Pink tide
The pink tide, or the turn to the left, is a political wave and turn towards left-wing governments in Latin America throughout the 21st century. As a term, both phrases are used in political analysis in the news media and elsewhere to refer to a move toward more economically progressive or socially progressive policies in the region. Such governments have been referred to as "left-of-centre", "left-leaning", and "radical social-democratic". They are also members of the São Paulo Forum, a conference of left-wing political parties and other organizations from the Americas.
The Latin American countries viewed as part of this ideological trend have been referred to as pink tide nations, with the term post-neoliberalism or socialism of the 21st century also being used to describe the movement. Elements of the movement have included a rejection of the Washington Consensus. At the same time, some pink tide governments, such as those of Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, have been varyingly characterized as being anti-American, prone to populism, as well as authoritarian, particularly in the case of Nicaragua and Venezuela by the 2010s, although many others remained democratic.
The pink tide was followed by the conservative wave, a political phenomenon that emerged in the early 2010s as a direct reaction to the pink tide. Some authors have proposed that there are multiple distinct pink tides rather than a single one, with the first pink tide happening during the late 1990s and early 2000s and a second pink tide encompassing the elections of the late 2010s to early 2020s. A resurgence of the pink tide was kicked off by Mexico in 2018 and Argentina in 2019 and further established by Bolivia in 2020, along with Peru, Honduras, and Chile in 2021, and then Colombia and Brazil in 2022, with Colombia electing the first left-wing president in their history. In 2023, centre-left Bernardo Arévalo secured a surprise victory in Guatemala. In 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum won the Mexican presidency in a landslide, a continuation of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's left-wing government, and Yamandú Orsi's victory in Uruguay marked a return to power for the Broad Front. However, during the mid-2020s the second pink-tide has been dissipating, with countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras and Panama, electing right-leaning governments, leading to some believing a "second conservative wave" is now ongoing. The new trend was cemented by the strikes on Venezuela and the capture of president Nicolas Maduro in January 2026, along with threats from US president Donald Trump towards Colombian president Gustavo Petro.
History
Rise of the left: 1990s and 2000s
Following the third wave of democratization in the 1980s, the institutionalisation of electoral competition in Latin America opened up the possibility for the left to ascend to power. For much of the region's history, formal electoral contestation excluded leftist movements, first through limited suffrage and later through military intervention and repression during the second half of the 20th century. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War changed the geopolitical environment, as many revolutionary movements vanished, and the left embraced the core tenets of capitalism. In turn, the United States no longer perceived leftist governments as a security threat, creating a political opening for the left.In the 1990s, as the Latin American elite no longer feared a communist takeover of their assets, the left exploited this opportunity to solidify their base, run for local offices, and gain experience governing on the local level. At the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, the region's initial unsuccessful attempts with the neoliberal policies of privatisation, cuts in social spending, and foreign investment left countries with high levels of unemployment, inflation, and rising social inequality.
This period saw increasing numbers of people working in the informal economy and suffering material insecurity, and ties between the working classes and the traditional political parties weakening, resulting in a growth of mass protest against the negative social effects of these policies, such as the piqueteros in Argentina, and in Bolivia indigenous and peasant movements rooted among small coca farmers, or cocaleros, whose activism culminated in the Bolivian gas conflict of the early-to-mid 2000s. The left's social platforms, which were centered on economic change and redistributive policies, offered an attractive alternative that mobilized large sectors of the population across the region, who voted leftist leaders into office.
File:Mandatario, Rafael Correa expresa su total apoyo a Manuel Zelaya durante la reunión de Jefes de Estado del ALBA en Nicaragua.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|ALBA was founded by left-wing populist leaders such as Nicaraguan revolutionary Daniel Ortega, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and Bolivian president Evo Morales.
The pink tide was led by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who was elected into the presidency in 1998. National policies among the left in Latin America are divided between the styles of Chávez and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as the latter not only focused on those affected by inequality but also catered to private enterprises and global capital. Lucio Gutiérrez imitated Chávez, staged a coup d'état in 2000 and was elected in 2002 on a leftist platform but by 2003, the Indigenist Pachakutik and CONAIE withdrew their support seeing him as a traitor and in 2005, protests led to his removal from power. In 2006, Rafael Correa was elected president. In Bolivia, Evo Morales unexpectedly came second in the 2002 presidential election and was elected by a large margin in 2005. In 2006, Daniel Ortega returned to power in Nicaragua.
Commodities boom and growth
With the difficulties facing emerging markets across the world at the time, Latin Americans turned away from liberal economics and elected leftist leaders who had recently turned toward more democratic processes. The popularity of such leftist governments relied upon by their ability to use the 2000s commodities boom to initiate populist policies, such as those used by the Bolivarian government in Venezuela. According to Daniel Lansberg, this resulted in "high public expectations in regard to continuing economic growth, subsidies, and social services". With China becoming a more industrialized nation at the same time and requiring resources for its growing economy, it took advantage of the strained relations with the United States and partnered with the leftist governments in Latin America. South America in particular initially saw a drop in inequality and a growth in its economy as a result of Chinese commodity trade.As the prices of commodities lowered into the 2010s, coupled with welfare overspending with little savings by pink tide governments, policies became unsustainable and supporters became disenchanted, eventually leading to the rejection of leftist governments. Analysts state that such unsustainable policies were more apparent in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela, who received Chinese funds without any oversight. As a result, some scholars have stated that the pink tide's rise and fall was "a byproduct of the commodity cycle's acceleration and decadence".
Some pink tide governments, such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, allegedly ignored international sanctions against Iran, allowing the Iranian government access to funds bypassing sanctions as well as resources such as uranium for the Iranian nuclear program.
End of commodity boom and decline: 2010s
The US government said Chávez had "dreams of continental domination", was a threat to his own people. According to Michael Reid writing in the Council on Foreign Relations magazine, Foreign Affairs, Chávez' regional influence peaked in 2007 and interest in him waned after Venezuela's dependence on oil revenue led it into an economic crisis and he grew increasingly authoritarian.In 2009, Honduran president Manuel Zelaya who started off as centre-right but moved to the left was removed in a coup d'état.
The death of Chávez in 2013 left the most radical wing without a clear leader as Nicolás Maduro did not have the international influence and prestige of his predecessor. Chinese trade and loans, which were more favourable than those provided by the International Monetary Fund, resulted in economic growth, a steep fall in poverty, a decline in extreme income inequality, and a swelling of the middle class in South America. By the mid-2010s, Chinese investment in Latin America began to decline.
By 2015, the shift away from the left became more pronounced in Latin America, with The Economist saying the pink tide had ebbed, and Vice News stating that 2015 was "The Year the 'Pink Tide' Turned". In the 2015 Argentine general election, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's favoured candidate for the presidency Daniel Scioli was defeated by his centre-right opponent Mauricio Macri, against a background of rising inflation, reductions in GDP, and declining prices for soybeans, which was a key export for the country, leading to falls in public revenues and social spending.
Shortly afterwards, the corruption scandal surrounding Petrobras engulfed Brazilian politics and led to the impeachment of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, culminating in her removal from office. In Ecuador, retiring president Rafael Correa's successor was his vice-president, Lenín Moreno, who took a narrow victory in the 2017 Ecuadorian general election, a win that received a negative reaction from the business community at home and abroad. However, after his election, Moreno shifted his positions rightwards and sidelined Correa's allies, resulting in Correa branding his former deputy "a traitor" and "a wolf in sheep's clothing".
By 2016, the decline of the pink tide saw an emergence of a "new right" in Latin America, with The New York Times stating "Latin America's leftist ramparts appear to be crumbling because of widespread corruption, a slowdown in China's economy and poor economic choices", with the newspaper elaborating that leftist leaders did not diversify economies, had unsustainable welfare policies and disregarded democratic behaviors. In mid-2016, the Harvard International Review stated that "South America, a historical bastion of populism, has always had a penchant for the left, but the continent's predilection for unsustainable welfarism might be approaching a dramatic end."
Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro was elected in Brazil in 2018 Brazilian general election, providing Brazil with its most right-wing government since the military dictatorship.