James Bosworth on the "Orange Wave" Happening Across Latin America
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.5 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We're living in an extraordinary moment for Latin American politics. From the ousting of Maduro to the ongoing oil blockade of Cuba to Javier Milei revving up a chainsaw at CPAC. Various leaders in different countries are taking different approaches to their relationship with the US. Each is aware that there is a high value in being close to Trump, but also each know that Trump won't be the US President forever. So how should we understand the different approaches being taken? Today we talk to James Bosworth, who is the the founder of Hxagon, a company that does political risk analysis and research primarily in Latin America. He is also the author the Latin America Risk Report newsletter. Our conversation with Bos covered what he calls the "orange shift," a region-wide realignment towards dealmaking with the Trump administration. We discuss how Latin American leaders are dealing with inflation, why Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele are so popular, how Brazil's Lula has surprised economic observers, and whether Trump will be able to find a "Delcy" elsewhere in the region.
Read more:
Brazil Oil Driller Expanding in Venezuela as US Eases Sanctions
Mexico Inflation Slows Slightly, Keeping Another Rate Cut in Play
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Bloomberg Audio Studios. |
| 0:04.9 | Podcasts Radio News. |
| 0:12.0 | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. |
| 0:22.5 | I'm Joe Wisenthall. |
| 0:23.7 | And I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 0:25.1 | Tracy, we're recording this April 7th, 1030 in the morning. |
| 0:29.3 | Of course, by the time this comes out, we have no idea what will be going on with the war in Iran. |
| 0:35.2 | But one reason we may be in the war in Iran in the first place is because of, frankly, |
| 0:42.3 | how smooth the operation went to remove Maduro and Trump found a sort of political partner |
| 0:49.6 | he can work with in the form of Delci Rodriguez in Venezuela. |
| 0:52.8 | Yes. |
| 0:53.6 | He seemed to enjoy getting access to a lot of |
| 0:57.1 | oil from Venezuela. And I guess the thinking is perhaps he tried to repeat that in Iran with so far varying |
| 1:03.7 | degrees of success. Yeah, maybe no success at all. Yes, I'm being facetious. You're perhaps generous. |
| 1:09.9 | But like this idea that's like, okay, remove Maduro and here is someone who was part of the government, it's like, okay, you know what, we're going to be friends with the Americans now, we're going to play ball, certainly don't want to, you know, the next in charge didn't want to end up with the same person, you know, it didn't want to end up in the same position. position. I almost Freudian slipped and said the same person. It didn't want to end up in the same position. I almost Freudian |
| 1:29.2 | slipped and said the same prison, though that would have also worked, but didn't want to end up |
| 1:34.2 | in the same position as Maduro. And so, okay, there's this sort of partnership. But it also |
| 1:39.1 | occurs to me, like, even setting this aside, doesn't it feel like we're in some sort of, I don't know, |
| 1:45.0 | the golden age is the right word, but there's so many iconic Latin American leaders right now. |
| 1:50.7 | So obviously you have Delcy and then you have Shinebaum and you have Javier Milley and you have |
| 1:57.0 | Lula and of course Buckele. |
| 1:59.5 | And so we sort of like are in a moment where there are several very high profile Latin |
... |
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