[The] Americans don’t want us to divulge things,” one confided. Notably, a veteran of several U.S. legal exchange programs, Judge Sergio Moro, presided over the operation. A Supreme Court minister observed that officials were “participating in a gold rush” to enrich their own agencies and advance their personal careers: Eventually, the state oil company, Petrobras, alone paid over $853 million in penalties.
In 2016, the opposition exploited the probe to oust President Dilma Rousseff in a parliamentary coup, enabling Michel Temer — a former U.S. informant — to assume office. Legislators impeached Rousseff after accusing her of manipulating state finances. Yet auditors found no evidence of wrongdoing. Afterward, Judge Moro sentenced former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for false corruption charges. Although the Supreme Court eventually ordered Lula’s release and annulled his convictions, the initial ruling undermined the left’s electoral prospects, allowing the arch-reactionary Jair Bolsonaro to win the presidency in 2018. Later, Bolsonaro rewarded Moro by appointing him minister of justice.
President Lenín Moreno of Ecuador also waged lawfare against the left after assuming office in 2017. His predecessor Rafael Correa and the Citizen Revolution Movement (RC) slashed poverty by 38 percent, while building robust social programs. But Moreno betrayed Correa and his former colleagues by persecuting them, purging the judiciary, and imposing austerity measures. As poverty and protests spread, he thanked a forum of bankers for opposing his election, since he now attracted “hatred instead from those who voted” for him.
Lawfare operations were slow-motion coups with a legal façade: court disputes and impeachment procedures that made military force unnecessary.
RC leaders faced death threats, police surveillance, and imprisonment, forcing many into exile. Authorities sentenced Correa in absentia for “psychic influence” over government officials. Interpol recognized that the case was outrageous and refused to extradite him from Belgium. Back in Ecuador, authorities arrested and allegedly tortured former Vice President Jorge Glas.
As in Brazil, the U.S. government backed the campaign of persecution. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded Mil Hojas, a journalism collective that smeared the RC with corruption allegations. A NED newsletter, Democracy Digest, explained that Correa governed “when left-wing leaders were ascendent in Latin America,” before approvingly noting the “left-wing wave has since subsided.” Attorney General Diana Salazar later received a Wilson Center award for spearheading the repression. Privately, she admitted that U.S. officials “want [the] RC’s head.”
Lawfare became an essential strategy of the right in Latin America, triggering a domino effect of coups against progressive governments. Brazil and Ecuador became models for local oligarchies and U.S. officials attempting to drain the “Pink Tide.” The field of struggle shifted from the ballot box to the courtroom, as the right took back the power it had lost in elections.
Courtroom Drama
Most notably, Brazil and Ecuador offered a script for conservatives in Argentina, which became the epicenter of lawfare. In 2015, the wealthy conservative Mauricio Macri became president, before revamping law enforcement cooperation with the United States — securing DEA assistance, training for judges, and enhanced intelligence coordination. The infusion of U.S. aid helped Macri clobber former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (“CFK”) and the Peronist left.
Between 2003 and 2015, CFK and her husband steered Argentina out of a financial crisis and alleviated poverty, while refusing to impose IMF-prescribed austerity measures. Macri and U.S. officials vigorously opposed their bold progressive agenda, prompting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask about the president’s “nerves and anxiety” — as if leftist policies were a sign of mental illness.
The backlash was swift. By 2022, CFK was the target of over 650 legal complaints. One Macri ally alone initiated 74 against her.
A group of leading international jurists including Baltasar Garzón concluded that CFK was the victimof “judicial persecution.” Garzón emphasized that it was “not [even] possible for a person to have committed as many illicit acts as she has been accused of.”
Former Supreme Court Justice Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni observed that his Argentine colleagues exploited “the technique of lawfare,” pursuing CFK and other Peronistas without evidence. Zaffaroni noted that officials organized “mafia-style meetings” to coordinate their campaign against the left. Notoriously, the minister of labor for Buenos Aires, Marcelo Villegas, a close Macri ally, plotted with businessmen to destroy the labor movement. “Believe me, if I had a Gestapo… a shock force to finish off all the trade unions, I would go ahead,” Villegas confided.
The collusion between the judiciary and conservatives was ongoing. At least five judges and two prosecutors involved in a public works (“Vialidad”) corruption case against CFK privately consulted right-wing leaders and Macri — whose very administration opened the proceedings. Senior judges and prosecutors even played soccer and tennis at the president’s residence.
Major news outlets legitimated the repression by joining what CFK dubbed “a media-judicial firing squad.” The leading newspaper, Clarín, published sensational coverage echoing claims of corruption. One editor admitted that his team waged “war journalism” against CFK. Ultimately, lawfare mobilized not only judges but journalists, cementing the impression of guilt in the public imagination because the courts lacked the evidence to do so.
Eventually, Macri allies led a secret retreat in Lago Escondido for judges, government lawyers, and Clarín representatives. The group included Judge Julián Ercolini, who oversaw the “Vialidad” case against CFK. After news of the retreat leaked, officials discussed potential cover stories to avoid leaving “loose ends.” They struggled to concoct a convincing lie. “We can’t say that we went fishing,” one member lamented, because “it’s not fishing season.”
The Lago Escondido scandal exposed the fusion of the judiciary and media that made lawfare possible. Latin American conservatives claimed that a separation of powers existed. But the manipulation of justice and information revealed the oligarchy’s vice-like grip over strategic sectors of society. The campaign against CFK was a sign of this deeper reality, as supposedly impartial institutions repeatedly asserted their class bias.
Gavels or Guns
By 2017, the right-wing resurgence and Donald Trump’s presidency was emboldening regional conservatives, who openly adopted more aggressive methods of regime change. Critical observers portrayed lawfare as a fundamental break from the military coups of the Cold War past. Yet U.S.-backed security forces remained the last resort and irreducible bedrock of the oligarchy’s class power.
This became clear in Venezuela, where Trump revamped efforts to strangle the Bolivarian Revolution: a self-proclaimed socialist experiment that rejected U.S. hegemony. Grasping for pretexts, officials exploited an Obama-era executive order that labeled the country an “unusual and extraordinary threat” as precedent, while blocking access to U.S. financial and energy markets. Previous measures targeted individual Venezuelans leaders. But the latest raft of sanctions were indiscriminate and agonizing, fomenting a humanitarian crisis and offering a pretext for military intervention. Economists concluded that U.S. pressure caused “tens of thousands of deaths” by depriving Venezuelans of medicine and food, while propelling “the largest economic collapse, outside of wartime, since 1950.”
Exploiting the chaos, the opposition legislator Juan Guaidó spearheaded a coup in January 2019 with Trump’s encouragement. Later, National Security Advisor John Bolton explained that they supported Guaidó to secure control of Venezuela’s energy wealth, including the largest known oil reserves in the world. But privately, Trump ridiculed the coup leader. “This kid – nobody’s ever heard of him,” he guffawed. As the coup fizzled, Trump unsuccessfully attempted to incite military intervention by demanding that Venezuelan officers oust President Nicolás Maduro or “lose everything.”
Far from passé, military intervention remained an alluring option in the regime change playbook, while U.S. and local officials isolated bastions of the left, mobilizing judges when possible and soldiers, if necessary.
That same year, however, Trump’s regime change strategy succeeded in Bolivia, after Morales secured reelection in October. The U.S.-dominated Organization of American States published inaccurate statements challenging the results, which fueled an exhibition of unrestrained racism and class resentment. Middle-class motorcycle gangs wove through city corridors hunting Indigenous socialists, and pro-coup security forces massacred dozens of civilians.
As Morales’s government imploded, the opposition senator Jeanine Áñez declared herself president. Reenacting the Spanish conquest, Áñez entered office with an oversized Bible and conquistador cross, after having asserted that Indigenous culture was “satanic.”
U.S. fingerprints were all over the coup. The Washington-aligned OAS played an essential role in escalating the crisis. The U.S.-trained Bolivian general, Williams Kaliman, pressured Morales to resign. And the Trump administration immediately backed Áñez, arguing that “Morales’s departure preserves democracy.” Tesla founder Elon Musk appeared belligerent when observers accused the United States of orchestrating the coup to secure lithium for his company. “We will coup whoever we want,” Musk announced. “Deal with it!”
Under President Joe Biden, U.S. officials both maintained crushing sanctions against Venezuela and continued to back Áñez in Bolivia, even after local authorities arrested her for illegally seizing power. The violence of the 2019 coups exposed an underlying pattern. Far from passé, military intervention remained an alluring option in the regime change playbook, while U.S. and local officials isolated bastions of the left, mobilizing judges when possible and soldiers, if necessary.
Solidarity Coups
Recently, the Trump administration has reinvigorated ties with local reactionaries in the region and openly targeted progressives. The MAGA movement promotes regime change in Latin America, while offering a dangerous model for regional conservatives.
In January 2023, President Bolsonaro attempted a coup in Brazil that closely mirrored Trump’s failed 2021 insurrection. Audio recordings capture him rehearsing claims about electoral fraud before polls opened, as well as allied officers conspiring to ignite a “civil war.” Before finishing his term, Bolsonaro moved to Florida near Mar-a-Lago, where his family allegedly liaised with Trump, consolidating a truly global right-wing international.
This April, President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador also used strong-arm tactics to secure reelection. Noboa ran without taking the required leave of absence and illegally tapped public funds for his campaign. After underperforming in the first round, Noboa visited Trump to enhance his image among voters seeking aggressive leadership amid spiraling crime rates and economic uncertainty. He then declared a state of emergency in pro-RC areas before the runoff election, allowing the police to impose curfews and prohibit public gatherings. Noboa’ is an implacable enemy of the left — at one point, security forces invaded the Mexican embassy to arrest a dissident.
Across the region, conservative populists maintain an open alliance against progressive movements. More than anyone, President Javier Milei of Argentina personifies the right’s reactionary fury and ties to Washington. Milei not only gifted Elon Musk a chainsaw at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Maryland. He also headlined Brazil’s CPAC, where he denounced the left after binge drinking with Bolsonaro.
Ultimately, the alignment between the U.S. and Latin America’s oligarchies is toppling more than progressive governments. Right-wing backlash to social democracy has eroded the rule of law, reimposed poverty, and fostered political despair.
This summer, CFK began six years of house arrest for the “Vialidad” case, after the US government itself sanctioned the leftist leader. Prominent Argentine journalists welcomed her arrest by applauding themselves for making “this day possible.” Her detention continues as leaked audio files suggest that Milei’s sister has embezzled funds for citizens with disabilities, and an allied judge is prohibiting the publication of potential evidence, curbing freedom of speech and exacerbating a national scandal.
Recently, Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted Bolsonaro for organizing the failed 2023 coup, citing “overwhelming evidence” that he plotted to assassinate Lula and a senior judge. Prior to Bolsonaro’s sentencing, the White House had leveraged tariffs to punish Brazilian authorities who are attempting to hold the former president accountable, and had threatened to apply “military might” in his defense.
The naval expedition against President Maduro of Venezuela fits into this broader context. Taking lawfare to its extreme, U.S. leaders now advocate regime change by claiming that Maduro is a drug trafficker. Yet the evidence is flimsy, and Secretary of State Rubio exploded when confronted with opposing conclusions. “I don’t care what the UN says,” he retorted. From the sidelines, Venezuelan conservatives have echoed drug trafficking claims and encouraged officials to ramp up economic pressure.
In short, Trump’s bare-fisted offensive against Venezuela is nothing new. For two decades, the United States and Latin American right have mobilized to eradicate challenges to their traditional privileges and control. Lawfare against the left has cleared the way for dangerous reactionaries, while reinforcing inequality and inflicting lasting damage to government institutions. Rather than social progress, the right is pursuing solidarity coups across borders: substituting oligarchical rule for democracy and, once more, turning Latin America into a central battleground in the global struggle against U.S. imperialism.
The author would like to thank Sarah Priscilla Lee of the Learning Sciences Program at Northwestern University for reviewing this article.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
Jonathan Ng is a postdoctoral fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration bombed a civilian boat in the Caribbean, after sending warships to the region. “Instead of interdicting” the vessel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized, “we blew it up.” The attack drew harsh criticism from legal experts such as former Human Rights Watch Director Kenneth Roth, who called it “a summary execution – the crime of murder.”
U.S. officials frame the operation as a dissuasive strike against drug traffickers. Yet many experts agree that the crude display of force and ongoing naval expedition form part of an offensive against President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. The White House claims without evidence that the socialist statesman and U.S. critic is a drug cartel leader. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stresses that policy makers are ready to leverage “every asset that the American military has” toward regime change.
The drive to overthrow Maduro illuminates an established but often unrecognized pattern of imperialism in Latin America. U.S. officials and regional conservatives have long targeted leftist leaders, attacking political threats to their influence and investments. In recent decades, opposition to “Pink Tide” governments has fostered new forms of interventionism, disinformation, and legal manipulation. Trump’s naval expedition highlights this trend, which now threatens self-determination and democracy across much of Latin America.
Turning the Tide
The current cycle of conflict began in the early 2000s, as “Pink Tide” governments took power challenging Washington’s leadership and neoliberal capitalism. Leftists such as Evo Morales, the first Indigenous president of Bolivia, prioritized social programs, while promoting regional integration to counterbalance U.S. influence. In response, President George W. Bush tried to create a political terrainhostile to reform. Repeatedly, his administration strengthened the local opposition in strategic sectors — especially the judiciary and legislature — to foster political gridlock.
Morales’s election in 2005 unnerved U.S. diplomats in particular. They portrayed his progressive agenda as a reckless assault on foreign investment. In one racist description, officials labeled the Indigenous president a “[r]adical cocalero union leader” with “strong anti-democratic tendencies,” willing to “physically intimidate anyone” standing in his way.
During their first meeting, Ambassador David Greenlee bullied Morales by outlining the United States’s suffocating influence over the Bolivian financial system. “When you think of the IDB [Inter-American Development Bank], you should think of the U.S.,” Greenlee underscored. “This is not blackmail, it is simple reality.”
The U.S. embassy recommended the “careful application of carrots and sticks” to expose Morales’s vulnerability. Officials brainstormed “the freezing of certain programs,” blocking international loans, and other “shots over the bow” to signal “it will not be business as usual.” Meanwhile, the U.S. government poured money into strengthening opposition forces. Between 2005 and 2006, USAID heavily redirected funding in Bolivia toward conservative civic groups and politicians, continuing a long-time agency tradition of operating as a screen for foreign intervention.
The embassy became a hotbed of political intrigue, as a revolving cast of right-wing leaders and activists lobbied for U.S. assistance. Privately, former President Jorge Quiroga urged Ambassador Greenlee to “block further debt relief for Bolivia.” Another U.S. ambassador himself hosted meetings and a cocktail party for opposition members.
Tensions peaked in 2008 when conservative activists in the Media Luna region organized an illegal referendum seeking political autonomy. The embassy reported coup rumblings, noting that “opposition-aligned” forces were “contacting Bolivian military general officers regularly” for support. “If called upon to put down ‘insurrection,’ they claim they would side with the Media Luna.”
So would the United States. USAID programs aimed to “strengthen regional governments as a counter-balance to the central government.” The opposition mobilized the Media Luna region, but failed to topple Morales. In response, his administration ousted the U.S. ambassador and DEA officials for helping instigate the unrest.
Morales proved fortunate. In 2012, USAID-backed forces ousted the progressive President Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, who had sided in agrarian conflicts with displaced peasants and sought land reform. Across Latin America, Washington supported opposition-dominated civic and state institutions in order to tip the balance of forces against the left. Wielding “carrots and sticks,” they aimed to reassert a political order that preserved U.S. investment and influence, while locking the left out of power.
Waging Lawfare
Above all, the United States deepened cooperation with foreign judges, prosecutors, and other law enforcement officials. In multiple countries, conservatives substituted legal combat and disinformation for open warfare against the left. They waged “lawfare” in the courts and press, immobilizing progressive leaders through judicial harassment and character assassination. Lawfare operations were slow-motion coups with a legal façade: court disputes and impeachment procedures that made military force unnecessary.
They gained notoriety in Brazil, where the United States played a major role in Operation Car Wash, a politically motivated anti-corruption probe that ran from 2014 and 2022, which investigators pursued to undercut the Workers’ Party. Brazilian prosecutors held secret meetings with U.S. officials investigating bribery without informing their own Ministry of Justice. “[The] Americans don’t want us to divulge things,” one confided. Notably, a veteran of several U.S. legal exchange programs, Judge Sergio Moro, presided over the operation. A Supreme Court minister observed that officials were “participating in a gold rush” to enrich their own agencies and advance their personal careers: Eventually, the state oil company, Petrobras, alone paid over $853 million in penalties.
In 2016, the opposition exploited the probe to oust President Dilma Rousseff in a parliamentary coup, enabling Michel Temer — a former U.S. informant — to assume office. Legislators impeached Rousseff after accusing her of manipulating state finances. Yet auditors found no evidence of wrongdoing. Afterward, Judge Moro sentenced former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for false corruption charges. Although the Supreme Court eventually ordered Lula’s release and annulled his convictions, the initial ruling undermined the left’s electoral prospects, allowing the arch-reactionary Jair Bolsonaro to win the presidency in 2018. Later, Bolsonaro rewarded Moro by appointing him minister of justice.
President Lenín Moreno of Ecuador also waged lawfare against the left after assuming office in 2017. His predecessor Rafael Correa and the Citizen Revolution Movement (RC) slashed poverty by 38 percent, while building robust social programs. But Moreno betrayed Correa and his former colleagues by persecuting them, purging the judiciary, and imposing austerity measures. As poverty and protests spread, he thanked a forum of bankers for opposing his election, since he now attracted “hatred instead from those who voted” for him.
Lawfare operations were slow-motion coups with a legal façade: court disputes and impeachment procedures that made military force unnecessary.
RC leaders faced death threats, police surveillance, and imprisonment, forcing many into exile. Authorities sentenced Correa in absentia for “psychic influence” over government officials. Interpol recognized that the case was outrageous and refused to extradite him from Belgium. Back in Ecuador, authorities arrested and allegedly tortured former Vice President Jorge Glas.
As in Brazil, the U.S. government backed the campaign of persecution. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded Mil Hojas, a journalism collective that smeared the RC with corruption allegations. A NED newsletter, Democracy Digest, explained that Correa governed “when left-wing leaders were ascendent in Latin America,” before approvingly noting the “left-wing wave has since subsided.” Attorney General Diana Salazar later received a Wilson Center award for spearheading the repression. Privately, she admitted that U.S. officials “want [the] RC’s head.”
Lawfare became an essential strategy of the right in Latin America, triggering a domino effect of coups against progressive governments. Brazil and Ecuador became models for local oligarchies and U.S. officials attempting to drain the “Pink Tide.” The field of struggle shifted from the ballot box to the courtroom, as the right took back the power it had lost in elections.
Courtroom Drama
Most notably, Brazil and Ecuador offered a script for conservatives in Argentina, which became the epicenter of lawfare. In 2015, the wealthy conservative Mauricio Macri became president, before revamping law enforcement cooperation with the United States — securing DEA assistance, training for judges, and enhanced intelligence coordination. The infusion of U.S. aid helped Macri clobber former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (“CFK”) and the Peronist left.
Between 2003 and 2015, CFK and her husband steered Argentina out of a financial crisis and alleviated poverty, while refusing to impose IMF-prescribed austerity measures. Macri and U.S. officials vigorously opposed their bold progressive agenda, prompting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask about the president’s “nerves and anxiety” — as if leftist policies were a sign of mental illness.
The backlash was swift. By 2022, CFK was the target of over 650 legal complaints. One Macri ally alone initiated 74 against her.
A group of leading international jurists including Baltasar Garzón concluded that CFK was the victimof “judicial persecution.” Garzón emphasized that it was “not [even] possible for a person to have committed as many illicit acts as she has been accused of.”
Former Supreme Court Justice Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni observed that his Argentine colleagues exploited “the technique of lawfare,” pursuing CFK and other Peronistas without evidence. Zaffaroni noted that officials organized “mafia-style meetings” to coordinate their campaign against the left. Notoriously, the minister of labor for Buenos Aires, Marcelo Villegas, a close Macri ally, plotted with businessmen to destroy the labor movement. “Believe me, if I had a Gestapo… a shock force to finish off all the trade unions, I would go ahead,” Villegas confided.
The collusion between the judiciary and conservatives was ongoing. At least five judges and two prosecutors involved in a public works (“Vialidad”) corruption case against CFK privately consulted right-wing leaders and Macri — whose very administration opened the proceedings. Senior judges and prosecutors even played soccer and tennis at the president’s residence.
Major news outlets legitimated the repression by joining what CFK dubbed “a media-judicial firing squad.” The leading newspaper, Clarín, published sensational coverage echoing claims of corruption. One editor admitted that his team waged “war journalism” against CFK. Ultimately, lawfare mobilized not only judges but journalists, cementing the impression of guilt in the public imagination because the courts lacked the evidence to do so.
Eventually, Macri allies led a secret retreat in Lago Escondido for judges, government lawyers, and Clarín representatives. The group included Judge Julián Ercolini, who oversaw the “Vialidad” case against CFK. After news of the retreat leaked, officials discussed potential cover stories to avoid leaving “loose ends.” They struggled to concoct a convincing lie. “We can’t say that we went fishing,” one member lamented, because “it’s not fishing season.”
The Lago Escondido scandal exposed the fusion of the judiciary and media that made lawfare possible. Latin American conservatives claimed that a separation of powers existed. But the manipulation of justice and information revealed the oligarchy’s vice-like grip over strategic sectors of society. The campaign against CFK was a sign of this deeper reality, as supposedly impartial institutions repeatedly asserted their class bias.
Gavels or Guns
By 2017, the right-wing resurgence and Donald Trump’s presidency was emboldening regional conservatives, who openly adopted more aggressive methods of regime change. Critical observers portrayed lawfare as a fundamental break from the military coups of the Cold War past. Yet U.S.-backed security forces remained the last resort and irreducible bedrock of the oligarchy’s class power.
This became clear in Venezuela, where Trump revamped efforts to strangle the Bolivarian Revolution: a self-proclaimed socialist experiment that rejected U.S. hegemony. Grasping for pretexts, officials exploited an Obama-era executive order that labeled the country an “unusual and extraordinary threat” as precedent, while blocking access to U.S. financial and energy markets. Previous measures targeted individual Venezuelans leaders. But the latest raft of sanctions were indiscriminate and agonizing, fomenting a humanitarian crisis and offering a pretext for military intervention. Economists concluded that U.S. pressure caused “tens of thousands of deaths” by depriving Venezuelans of medicine and food, while propelling “the largest economic collapse, outside of wartime, since 1950.”
Exploiting the chaos, the opposition legislator Juan Guaidó spearheaded a coup in January 2019 with Trump’s encouragement. Later, National Security Advisor John Bolton explained that they supported Guaidó to secure control of Venezuela’s energy wealth, including the largest known oil reserves in the world. But privately, Trump ridiculed the coup leader. “This kid – nobody’s ever heard of him,” he guffawed. As the coup fizzled, Trump unsuccessfully attempted to incite military intervention by demanding that Venezuelan officers oust President Nicolás Maduro or “lose everything.”
Far from passé, military intervention remained an alluring option in the regime change playbook, while U.S. and local officials isolated bastions of the left, mobilizing judges when possible and soldiers, if necessary.
That same year, however, Trump’s regime change strategy succeeded in Bolivia, after Morales secured reelection in October. The U.S.-dominated Organization of American States published inaccurate statements challenging the results, which fueled an exhibition of unrestrained racism and class resentment. Middle-class motorcycle gangs wove through city corridors hunting Indigenous socialists, and pro-coup security forces massacred dozens of civilians.
As Morales’s government imploded, the opposition senator Jeanine Áñez declared herself president. Reenacting the Spanish conquest, Áñez entered office with an oversized Bible and conquistador cross, after having asserted that Indigenous culture was “satanic.”
U.S. fingerprints were all over the coup. The Washington-aligned OAS played an essential role in escalating the crisis. The U.S.-trained Bolivian general, Williams Kaliman, pressured Morales to resign. And the Trump administration immediately backed Áñez, arguing that “Morales’s departure preserves democracy.” Tesla founder Elon Musk appeared belligerent when observers accused the United States of orchestrating the coup to secure lithium for his company. “We will coup whoever we want,” Musk announced. “Deal with it!”
Under President Joe Biden, U.S. officials both maintained crushing sanctions against Venezuela and continued to back Áñez in Bolivia, even after local authorities arrested her for illegally seizing power. The violence of the 2019 coups exposed an underlying pattern. Far from passé, military intervention remained an alluring option in the regime change playbook, while U.S. and local officials isolated bastions of the left, mobilizing judges when possible and soldiers, if necessary.
Solidarity Coups
Recently, the Trump administration has reinvigorated ties with local reactionaries in the region and openly targeted progressives. The MAGA movement promotes regime change in Latin America, while offering a dangerous model for regional conservatives.
In January 2023, President Bolsonaro attempted a coup in Brazil that closely mirrored Trump’s failed 2021 insurrection. Audio recordings capture him rehearsing claims about electoral fraud before polls opened, as well as allied officers conspiring to ignite a “civil war.” Before finishing his term, Bolsonaro moved to Florida near Mar-a-Lago, where his family allegedly liaised with Trump, consolidating a truly global right-wing international.
This April, President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador also used strong-arm tactics to secure reelection. Noboa ran without taking the required leave of absence and illegally tapped public funds for his campaign. After underperforming in the first round, Noboa visited Trump to enhance his image among voters seeking aggressive leadership amid spiraling crime rates and economic uncertainty. He then declared a state of emergency in pro-RC areas before the runoff election, allowing the police to impose curfews and prohibit public gatherings. Noboa’ is an implacable enemy of the left — at one point, security forces invaded the Mexican embassy to arrest a dissident.
Across the region, conservative populists maintain an open alliance against progressive movements. More than anyone, President Javier Milei of Argentina personifies the right’s reactionary fury and ties to Washington. Milei not only gifted Elon Musk a chainsaw at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Maryland. He also headlined Brazil’s CPAC, where he denounced the left after binge drinking with Bolsonaro.
Ultimately, the alignment between the U.S. and Latin America’s oligarchies is toppling more than progressive governments. Right-wing backlash to social democracy has eroded the rule of law, reimposed poverty, and fostered political despair.
This summer, CFK began six years of house arrest for the “Vialidad” case, after the US government itself sanctioned the leftist leader. Prominent Argentine journalists welcomed her arrest by applauding themselves for making “this day possible.” Her detention continues as leaked audio files suggest that Milei’s sister has embezzled funds for citizens with disabilities, and an allied judge is prohibiting the publication of potential evidence, curbing freedom of speech and exacerbating a national scandal.
Recently, Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted Bolsonaro for organizing the failed 2023 coup, citing “overwhelming evidence” that he plotted to assassinate Lula and a senior judge. Prior to Bolsonaro’s sentencing, the White House had leveraged tariffs to punish Brazilian authorities who are attempting to hold the former president accountable, and had threatened to apply “military might” in his defense.
The naval expedition against President Maduro of Venezuela fits into this broader context. Taking lawfare to its extreme, U.S. leaders now advocate regime change by claiming that Maduro is a drug trafficker. Yet the evidence is flimsy, and Secretary of State Rubio exploded when confronted with opposing conclusions. “I don’t care what the UN says,” he retorted. From the sidelines, Venezuelan conservatives have echoed drug trafficking claims and encouraged officials to ramp up economic pressure.
In short, Trump’s bare-fisted offensive against Venezuela is nothing new. For two decades, the United States and Latin American right have mobilized to eradicate challenges to their traditional privileges and control. Lawfare against the left has cleared the way for dangerous reactionaries, while reinforcing inequality and inflicting lasting damage to government institutions. Rather than social progress, the right is pursuing solidarity coups across borders: substituting oligarchical rule for democracy and, once more, turning Latin America into a central battleground in the global struggle against U.S. imperialism.
The author would like to thank Sarah Priscilla Lee of the Learning Sciences Program at Northwestern University for reviewing this article.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
Jonathan Ng is a postdoctoral fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.
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