Latin America: In the Shadow of the US | Ep 3 – Chaos

Populism, foreign intervention, and fierce internal struggles: this concluding episode sees 21st-century power struggles transform Latin America. It follows the “pink tide” from Hugo Chavez’s 1998 victory in Venezuela through new leaders like Brazil’s Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and Bolivia’s Evo Morales to the arrival of a new kind of Argentinian woman president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. This was an era of corruption scandals, drug-trafficking, migration crises, and dramatic turns such as Brazil’s polarising swing from Lula to Jair Bolsonaro and back again. It was also a new age of United States interference, from the US’s backing of Alvaro Uribe’s hardline strategies in Colombia to its January 2026 attack on Venezuela and its abduction of President Nicolas Maduro.

Now, as Chinese influence grows and Washington’s rhetoric hardens, answers to the question “What path lies ahead for Latin America?” must also consider the pressures on democracy exerted by autocrats, militias, and resurgent authoritarian populism.

Bringing together first-hand testimony, expert insight, and rare archives, this film reflects on how Latin America’s destiny seems bound to US ambition – yet driven by its own immensely complicated politics of survival, dreams of justice and stability, and peace.