International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected the region’s output to drop by 8.1% in 2020, with only the eurozone suffering a bigger regional decline.
As a result, almost 15 million more Latin Americans will live in extreme poverty.The first explanation for the region’s underperformance that comes to mind is poor leadership.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro initially claimed that the pandemic was a media trick. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied for weeks that the coronavirus was a threat and continued to hug and shake hands with supporters, only to reverse course suddenly and impose a strict lockdown.