In many ways, Biden’s pursuit of tighter relations with the Southeast Asia bloc came as no surprise. The United States wants to counterbalance China’s dominance in Asia and the South China Sea, while ASEAN countries are hoping to achieve economic growth and stability. And both sides would prefer to do it without stepping into a steaming pile of Cold War 2.0 between the United States and China.

Unlike his predecessor, President Biden recognizes the utility of maintaining amicable trade relations, even with countries that can’t afford to be staunchly anti-China. Biden entered office with a full plate of deteriorated U.S. diplomatic relations around the world, and his administration hit the ground running in Southeast Asia, sending Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to accompany Biden to his first U.S.-ASEAN Summit of his presidency. “I want you all to hear directly from me the importance the United States places on our relationship with ASEAN,” assured President Biden.

And why shouldn’t the United States prioritize its relationship with ASEAN?

ASEAN’s mission to uphold the rules-based order in Southeast Asia, including the tumultuous South China Sea, should be reason enough for the United States to throw some of its weight behind ASEAN. But ASEAN and American objectives align even beyond maritime security issues; both parties are pursuing stronger public health safety nets in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, both are investing in digital infrastructure and technological innovation, both are committed to meeting their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for climate action and most importantly, both parties recognize that if ASEAN doesn’t cooperate with the United States to accomplish their goals, they’ll turn to their nearer neighbor.

However, the United States “recognize[s]quite clearly that any initiative that is simply designed for competition [with China]is likely to have difficulty gaining altitude in Asia,” said Kurt Campbell, the current Indo-Pacific coordinator under Biden. The new and improved Indo-Pacific strategy is one of inclusion, a union of mutual interest in the “fundamental principles in promoting an open, inclusive, and rules-based regional architecture.”

Biden knows that China lapped the United States years ago, in terms of trade relations, financial connectivity and investment projects in Southeast Asia. The United States lacks the money and political will to go toe-to-toe with China’s Belt and Road Initiative or cheap exports, so Biden’s goal can’t feasibly be to elbow the gargantuan China market out of the ASEAN bloc.

Instead of daring to directly oppose China, Biden reframed U.S. objectives in the Indo-Pacific to focus on counterbalance and stability. Rather than waging a trade war in Southeast Asia and abruptly withdrawing from trade alliances like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Biden has pursued a strategy of further economic integration. In spring of 2022, he unveiled the Indo-Pacific economic framework (IPEF), a “non-traditional” trade agreement that encompasses a range of economic and social issues, including “fair and resilient trade, supply chain resilience, infrastructure and decarbonization, and tax and anticorruption.”

Many ASEAN countries have responded well to Biden’s new tactic, and the level of trust in the United States increased from 47.0% to 52.8% from 2020 to 2021, according to a regional survey conducted in Southeast Asia. But public approval, just like international policymaking, is moving slower than Biden might hope, and polls show a decrease in perceived U.S. engagement in the region within the past year.

Much of the focus in the polls tied back to IPEF, which has received a lukewarm reception, owing primarily to its omission of market liberalization. The four pillars laid out in advance of negotiations for the IPEF include trade provisions with high regulatory standards and an emphasis on the digital economy; coordinate action against future supply chain malfunctions; socially and environmentally sustainable investment and equitable and transparent trading practices. These goals are grand and admirable, but critics argue that without binding trade regulations and market access, the new US strategy is unlikely to hold much sway over ASEAN.

China is ASEAN’s bully and its friend. It dumps billions of dollars into BRI to fund development projects throughout the region, while also aggressing its neighbors’ EEZs and territories in the South China Sea. If the United States wants any chance at playing a meaningful role in the region, it needs to be ASEAN’s friend, its best friend.

Biden knows what it would take to make real friends in ASEAN—diplomatic consistency, trade openness and at least the potential for market access—but many onlookers in Southeast Asia see his efforts thus far as political show. The delicate dynamics between ASEAN and China should incentivize the United States to continue aiding the ASEAN economic goal, to help achieve their diplomatic goal of maintaining regional order. As political tension radiates from the dumpster fire that is Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the world teeters closer to nuclear war, promoting stability and prosperity wherever possible is in everyone’s best interest.

Counterbalancing the Chinese economic and political giant will require more than slapping a new label on the U.S.-ASEAN relationship. As Biden prepares for the 10^th U.S.-ASEAN Summit and negotiations for the IPEF this November, he should prioritize ASEAN’s interest in market access and trade if he aspires to achieve his own social goals and security missions. It’s time for Washington to put its money where its mouth is and invest in its relations with ASEAN.

As the region prepares for the upcoming COP27 conference in Egypt this November, they have a long list of initiatives and demands, including investments in sustainable development, disaster prevention and relief and transition to clean energy. Many regional leaders have grown frustrated with previous international climate deliberations and have resolved to take a more aggressive stance on climate negotiations, one that mirrors their concerns about environmental collapse.

“The time to see ourselves as climate victims is over. Although we are, the time to take the helm of the ship has begun,” said Max Puig, executive vice president of the country’s National Council for Climate Change and Clean Development Mechanism (CNCCMDL). Puig’s was one of many rallying cries at this year’s Latin American and Caribbean Climate Week (LACCW), held in July in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Climate Week hosted approximately 1,700 government representatives, international organizations, private sector stakeholders and civil society experts. The week-long summit featured more than 160 sessions regarding “climate risks and the transition to carbon neutrality economies, among other climate issues.”

LACCW allowed regional leaders to discuss their national climate policies and develop strategies for the upcoming COP27 negotiations. Cities in Chile, Colombia and across Latin America have begun transitioning from public buses to electric vehicles. The agricultural sector has begun adopting regenerative agricultural practices to combat soil degradation, depletion and drought, a problem particularly afflicting Chilean farms that have suffered from a drought for more than a decade. The region is also developing plans for offshore wind farms and solar panels to create the infrastructure of sustainable energy production required to reduce carbon emissions.

Indeed, many Latin American countries have already adopted more aggressive climate policies within their national borders, but they lack the resources to undertake the large scale of climate crises. 

Like many developing countries, the primary roadblock to sustainable energy transition is insufficient financial resources. Achieving their carbon reduction goals set in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement would require redirecting as much as 19%, or $1.3 trillion USD, of public and private spending in Latin America toward climate solutions, a figure that remains both politically and economically infeasible in developing countries. “Yes, we need to incentivise the transition to low-emission, highly resilient development, but this should not be done at the expense of existing businesses or national development,” said Ovais Sarmad, the UN Climate Change deputy executive secretary. 

Consequently, Latin America and the Caribbean hope to secure greater adaptation and mitigation investment from developed countries, especially for constructing sustainable energy infrastructure, transitioning away from fossil fuel transportation and modernizing agricultural systems to be more energy efficient and environmentally conservative. The agricultural sector, in particular, presents multiple opportunities for carbon reduction with developed countries’ investments and technological assistance. 

Implementing the necessary changes will require three distinct channels of negotiation at the upcoming COP27: “capacity building, technology transfer” and, most importantly, funding.

“Funding must be increased. Developed countries, which pledged to provide USD 100 billion a year in assistance starting in 2020, must fulfill their promise, as was highlighted at COP26 in Glasgow,” said Walter Oyhantçabal, an expert on international climate negotiations. Delegates from Mexico, Chile and Colombia are expected to continue leading the charge in COP27 deliberations, pressuring developed countries to increase their investments and follow through on their promises.

“It must be clear to our peoples and to the world that we are serious and that, even in the most difficult circumstances, we are not going to stop. We will overcome the difficulties. This is the message that Latin America and the Caribbean are taking to COP27 in Egypt,” said Puig in conclusion. 

As both a vulnerable region and a site of immense potential in the battle against climate change, Latin America will play a critical role in negotiations at this year’s COP27 summit.

As cost of living climbs, lower classes are facing new class conflict in Spain, a country already struggling to find its footing after the 2008 financial crisis and the global pandemic. The war in Ukraine has impacted the entire world’s food supply and cost of living, but Spain faces among the highest hikes in prices of anywhere in the EU. 

According to the OECD’s economic snapshot of Spain, the onset of conflict in Ukraine has affected the Iberian Peninsula, much like the rest of Europe, “via increased energy prices, disruption in production chains and higher uncertainty.” Reuters reports that annual inflation in Spain surpassed 10% for the first time in almost four decades. 

Transport costs have risen by almost 20%, electricity has increased 33% and tourist accommodations like hotels have risen by 45%. Eating and drinking in Spain is 13% more expensive this year than it was this time last year, a more significant difference compared to Germany (+11.8%), Italy (+9.2%), France (+6.3%) and most of the EU. Indeed, olive oil and fruit are currently more expensive in Spain than anywhere in Europe, a considerable kick in the gut to one of the largest producers of olives and agricultural products in the region. 

Spain, alongside other EU member states, is working to keep the threatened tide of recession at bay. Fuel prices in Spain have only recently begun to slightly decrease from unprecedented highs following an agreement between Spain, Portugal and the European Commission to limit the cost of wholesale electricity. The EU’s strict fiscal deficit limits will remain suspended through the next war to help absorb the economic shock of the conflict in Ukraine, and Spain’s projected public deficit is 5% of GDP in 2023. These disciplinary rules, known as the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), typically require countries to keep public deficit below 3% and debt belo 60% of GDP, but many countries, including Spain, currently exceed these requirements since they were suspended for the pandemic in March 2020.

Despite continued emergency fiscal policy, workers across Spain are expressing their frustration with rising costs of living, which they claim exacerbates the low wages and poor working conditions that characterize typical union demands.

Last March, truckers across Spain went on strike for 20 days, wreaking havoc throughout the nation’s economy and only concluding after months of fraught negotiations with the Ministry of Transport. Almost 20,000 metalworkers in A Coruña and Cantabria began striking in early summer, calling for “recovery of purchasing power, salary review clauses to protect purchasing power, the extension of these rights to workers from subcontracted companies, the limitation of temp work and the regulation of toxic, painful and dangerous work.” Taxi drivers marched in Barcelona, and teachers strike across Catalan.

This July, two Spanish unions associated with Ryanair have voted to strike for decent working conditions and pay in the wake of spiking travel demand in recent months. In an economy that relies on tourism for around 12% of its GDP and 13% of its employment (at pre-pandemic levels), major walk-outs and delays in the top budget airline poses a significant economic threat

As economic pressures mount, strikes are catching hold across the country and across the industrial spectrum. However, the rising tide of economic protests is familiar to Spaniards.

On May 15, 2011, Madrileños rallied in the central Puerta del Sol plaza to protest dire inequality and corruption. The movement,known as 15-M after May 15, the day the protest ignited,emerged from years of tension after the 2008 recession and aimed to take down the Spanish political and judicial establishment, or “the caste.” This anti-austerity movement in Spain included weeks of camping in the city center, demonstrations in more than 60 Spanish cities, more than a million participants in protests in Spain and corresponding protests around the world, often in conjunction with other occupy movements. 

15-M shook the country to its core. It destabilized the political establishment and catapulted Podemos, a left-leaning and pro-worker political party, onto center stage. Moreover, the massive protests empowered the Spanish workforce, which was only beginning to restabilize after the fall of Franco in the 80s and now was facing a bleak financial future, to demand more from their government. 

My host mother remembers the global financial crisis and subsequent anti-austerity protests as a pivotal moment in her life, although she doesn’t consider herself very political. The Spanish economy had been growing rapidly before the crisis, and her small womens’ fashion boutique had been thriving. Plummeting consumer demand had slashed her income. 

“People don’t shop anymore. Not at the local businesses, not like they used to,” she says. At the time I thought she was referring to life after the 2008 recession, but I realize the lament also applies to pandemic-related financial shifts. 

Before my host mother could get back on her feet after the financial crisis, the pandemic trapped all of her potential customers in their homes, leaving her with no business and little means of making rent. 

So she understands why Spaniards strike. Siempre hay una huelga. “There’s always a strike,” she says. “The transportation strikes, the farmers strike, always there’s a strike. But I understand it.”

As a small business owner, my host mother can’t strike for higher pay. Instead, she opened her home to a stranger (me) to try and make ends meet. About a month after I moved in, she confessed to me that her daughter, a 22-year-old law student, had been too afraid to tell her friends that an American study abroad student (me) was living in her home. My host mother explained that her daughters’ friends had money, like she used to have money, and if they knew the family needed to take in a student, then they would treat her differently.

“She’s seen how [her friends]treat people without money, and she doesn’t want them to treat her that way,” she says.

In my host family, a sharp divide still exists between the working-class empowerment against “the caste” in political spheres and the reality of class relations in practice. Protests in 2011 and ongoing strikes in the wake of the pandemic means these conversations play out on national news but rarely in the real world. 

In hushed tones around the kitchen table, my host mom opens up about her experience as a small business owner and a single mother. She explains her support for strikes and her daughter’s shame for being working-class. She hints at her own frustration with her financial backsliding, careful to avoid any implication that her frustrations are directed toward me. 

But our conversation thrums with the tense reality that I am paying to live in her home and that she needs the money. After her confession about her financial situation and her family’s shame at my presence, her final plea knocks the wind out of me.

“Please don’t leave,” she says. If I leave, how will she make rent?

Now, Indigenous communities stand on the front lines of the onslaught of climate change disasters across the globe. In Africa’s Kalahari Desert, Indigenous peoples face climbing temperatures, increased wind speeds and drought, sand dune expansion and diminishing vegetation and livestock capacity. Glacial melting disrupts seasonal water flow patterns in the Himalayas, affecting hundreds of millions of rural residents. In the Arctic region, traditional means of subsistence, such as hunting, fishing and gathering, have become increasingly incapable of sustaining Indigenous communities in the wake of warming temperatures, rising sea levels and shifting weather patterns. In the Amazon, deforestation, forest fires, savannization and forest fragmentation threaten Indigenous lives and livelihoods. 

These communities have the most to lose from climate change and the most to teach the international community. In the cacophony of voices on climate change policies at COP26  Glasgow, Indigenous voices merit particular attention and respect from the international community.

Indigenous voices around the world represent a diversity of cultures, perspectives, histories and knowledge systems. The UN estimates that over 476 million Indigenous peoples currently live in 90 countries around the world. Although they represent around 6.2% of the global population, Indigenous peoples inhabit 32% of the world’s land area, much of which houses crucial biodiversity resources. Despite historical exclusion from international deliberations and decision making, Indigenous peoples are custodians of the knowledge reaped from the ecosystems they occupy and are key shareholders in the future of the global environment.

“The social-ecology systems are crucially important within our traditional landscape and territories; through traditional knowledge and wisdom, which enforces governance systems for pastures, water, salt licks, movement of livestock and wildlife, social interaction and use are strongly connected to Indigenous pastoralist livelihoods,” said Justine Ole Nokoran, a local traditional leader from Tanzania.

Environmental protectionism is interwoven into the fabric of Indigenous cultures and economies. Their existence rests on preserving the biodiversity that sustains their livelihoods. A recent analysis of Indigenous peoples and practices indicates that global biodiversity goals will  ultimately be unattainable without comprehensive inclusion of their perspectives and guidance.

Despite the significant body of research revealing the necessity of incorporating indigenous perspectives into international climate policy prescriptions, Indigenous communities are only beginning to receive a seat at the table of global climate talks. 

“Indigenous Peoples are still seen as beneficiaries, as the last link in the chain,” said José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, the General Coordinator of the Congress of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin. 

Not only does this framework diminish the rights and autonomy of Indigenous peoples, but reducing Indigenous peoples to the role of consultants, incidental or supplementary to the process of climate activism, overlooks their centrality to environmental issues.

Díaz Mirabal will be speaking at COP26 alongside other Indigenous representatives on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7, the days dedicated to discussing Nature and Land Use. The two-hour block devoted to Indigenous perspectives will “explore how governments, scientists and Indigenous Peoples are working with nature to enhance climate ambition and help keep the 1.5°C goal within reach, while delivering benefits for biodiversity and for the millions of people who depend on the land and ocean for their livelihoods.” 

COP26 strategy sessions to create feasible roadmaps for climate adaptation and technological innovation will benefit immensely from the Indigenous leaders attending the conference. However, many communities have asserted that these conversations do not equate to genuine dialogue between international leadership and Indigenous communities. COP26 discussions, and indeed all environmental policy discussions, need to integrate Indigenous voices.

Indigenous communities that have already gained a foothold in international climate discourse through social media and domestic-scale mobilization have a slew of policy recommendations for COP26 discussions, including expanding on emission-reduction targets, cutting pipeline construction, introducing a structure of intellectual property for Indigenous knowledge, legal protections for Indigenous activists and strategies for biodiversity conservation.

Native American Activism

Native American tribes in the western United States have ramped up pressure on the Biden Administration at this year’s “People vs. Fossil Fuels” week of action. Representatives spoke out against the governmental tendency to pay lip service to Indigenous interests while continuing to allow blatantly environmentally damaging industries to continue operating.

“Driving up more funding for carbon capture technology is a subsidy for the fossil fuel industry,” said Tom Goldtooth, the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network who is of Diné and Dakota ancestry. 

Goldtooth and the over 500 organizations supporting his advocacy urge the international community to plan beyond carbon emission reductions and carbon capture. The U.S. government and the international community cannot hope to eliminate climate change without killing the fossil fuel industry.

First Nations and Renewable Energy

First Nations advocates in Canada similarly advocate for the total elimination of fossil fuels, especially pipeline constructions that destroy entire ecosystems and uproot Indigenous communities. Global leaders should look to Indigenous communities in the creation of renewable energy projects, instead of “repackaging solutions that we have and excluding [Indigenous peoples] from that conversation,” said Rebecca Sinclair, who is Cree from Barren Lands First Nation in Manitoba. Sinclair is currently a policy analyst with Indigenous Climate Action, an NGO based in Winnipeg.

According to First Nations advocacy groups like ICA, renewable energy projects present the Canadian government with the opportunity to increase Indigenous sovereignty and economic opportunities while simultaneously mitigating climate change. Moreover, practical policy solutions such as integrating Indigenous leadership into energy innovation could apply not only to First Nations but also Indigenous communities worldwide.

Safeguarding the Rainforest 

Indigenous advocates in the Amazon rainforest and the Philippines demand greater attention to biodiversity and sustainability research, which require strengthening of intellectual property laws for Indigenous communities and greater legal mechanisms to defend activists from violence. 

“Indigenous Peoples bring essential knowledge, experience and guidance to conservation efforts,” said Minnie Degawan, director of the Indigenous and Traditional Peoples Programme at Conservation International and a member of the Kankanaey-Igorot Indigenous group in the Philippines. “We must be present and our voices must be valued as part of the global conversation.”

Valuing their voices includes formally recognizing Indigenous rights to lands, water and resources. Furthermore, advocates in Brazil and the Philippines want funding to pursue their own conservation efforts.

In addition to formalized recognition and funding, rainforest-based conservation efforts require stricter yet accessible processes for Indigenous communities to crystallize their traditional knowledge into intellectual property. For example, Indigenous knowledge regarding farming methods, plant-based medicine and crops can benefit climate policy if the international community pledges to protect their intellectual property rights without exploiting the Indigenous communities that source this knowledge. Currently, intellectual property protection varies by county, leaving Indigenous communities vulnerable to exploitation and reducing the efficiency of information distribution.

But it’s not just intellectual ownership at stake. 

The fight to defend the environment threatens Indigenous lives, as well. In 2020, 227 environmental activists were murdered in defense of their culture, livelihoods and their home’s biodiversity. Lethal attacks occur within a broader onslaught of violence against environmental activism, including intimidation, surveillance, sexual violence and criminalization. A majority of these attacks occurred in Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines and Brazil, where human rights conditions are deteriorating alongside increasing environmental depletion. In Brazil and Peru, almost 75% of recorded attacks were committed in the Amazon regions of each country, where Indigenous people and local activists were operating in defense of forest ecosystems. Without adequate legal enforcement mechanisms to prevent and punish these crimes, Indigenous communities remain trapped between the destruction of their homeland and the threat of violence in retaliation for protecting it.

Indigenous rights have become inextricably intertwined with environmental protection, and the international community must spotlight the intersection between Indigenous lives and the wellbeing of their communities. Efforts to protect these activists and advance their missions must unfold locally, domestically and internationally. 

Leaders at COP26 must draw attention to the lack of legal protection for Indigenous lives to have any hope of facilitating locally based environmental movements, which ultimately form the building blocks of any successful environmental policy.

Incorporating Indigenous Perspectives

Evidently, recommendations emerging from Indigenous communities are diverse and extensive. Eliminating the fossil fuel industry, introducing community-based renewable energy projects, establishing universal intellectual property protection for Indigenous communities and ensuring protection and justice for climate activists – none of these challenges will be easily overcome.

However, international leaders have an obligation to integrate Indigenous interests into discussions and policy decisions, beginning this week at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

As the world prepares for the fight for its life, José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal urges international onlookers to reconsider and value Indigenous perspectives, especially in conversations historically dominated by developed countries.

“It is not a relationship of 10 or 20 years, it is a relationship of more than 10,000 years. Throughout these years we have been able, with our culture, with our worldview, with our way of respecting nature, to preserve… Our territories, where the indigenous peoples are, are contrasted with the map of destruction that exists on the planet. Where indigenous peoples live there are forests, rivers, and biodiversity.”

Women in Texas, especially low-income and minority women at higher risk for pregnancy-related health complications, who are often less able to find abortion access beyond state borders, will immediately feel the effects of the new legislation. 

Although it’s not the first state to issue legislation challenging the constitutional right to abortion, Texas is the first state to successfully implement legislation to bypass Roe v. Wade. Other bills, including the Alabama Human Life Protection Act and other “heartbeat bills” across the southern United States, have attempted to pave a route around the dictates of Roe v. Wade. However, they have all failed to go into effect.

Like other pieces of anti-abortion legislation, the SB8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, makes no attempt to conceal its anti-constitutionality. The law prohibits abortion after any sign of cardiac activity, which develops only a few weeks into pregnancy, and makes no exemptions for rape or incest. Although the bill leaves protocol for health-related abortions unspecified, clinics will avoid risking any major financial penalties and terminate most abortion services.

The Texas ruling stands apart from preceding anti-abortion legislation in regards to who it enlists to carry the bill around judicial review. 

Legislators and lobbyists designed previous “heartbeat bills” with the intention to push the Supreme Court to reevaluate and potentially relax the decision of Roe v. Wade. In 2019, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey defended her state’s bill, which compared abortion to the Holocaust, as a tool to prod the Supreme Court to revisit the landmark 1973 decision. However, federal courts struck down Alabama’s endeavor to alter the Roe v. Wade decision before it could land before an increasingly conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Rather than constructing the bill to ensure judicial reevaluation, legislators in Texas crafted their bill to frustrate any legal challenges. The law empowers private citizens to enforce the ban instead of law enforcement officials, diffusing accountability for violating the constitutional provision. The bill permits anyone, apart from Texas government employees, to sue anyone involved in the abortion process, from the doctor performing the operation to the Uber driver shuttling a patient to the clinic, without accruing legal fees and potentially earning $10,000 if they win.

Authorizing private citizens to enforce the law confounds who bears the legal responsibility for violating the constitution and effectively roadblocks prosecutors from building their case. Prosecutors cannot sue every private citizen who pursues legal action against anyone that “aids and abets” an abortion, so building a case against the bill remains impossible until they identify the defendant.

The controversy surrounding the bill is not concerned with its constitutionality. The Texas bill is unequivocally unconstitutional. Debate centers instead on how to get the bill into the courtroom and who to file charges against.

On Sept. 1, the Supreme Court refused to block the bill. In a 5 to 4 vote, Chief Justice John Roberts again sided with the dissenting liberal opinion, arguing the bill not only violates precedent but also models how states can manipulate legislation to insulate themselves from constitutional oversight. The majority opinion did not rule on the bill’s constitutionality, only on the nature of the challenge to the bill.

Ten days after SB8 went into effect, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit on behalf of women in Texas to block the bill, alleging that it violates the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and the 14^th Amendment’s guarantee of due process, which is the constitutional foundation for the Roe v. Wade decision.

A federal judge scheduled a hearing on Oct. 1 to consider temporarily blocking the ban on abortion until the Justice Department’s case can be reviewed. The law will have been effectually prohibiting abortion for a month at the time of that hearing.

In the Justice Department filing against the law, Attorney General Merrick Garland declared the law blatantly unconstitutional in both intent and effect. He also expressed concerns about the precedent established in this legislation.

In a Sept. 9 news conference, Garland said that, “this kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans, whatever their politics or party, should fear.”

Many onlookers on both sides of the aisle have concerns about the leeway this precedent could grant to states to stray from the Constitution, ranging from hypotheticals such as “[c]ould California allow private citizens to sue individuals for hate speech?” Or “New York deputizes private lawsuits against gun owners?” to more immediate concerns about the havoc the law could wreak on the nation’s polarized political landscape.

While legal battles unfold between state and federal leadership, women in Texas remain largely incapable of obtaining an abortion.

Furthermore, a country that touts constitutional ideals and individual liberties might be concerned about the optics of constitutional transgressions on an international stage. While Mexico, its southern neighbor, decriminalizes abortion and increases reproductive rights, the United States becomes increasingly entangled in a domestic struggle over the essence of individual freedom. 

As the Biden administration and Texas conservative leadership debate womens’ access to abortion, the world is watching.

President Joe Biden and his political allies cheered on Cuban protesters for standing against “decades of repression and economic suffering to which Cuba’s authoritarian regime has subjected them.” But these protests, the largest the country has seen since 1994, emerged from much more than a slow-burning political dissatisfaction that finally boiled over.

The Cuban people needed to tell their leader and the world that they are hungry, dying unnecessarily and fed up with a government that seems impervious to their suffering.

The nation’s economy has suffered alongside the rest of the world during the pandemic, weakened by a drop in tourism and the subsequent decrease in foreign currency, which customarily helps consumers stay afloat. If COVID-19-related economic bubbles weren’t enough, Havana has also confronted financial mismanagement and crippling economic sanctions imposed by Washington.

Protesters and online critics claim there simply is not enough food to go around, and the sparse food remaining on market shelves requires hours of standing in line.

“Do you know what it’s like not to be able to buy my child food from the store?” Odalis, a 43-year-old mother in Havana, said to The New York Times.

Starving children, desperate parents, and an entire country in dire financial straits all face yet another crisis, a resurgence of the global pandemic. After months of keeping the coronavirus at bay, the national healthcare system has met its match in the novel Delta variant. Over the past two months, the number of positive test cases has increased by more than six times, and the medical system can no longer keep up. Hospitals lack sufficient oxygen and space to accommodate the drastic rise in cases, and people are dying at disproportionate rates as a result. In some parts of the country, death rates have climbed to eight times the average rate before the Delta surge.

The healthcare system has long been a source of national pride, with Cuban doctors living and working worldwide, but now, doctors at home claim that the system has buckled under the pressure of the pandemic.

“The funeral homes can’t cope, the hospitals can’t cope, the clinics can’t cope,” one doctor told the Times. Like many healthcare workers who have publicized the realities on the ground in Cuba, this doctor paid for the truth with his job. Despite the threat of job termination, detention and criminal charges, many Cubans have spoken up about their situations.

Cuban protesters succeeded in making their shouts heard around the world. Still, their leader has not only refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of their complaints but has actively attempted to suppress their protests, both physically and virtually.

Prior to the eruption of protests, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Cuba’s first non-Castro leader in 60 years, conceded that the pandemic had overwhelmed the country’s healthcare system, but channeled the blame toward U.S. trade embargos, which he says exacerbate medical supply shortages.

President Díaz-Canel responded quite differently to the nation’s problems following July’s protests. The police crackdown arrived swiftly and firmly. Advocates estimate that as many as 800 citizens, including many underage, have remained detained for weeks. Many people have been arrested off the street, many claiming they had nothing to do with the protesters, and police have even begun going door-to-door to issue arrests, often without offering an explanation beyond “vandalism and looting.”

Days after chanting “libertad” in city squares, many protesters have taken shelter in their homes, fearful of losing their jobs and conflicted about speaking up in defense of those already detained for fear of exacerbating detainees’ treatment.

“The Cuban people are brave, but the repression right now is very strong and the effect is being felt,” said one distraught woman, regarding her husband’s extended detention. “There are still families who don’t know where their loved ones are.”

The crackdown on dissent is not limited to the spaces Cubans occupy at home and work but is also affecting online freedoms. Díaz-Canel issued sweeping legislation criminalizing any opposition to Cuba’s Communist Party on social media. The new laws forbid any content with the potential to affect “collective security, general welfare, public morality and respect for public order.”

The document clearly states its motivations as political, explicitly citing its purpose as “in defense of the Revolution.” Critics claim the new limits on freedom of expression are not only politically motivated but that the president deliberately designed the document’s language to be vague, allowing him to continue imprisoning and threatening any dissenters into silence.

The president had only recently authorized internet access, opening the island to online communities in hopes of modernizing the nation’s economy.

Many onlookers suspect this new window into the world beyond helped foment the protests on July 11, allowing Cubans to compare their empty supermarket shelves to those of their geographic neighbors.

A video of a small demonstration in San Antonio de los Baños circulated on Facebook earlier in the weekend and sparked protests in 25 cities around the nation.

Social media allowed Cubans to vent their anger and fan the fire until they gathered the collective energy to confront a government that had failed them. Díaz-Canel issued the new legislation in an attempt to squash communication and mobilization and, more personally, to silence Twitter’s favorite epithet for Cuba’s president “Díaz-Canel singao,” a term that combines derogatory and sexually explicit connotations and does not translate easily to English.

Díaz-Canel only officially took office as the first secretary of the Communist Party in April of 2021, years after being tapped to succeed Raúl Castro, finally bringing the six-decade Castro regime to a conclusion. Many younger Cubans had hoped their new president would guide the country toward more reform, continuing his predecessor’s advances toward privatization and diversifying the economy. Yet, these hopes have dimmed in light of the worsening economic crisis and social unrest.   

Díaz-Canel’s decision to clamp down on dissent, both online and on the streets, will make it more difficult for Cuban citizens to make their voices heard. Still, many Cubans remain defiant, even in the face of so many parallel crises.

“These are laws to scare people,” said Norges Rodríguez, a Cuban telecommunications engineer and activist. “But on July 11, people came out to protest in a country where you can’t protest. I do not believe that a decree will stop the desire for freedom of a population that is fed up.”

In 2018, Mexico elected President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-wing populist member of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA). Although he had long been a divisive figure in Mexican politics, López Obrador entered office with an astounding 53% of the popular vote and a promise to prioritize Mexico’s sovereignty. After multiple failed presidential elections, AMLO (the popular abbreviation for López Obrador) finally achieved the highest office in Mexico on the rising tide of Mexican nationalism, which had dominated Mexican politics for a majority of its relations with the U.S. and had only subsided in the late 80s.

Americans observed Mexico’s return to nationalist tendencies with anxiety, heralding AMLO as “Mexico’s answer to Donald Trump” and anticipating exacerbated tension between the United States and its southern neighbor. However, AMLO and Donald Trump maintained a surprisingly functional, occasionally even congenial, working relationship.

In many ways, Trump and López Obrador were diametrically opposed, but one crucial shared opinion allowed the two leaders to collaborate. Trump was uniquely uninterested in intervening in Mexico’s domestic politics, and AMLO appreciated the absence of American oversight and intervention.

Donald Trump’s platform toward Mexico focused almost exclusively on issues of migration and renegotiating regional trade agreements. Trump’s approach to foreign policy, toward Mexico and many others, was unprecedentedly one-dimensional, relying on his personal business dealings rather than a multifaceted, coordinated agenda. Trump’s narrow focus allowed AMLO to pursue his own domestic agenda with less American influence.

In a recent call with newly elected President Joe Biden, AMLO said “I must mention that we do have a very good relationship with the now president of your country… Regardless of all other considerations, he respects [Mexico’s] sovereignty.”

Joe Biden’s approach to relations with Mexico is a far cry from his predecessor’s. Where Trump relied on his own personal relationships, Biden will rely on a fully appointed cabinet to manage a wide range of issues. One of the many ways in which Trump’s presidency marked a divergence from the status quo was his resistance to assemble a cabinet that could navigate the complexities of a relationship between two countries whose economies, cultures and politics are so inextricably interconnected. Biden intends to reconstruct this infrastructure of diplomacy that will allow him to tackle multiple campaign promises.

AMLO anticipates the increase in American oversight that will come with Biden’s more holistic foreign policy platform. He has already begun sending signals to the incoming American president that he will not tolerate the same amount of American influence as his predecessors. Not only was López Obrador among the last global leaders to congratulate Biden on his victory, but he has also exonerated a former Mexican defense secretary from prosecution for drug trafficking in America and granted asylum to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who has been evading U.S. extradition since releasing thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016. Many Americans received these actions as slights to the incoming administration, but the sum of these minor affronts is a broader message: Mexico’s president intends to continue pursuing his robust domestic agenda with minimal American interference.

AMLO has championed the charge for Mexican energy independence, a goal which he has ardently pursued since he took office in 2018. An outspoken critic of his predecessor’s energy sector redesign that opened the industry to extensive privatization, López Obrador has repeatedly vowed to restore the dominance of Mexico’s state-owned electricity company.

Recent storms across Texas, a major source of Mexico’s natural gas, resulted in widespread blackouts across the northern half of Mexico. Pointing to these blackouts as evidence, AMLO argued for fortifying Mexico’s own domestic energy supply and in late February put forth a bill that would strengthen the state-owned energy program and limit the involvement of private companies in the energy industry. Ultimately, López Obrador aims to buttress Mexico’s economy from America’s political and economic influence through the centralization and nationalization of the energy industry.

AMLO’s fear that Biden’s election will spell out more roadblocks to his dream of energy independence is not unfounded. Hordes of legislators, environmental advocates and industry experts have criticized his proposed bill for violating carbon emission regulations and trade agreements. These infractions will likely attract opposition not just from his domestic opponents but also from the Biden administration.

Lourdes Melgar, a top energy official under former President Enrique Peña Nieto, said AMLO “has a nationalistic view of how to utilize resources.” Melgar and many other energy experts argue that this policy sacrifices environmental sustainability for an ideological power play. Although the bill is expected to become law within the coming days, Mexico will continue grappling to find a balance between nationalistic impulses, international cooperation, and environmental sustainability.

Unlike his predecessor, President Biden will not look the other way when it comes to violations of environmental agreements. Throughout his campaign and into the first month of his presidency, Biden has remained adamant about the need to uphold environmental protection agreements and expressed a willingness to reassert America’s role as a leader of international environmental cooperation.

According to Pamela Starr, director of the U.S.-Mexico Network at the University of Southern California, Biden should expect to ruffle some feathers when addressing Mexico’s disregard for carbon emission limits and other sustainability regulations. The new president may not necessarily care that Mexico is striving for energy independence, only considering the repercussions of the tactics employed to achieve self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, increased oversight could set off alarm bells for AMLO and others who remain skeptical of American involvement.

Starr points to Jeffrey Davidow’s metaphor for the complex relationship between the United States and Mexico, “the bear and the porcupine,” which captured the difficulties of navigating a relationship between two closely connected countries when one was overtly interventionist and the other hypersensitive to perceived intervention. This dance between American brashness and Mexican defensiveness defined their relationship until the election of Ernesto Cedillo in 1988.

AMLO has openly asserted his disapproval for his predecessors’ approach to dealing with the United States, accusing Mexico of kowtowing to American interests over the past few decades. His approach to diplomacy marks a return to the era of the porcupine, defined by Mexican nationalism and apprehension of U.S. involvement. In order to avoid returning to the role of “the bear,” the United States must carefully navigate the rising sentiment of Mexican nationalism, an endeavor further complicated by rising nationalism within its own borders. Competing threads of nationalism could cause friction not just within the realm of environmental policy, but also within negotiations of labor, trade, corruption and migration.

According to Starr, Biden’s policy toward Latin America rests on three pillars: corruption, climate change and democracy. Although the ongoing migration crisis will likely monopolize much of Biden’s first year in office, the early months of his presidency could define the timber of their relationship and define the trajectory of negotiations of the other items on his agenda in the subsequent years of his presidency.

Despite AMLO’s initial posturing, he has recently demonstrated his commitment to maintaining a productive relationship with the United States. The two leaders convened virtually to discuss issues of immigration, the pandemic and climate change, and both seemed intent on redirecting the nature of their nations’ exchange away from the blatant antagonism that defined the Trump administration. López Obrador, like many Mexicans, is relieved to work with an American president who does not openly degrade their country.

However, this relief at a return to amiability will not dissuade AMLO from fiercely protecting his plan for energy independence. The past four years have exacerbated a relationship that had been fraught with mistrust for decades. This history of unwelcome intervention and competing nationalist sentiments will guide the next four years of U.S.-Mexico relations.

Biden has already begun to dismantle Trump’s hardline anti-immigration policies, ending the “Remain in Mexico” program and working with Mexican officials to reinstate mechanisms for granting asylum to the thousands of migrants waiting at the US-Mexico border. Biden has already encountered numerous roadblocks: an SUV crash in California left 13 migrants dead and a bottleneck of migrants in encampments at the border. Recent reports predict thousands more migrants from Central America are marching toward this chokepoint, hopeful that the new administration will open more doors for their arrival.

Tensions of migration at the border continue to reverberate throughout the region. With the support of Mexican police and leadership, Guatemalan police confronted a caravan of Honduran migrants in late January in an effort to stem the flow of northbound Central Americans. As the entire region reels from the effects of widespread migration and the ongoing public health crisis, Biden will need to rely on coordination with Mexico to stabilize their shared border and eventually the region.

Constructing a productive relationship after four years of Trump’s nationalism and centuries of prior American interventionism will be no small feat, especially with a Mexican president with his own political agenda that runs counterproductive to American interests in certain sectors.

Just a few hours prior to this much anticipated action, Biden pledged to “repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.” Considering almost every other country in the world has pledged onto the Paris Climate Agreement and remained loyal to that pledge, the United States’ reentry into this international accord is a crucial step toward repairing U.S. diplomatic relations and restoring American leadership amid the climate crisis.

Many global leaders joined Biden’s American supporters in applauding his commitment to the Paris Agreement, hoping it signals not only a shift in climate policy but also thawing diplomatic relations with the United States. Surely, this is a step in the right direction, but rejoining the Paris Climate Agreements, despite its hefty symbolism, is not compensation for U.S.’ abysmal approach toward environmental policies over the past four years. Climate change ‒ the very existence of it ‒ has become embroiled in heated partisan debate, and consequently, the United States’ commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement and to the broader fight against climate change drastically fluctuates with each change in administration. While the United States is embroiled in a partisan debate over climate change, Latin America, one of the regions most affected by climate disaster, is already confronting the consequences of U.S.’ inaction.

Three thousand miles south of the Oval Office, thousands of Guatemalans are struggling to keep their head above water. In late 2020, two massive hurricanes, Eta and Iota, struck Central America within a few miles of each other, devastating large swaths of Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. These cataclysmic storms uprooted an estimated 5.2 million residents, and thousands still remain in shelters while they struggle to piece their lives back together.

Prior to this unprecedentedly volatile storm season, five straight years of drought had plagued Central America, pushing thousands of migrants northward in search of food and work. Coffee-growing economies throughout the region suffered unprecedented crop failures and drought, leading to a declaration of emergency in Honduras in 2019. The limited water supply was often polluted due to exposure to toxic waste, biological agents and oil spills. 

After half a decade of drought and remarkably uneventful storm seasons, hurricanes Eta and Iota pulverized the region. The storms completely ravaged a region that was already uniquely vulnerable to the COVID-19 crisis, exacerbating conditions in nearly every aspect of life from the prospects of economic recovery to their already weak sanitation system. Displaced citizens are even more vulnerable to gender-based violence and the safety consequences of inadequate reproductive healthcare. More than a singularly horrific tropical storm season, the effects of climate change are already manifesting in every facet of life in Latin America.

In the wake of Hurricanes Eta and Iota, the U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates damages and losses in Nicaragua alone to total $738 million.

Experts compare this devastation to Hurricane Mitch, which struck the same region in 1998 during the Clinton administration. Roughly 7.2 million people were affected by this storm. Former Honduran President Carlos Flores Facussé recognized that his country could not survive without significant international support and anticipated the global repercussions that could follow an unaddressed humanitarian crisis such as Hurricane Mitch.

Facussé warned international leaders, especially former President Bill Clinton, that without foreign aid migrants would go “walking, swimming and running up north.”

Consequently, Clinton allotted roughly $200 million  in today’s dollars toward disaster relief in Honduras. Many countries joined the United States in donating to Honduras to fund reconstruction of infrastructure and restart the economy. Nevertheless, the region never completely restabilized. If residents didn’t flee from their home country due to lack of housing or infrastructure, they later fled from rising crime rates or an economy in shambles, unable to recover from the storm’s destruction.

Echoing the pleas of President Facussé in 1998, current Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei made desperate requests for foreign aid.

“Hunger, poverty and destruction do not have years to wait,” he said.

Climate disaster has already begun to wreak havoc on international migration patterns. Two more groups of migrants, called the Caravan of the Damned, are fleeing north from Honduras to America, escaping the wreckage wrought by the hurricanes, which has been compounded by COVID-19 and a weak economy. Thousands of refugees are headed toward the U.S. border, electing to face the unsure policies of asylum, detention and deportation rather than stay in their home country, which remains torn apart by a slew of catastrophes.

The similarities between these two cases are numerous: millions of Central Americans ravaged by natural disaster, regional leaders requesting immense international support and a Democratic president staring down the barrel of a split congress and polarized political climate (Hurricane Mitch struck a few weeks before Clinton’s impeachment proceedings).

U.S. immigration policy and foreign aid to natural disasters in Latin America remain inextricably linked. We knew it in 1998 and we know it now: if the U.S.  hopes to limit immigration from its southern neighbors, it must be willing to lend a hand in their recovery.

However, insights from the failure of aid to stabilize the region following Mitch and the current international political landscape demand a different approach from American leadership.

We now have a term for the influx of Honduran migrants after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and the renewed caravans currently departing from the region: climate change refugees.

Climate change disaster will continue to magnify global disparities in wealth and security, permitting wealthier countries to contribute more to impending devastation, while less developed countries pay a higher price.

“Central America is not the producer of this climate change situation,” the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, reminded international onlookers. “Instead, we are the most affected.”

Biden has prioritized immigration and climate change ‒ rightfully so. But he must make sure to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors, not just Donald Trump, whose relationship with Latin America could be described as apathetic at best. American presidents have long ignored systemic issues plaguing Latin America, rushing  to slap a Band-Aids on a bullet-hole-riddled states when staring down the barrel of an influx of immigrants.

Biden has made many promises regarding both climate change and immigration, and on his first day issued two executive orders regarding the former and five regarding the latter.

The Paris Climate Agreement is about accountability and solidarity and commitment, fostering cooperation between countries around the world to prevent impending tragedy, but climate catastrophe is already wreaking havoc in some regions of the world.

Experts in Latin and South America fear their issues, with the exception of the U.S.-Mexican border, will remain on the backburner of America’s diplomatic agenda. Without a doubt, Biden’s approach to climate change and immigration are far superior to that of his predecessor, but we cannot let Trump’s climate change denial and blatant xenophobia be the yardstick to measure Biden’s policies moving forward.

Ongoing crises in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras demand that President Biden not only sign on to the Paris Climate Agreement and implement stricter regulations within his own borders, but also address the issues that have already landed on the shores of unstable regions.

Climate disasters such as this require a holistic response as well as preventative action. The thousands of refugees will require aid funding to return to their homes, and then they may need assistance restabilizing their economies and long-term investment into infrastructure built to withstand exacerbated storm conditions. Those that have no choice to emigrate from their home country will require extended Temporary Protection Status (TPS), allowing them to take the first step toward a green card and hopefully, eventually, citizenship.

In an increasingly interconnected global environment with rising sea levels and intensifying natural disasters, climate change and migration go hand in hand. The United States makes disproportionate contributions to the climate change predicament and accepts considerably fewer migrants and refugees. Biden is making strides to correct these grave errors, but we cannot afford to continue to treat climate change and immigration as two separate issues.

Although TikTok has a reputation for viral dancing routines and light-hearted comedic content, more sinister content lurks beyond these jovial videos. Young men dancing with semi-automatic weapons, armored trucks packing bricks of cocaine through the Mexican countryside, tiger cubs in the backseats of sports cars and stacks of freshly printed cash can all be found on TikTok.

Young cartel members post videos of counting their money in a crowded club, slinging back shots and joking about their lucrative profession, boasting their new wealth and power. New recruits may post these videos because they are eager to showcase their exciting lifestyle, but some experts fear this could be an advancement of recruitment tactics for violent organized crime. These highly circulated videos heighten the glamor of the lifestyle and obscure the risks, normalizing illegal activity and possibly attracting impressionable viewers into the sinister network of cartels.

Videos documenting the daily lives of cartel members in Mexico first began to gain popularity on TikTok in July of 2019. One video captured a high-speed boat chase, including screams from the people attempting to swerve away from the armored boat in their wake. The now infamous “boat video” had millions of views before TikTok took it down for showing illegal activity.

However, TikTok has not managed to remove all content related to cartels, despite its pledge to work “with law enforcement to combat organized criminal activity” by removing “content and accounts that promote illegal activity.”

Cartel content continues to circulate, partially because users manage to circumvent regulations by avoiding direct depictions of illegal activities and substances, but also because content disseminates more rapidly through TikTok’s algorithm than content moderators can monitor. Drug cartels have been propagating their influence on social media platforms for years, but TikTok’s powerful algorithm and massive following allows cartels to amplify their activities to an unprecedented degree.

The algorithm that powers TikTok’s “For You” page, the section of the app that suggests content to users based on their viewing patterns, ensures that anyone who viewed even a single cartel-related video would view a constant stream of similar content. Anyone who spends a significant amount of time perusing the “For You” page has likely stumbled across the “boat video” or some other similar content. This stream of content from drug runners and gangs has been dubbed #CartelTikTok.

At first glance, cartel content may seem relatively benign, just an entertaining glimpse into the lives of people who seem to lead the lives of movie characters. Is #CartelTikTok actually that different from the critically acclaimed show “Narcos,” which dramatizes the life of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar? Both platforms illustrate the wealth and glamor achieved by illegal activity and can romanticize the danger associated with a criminal lifestyle.

And, perhaps more importantly, both platforms attract a significant young audience.

However, the nature of TikTok, a social media platform dominated by average people posting about their daily lives, normalizes this violence in a way that a multi-million-dollar Netflix original does not.

Although Cartel TikTok has emerged too recently for studies to explore its repercussions, scholarly research already suggests that social media enables individuals around the world to join a cause or ideology, rallying support for both social activism campaigns and extremist groups. Social media has a particular capacity to expose impressionable communities to radical ideas and actions, normalizing criminal activity and facilitating echo chambers.

TikTok channels have begun to function as a forum for gang members to present their criminal activities with minimal fear of repercussion, constructing a community that more closely mimics actual interpersonal relationships than television shows can. Prior to social media, organized crime relied on word-of-mouth for recruitment, but TikTok allows for widespread dissemination of advertisement of their culture, power and wealth. 

Cartel content on TikTok exposes young, impressionable adolescents in Mexico and around the world to cartel culture, showing them that the drama and extreme wealth of mob movies is tangible and attainable. Experts warn that #CartelTikTok could produce a new generation of young recruits to gangs.

Cartels are not new to social media. Gang-related content has circulated throughout the underchannels of the internet since the advent of social media, including videos of brutal beheadings and violent crimes posted anonymously on Facebook, Youtube and various other blogs. For many years, cartels have wielded social media as a weapon of intimidation, terrifying citizens and making a statement to law enforcement.

However, cartel presence on social media has evolved with the platform, and their content has become more sophisticated and designed to not only assert their power but also to endear themselves to the community. Many viral videos are designed to demonstrate how the life of a gang member is both glamorous and fun. Viral videos show members dancing to traditional music and hardworking farmers in poppy fields, giving the impression that their work is honest and occasionally enjoyable, just like many average citizens.

Alejandra León Olvera, an anthropologist studying the social media presence of Mexican organized crime at the University of Murcia in Spain, calls this presence of organized crime on social media “narco-marketing.”

As murder rates in Mexico continue to set record highs, social media content that could spawn a new wave of recruits presents an immediate danger to the country’s wellbeing. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has waged war against organized crime in Mexico since he assumed office in 2018, but his campaign promises remain unfulfilled.

Under the slogan “Hugs, not Bullets,” Lopez Obrador campaigned to fight cartels with a strategy of military restraint and economic development, promising to diminish the power of cartels by stabilizing the economy rather than escalating violence with further military confrontation. Even before cartel culture made waves on TikTok, Lopez Obrador’ policy had attracted criticism.

The Organization for World Peace compared his “Hugs Not Bullets” approach to Chamberlain’s appeasement of the Third Reich, claiming that his relaxed approach to military force enabled drug lords to continue their business with less fear of judicial retribution. Despite the efforts of Lopez Obrador, drug rings have managed to fuel their influence over Mexican citizens with a perpetual supply of voluntary labor, employing social media and TikTok to appeal to potential members. With the rise of cartel culture, his strategies appear even more defenseless against the rising popularity of cartel culture.

Beyond rising death tolls and drug violence in Mexico, this trend of cartel culture on TikTok creates a new dimension to the ongoing discussion surrounding social media, censorship and politics on the international stage.

TikTok is not the only social media platform grappling with its accountability for the content circulating among users. In November of 2020, US lawmakers drilled CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg and CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey about the amount of harmful, hateful and false information circulating on their respective platforms. While many Democratic lawmakers pressed social media giants about their inability or unwillingness to silence offensive and incorrect content, many Republicans urged Zuckerberg and Dorsey to relax their approach to content moderation.

Their discussion boils down to a question of how to balance free speech with public risk when content rapidly circulates across national borders, a debate that pertains to #CartelTikTok. Should TikTok be doing more to remove misleading content, especially videos that could influence young minds? 

Recently, social media companies such as Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram have altered their stance on eliminating false information by blocking former president Donald Trump following his inciting comments surrounding the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This move suggests that social media leaders are preparing to take a firmer stance against potentially damaging content, even at the expense of unbridled free speech.

#CartelTikTok is a new dimension of this debate about free speech and content moderation on social media. Young gang members are posting videos of illegal activity in Mexico on a Chinese owned social media platform and reaching audiences around the world, with particular popularity among teenagers in the United States. So, whose responsibility, if anyone’s, is it to monitor this content and limit its potentially dangerous consequences?

But 32 years later, many Chileans have yet to taste the promised joys of liberty and prosperity. While Chile has enjoyed a relatively stable economy and a significant amount of international investment compared to its Latin American neighbors, national economic growth has not translated to improved quality of life for the majority of Chileans. In fact, quite the opposite has occurred.

According to United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, the top 1% in Chile earn nearly a quarter of the nation’s annual income, which leaves a majority of Chileans barely able to eke out a living without accumulating back-breaking amounts of debt. The Central Bank of Chile found that on average nearly three-quarters of household income was directed to paying off debt in 2019. 

Monthly pension wages, which comprise 71% of the national GDP, can no longer sustain retirees, forcing citizens to work well past 65 even after decades of making regular payments. By some measurements, the average pension equates to 15% of the recipient’s final wages, a figure that has steadily declined since the nation switched from a public pension system to a private administration in 1981. The purchasing power of the average pension check plummeted during the 2008 recession, leaving millions of retirees receiving significantly less than the national minimum wage, despite paying into their pension plan for years.

Between this malfunctioning pension program and the nation’s flimsy public education system, residents feel trapped in a cycle of hard labor with little hope for upward mobility, and they blame their government for perpetuating this cyclical inequality.

For almost a year, protesters in Chile have been calling on their government to address the economic disparities that have plagued the nation since Pinochet’s dictatorship. Moderate demonstrations last October, which launched in response to a small hike in metro fare, sparked a series of protests that have since engulfed the entire nation. Aggrieved citizens have demanded a redesign of the pension system, education reform and equitable healthcare systems. Protesters will no longer be appeased by incremental reform. They want sweeping, systemic change.

Chileans took to the street in late October of 2019 with so much rage, passion and commitment that the movement earned the title of el estallido, the explosion. Peaceful protests quickly turned into violent clashes between demonstrators and police, leaving 30 dead and thousands wounded. The police’s violent crackdown did little to dissipate protests, which at times attracted as many as 1.2 million people and only began to wane after the onset of COVID-19.

At first, President Piñera brushed off protesters, claiming their destructive tactics rendered their pleas illegitimate. “This desire to destroy everything is not protest, it is crime,” he boldly proclaimed after a week of demonstrations.

Enraged by his dismissal, protesters expressed their fury through burned buildings, toppled streetlights, and sprawling destruction throughout Santiago, the capital. These explosive and sustained protests in Chile, which had been relatively stable for decades, attracted international attention, especially as police violence escalated. The UN issued a 30-page report detailing the torture, abuse and sexual assault committed by police against protesters, which attracted even more outcry from the international community in support of the various protest movements gaining traction in Chile. Piñera eventually acquiesced, agreeing in November of 2019 to hold a constitutional referendum.

After months of organized demonstrations, violent protests, police brutality and extreme political tension, protesters finally see a glimmer of hope for radical change. In a landslide referendum on October 25, Chileans voted to demolish the existing constitution and elect a body of representatives to negotiate its replacement.

According to protesters, the current constitution, which was drafted during Pinochet’s rule, allegedly perpetuates the inequalities and authoritarianism that defined Pinochet’s dictatorship. Pinochet and his supporters touted the document as a champion of free-market principles, the key to economic success. In a plebiscite in 1980, the document received 66% of the popular vote.

However, most Chileans who lived under Pinochet will attest to the climate of oppression, violence and fear that pressured citizens to vote against their interests. Pinochet had already banned political parties, enforced a heavy blanket of censorship and demonstrated his willingness to employ any means necessary  — arrest, torture, even murder — to silence dissidence.

Although Chile has been a democracy since 1990, many citizens argue that the current constitution has prevented the full actualization of democratic principles. Jorge Sharp, the mayor of Valparaiso and one of the foremost leftist representatives advocating for protesters, asserts that a document forged out of authoritarianism could never foster true democracy, and that “[r]ewriting the constitution is our chance to lay the foundation for a new society,” a new government that allows for all demographics to exercise their democratic rights. 

The binomial legislature that Chile inherited from Pinochet’s government fostered hyper-partisanship, allowing the center-left and center-right parties to become embroiled in their own economic debates and drift further away from the interests of their constituents. Realizing their elected officials would not address their concerns, such as health care reform, voters lost faith in their hard-won democracy and gradually stopped showing up at the polls. Even after replacing the two-party system with proportional representation, Chileans do not feel their voices are heard by the government and claim the interests of the top 1% continue to drown out the struggles of the majority.

For 30 years, the relic of Pinochet’s dictatorship has frustrated working-class Chileans’ endeavors toward upward mobility and, in many cases, attempts to keep their head above water. To international onlookers, 30 additional pesos (about 40 cents in USD) to take the metro may seem inconsequential, a necessary inconvenience for infrastructure upkeep, but for exasperated residents of Santiago, increasing fares signaled that their government remained either ignorant or apathetic of the working-class plight.

Originally scheduled for April of 2020, the referendum was postponed until October. In the intervening months, Chileans have become increasingly frustrated with the systemic inequalities that have characterized the past three decades. In an attempt to keep the national economy afloat, Piñera temporarily stalled all pension funds, which comprise the foundation of Chile’s current economic system. Despite Piñera’s efforts to curb the economic repercussions of the virus, the pandemic has caused a nationwide recession that has exacerbated socioeconomic inequality and food insecurity. Hungry and harried Chileans blame their government for mounting poverty, saying Piñera has provided “band-aids, not concrete solutions.”

In hopes of achieving more concrete solutions to these systemic issues, citizens flocked to the ballot box in October. In a sweeping victory, 78% of voters opted to scrap the Pinochet-era constitution and popularly elect a council of representatives to draft a new governing document.

When the news of the plebiscite’s results broke, tens of thousands of citizens celebrated in Santiago’s Plaza Italia, donning signs saying “Goodbye, General” and “Erasing your legacy will be our legacy.” Floating above the jubilance, neon lights on a nearby tower spelled out “rebirth,” a silent reminder of newfound national hope amidst booming fireworks and resounding cheers.

This referendum marks only the beginning of two long years of elections, negotiations and ongoing political tensions. In April 2021, citizens will vote on a 155-seat constitutional convention, which will consist of half men and half women, and include a mix of legislators and citizens. Constitutional representatives will then have a year to draft new proposals with a two-thirds majority of support.

Although citizens realize the lengthiness and difficulty of this process, they are buzzing with pride for their accomplishments and anticipation for all of the problems they intend to address. After electing representatives to the constitutional convention, discussions among the 155 delegates will likely focus on the rights of the Mapuche indigenous population, alternative strategies for collective bargaining, reevaluating water and land rights, improving privatized healthcare, revamping public education and redesigning pension plans. After drafting a new constitution, citizens will return to the polls and either choose to adopt this new Magna Carta or revert to Pinochet’s constitution. The outlook of a new constitution is still quite uncertain, and there is no consensus about how this representative council should address systemic inequalities. Nevertheless, political factions across the nation have begun to organize to elect representatives into the council. The only thing Chileans can agree on is that this referendum marks the beginning of their hard work toward lasting change.

In the months following the referendum, spokespeople for the protesters have already highlighted impending challenges in rewriting the constitution. Carolina Parraguez Pina, a Chilean constitutional lawyer, has drawn attention to the regulations that impede those without partisan affiliations from running for the constitutional candidacy. One rule requires candidates to acquire 0.4% of their district’s signatures before registering as a candidate, all of which must be on paper. In the time of COVID-19, requiring signatures on paper seems outdated, dangerous and designed to exclude candidates without preexisting funds or organization infrastructure.

Although Pina seeks to provide Chileans with a realistic impression of the challenges and limitations of the constitutional convention, she does not seek to diminish the successes of the referendum. “This new constitution may not be the most avant-garde, nor the most progressive, nor the most inclusive, nor the most beautiful in the world. But at least it will not be out of step with reality,” Pina asserts. A constitution that comes to fruition from the direct efforts of the people is still worth fighting for, she argues, even if it serves merely as the transition toward a more egalitarian and prosperous society.

Since the referendum and the resulting celebrations, demonstrations have subsided. In an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, Chileans have avoided large gatherings. Like most countries, Chile remains mostly preoccupied with the current public health crisis; however, preparations for the April 2021 election have continued. 

Chile’s congress established quotas for the constitutional council, requiring that half of all delegates be female and reserving 23 seats for indigenous representatives. The deadline for registration is January 11. Once the list of candidates has been established, candidates will likely ramp up their campaigns, especially as vaccines for COVID-19 become available.

The road ahead will be fraught with political tension, reluctant compromise and ongoing demonstrations. Chileans still disagree about how their nation should best approach legislative and economic reform, but for the first time since ousting Pinochet in 1988, Chileans made united strides toward sweeping, long-lasting government reform.

Since the protests first began in fall of 2019, 460 protesters have lost an eye in the maelstrom of tear gas and rubber bullets. Although they will never be able to regain their vision, undo the mutilation of their faces, or unlive the trauma of their injuries, many say that this victory has made their loss worthwhile.

Even while suffering from a burst eyeball and a fractured skull, one protester asserts: “I am now conquering my demons, fears and nightmares, because I cannot let impunity win over democracy.”

Ongoing public health threats, financial instability, pressure from the right-wing establishment and internal disputes among protest movements continue to threaten the success of a radically progressive constitution. But Chileans have never yet wavered in their fight for change since protests erupted over a year ago. This referendum, while it marks a change in the trajectory of social and economic reform in Chile, is only the beginning. Happiness again appears on the horizon, but Chileans must remain committed to the struggle to successfully transform this opportunity into lasting change.