Special Commentary:

COVID-19: Shaping a Sicker, Poorer, 

More Violent, and Unstable Western Hemisphere

May 15, 2020 | Dr. R. Evan Ellis

The COVID-19 pandemic will have profound and enduring negative effects on Latin America 

and the Caribbean, significantly impacting the security, interests, and strategic position of the 

United States. Department of Defense and other US senior leaders should begin planning now to 

mitigate or manage the consequences.

The effects of COVID-19 on Latin America and the Caribbean, as in many other parts of the 

developing world, will be far more significant than is commonly anticipated for two reasons. 

First, the virus will likely play out across the region over an extended length of time owing to a 

variety of factors discussed later. Second, the pandemic’s mutually reinforcing health, economic, 

social, and political effects will combine to wreak far more havoc than anticipated in analyses 

that only consider disease propagation or effects on commerce. Together, these two dynamics of 

COVID-19 will leave a Latin America that is far sicker, poorer, beset by crime, violence, social 

unrest, and political instability than today. It will also leave a region with expanded People’s 

Republic of China (PRC) commercial presence and political influence, even while being more 

resentful of it.

MORE PROTRACTED, DEBILITATING HEALTH EFFECTS THAN ANTICIPATED

The public health crisis wrought by COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean will not 

disappear with the reopening of the region’s economies. It will likely extend for a year or more

and be even more debilitating than now anticipated. The great density of commerce-related 

human interactions between the PRC, Europe, and the United States caused the pandemic to 

take off there far more rapidly than in Latin America and other parts of the less-developed 

world. The curfews, quarantines, border closures, and other measures adopted by some Latin 

American countries, as they witnessed the virus ravage Europe and the United States, delayed 

its spread and created the illusion that it would not affect the region as badly. Such hopes were 

mistaken.
COVID-19 is just now beginning to explode in Latin America and the Caribbean. By May 7, 

the region had over three hundred thousand confirmed cases, and seventeen thousand deaths. 

Countries such as Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, and even Bolivia, Chile, and Colombia, are

suffering significant numbers of cases and accelerating rates of lethality. On May 13, Mexico and 

Brazil recorded record numbers of deaths, while Peru, with 76,306 cases, recorded a massive 

jump of 4,247 cases in a single day. The onset of winter in the Southern Hemisphere may 

further exacerbate the spread in more temperate climates there, including Uruguay and the 

south of Chile and Argentina.

The disease may ultimately spread further, and last longer, in Latin America than elsewhere 

for a number of reasons. The relative normalcy of physical contact in business and social 

interactions, combined with many economically vulnerable “informal” workers who must leave 

their homes to make a living, and small businesses that will go bankrupt if they stay closed, 

makes social distancing measures and business shutdowns less effective and less sustainable 

than in the West. Indeed, some countries in the region are already relaxing COVID-19 related 

restrictions and reopening businesses even as the rate of infections continues to climb. In Brazil, 

as six states reported demand for intensive care unit beds and services had exceeded supply, 

Minister of the Economy Paulo Guedes warned of an economic collapse in Brazil within thirty

days if commercial activity was not resumed.

Limited testing and contact tracing capabilities, and the sparse implementation of such 

measures by some governments, impedes knowledge of who is infected and where social 

distancing measures can safely be lifted. Because it will also be some time before effective 

vaccines are tested and distributed throughout the region, and because the virus may continue 

to mutate during this time, COVID-19 will likely continue to break out, and then die down again, 

in different parts of the region for some time.

The takeoff of the virus in Venezuela provides an apt example. Venezuela’s government has 

almost no capacity to test for COVID-19 and lacks any semblance of transparency. The country 

also suffers from a collapsed healthcare system that lacks even the most basic medical and 

hygiene supplies (including regular access to running water and electricity). Even if current 

numbers of infected in Venezuela are as low as reported, tens of thousands of Venezuelans are 

currently returning home from neighboring countries where infection rates are higher, and 

some will bring COVID-19 with them into Venezuela.

The weakened state of millions of Venezuelans, without adequate access to food and 

necessities, and their movement in often crowded, unsanitary conditions across the country and 

to neighboring countries, will serve as a transmittal mechanism for accelerating the spread of 

the virus throughout the region. This migration will sew sociopolitical conflicts along the way as 

local populations see Venezuelans as a dual threat—potentially carrying the disease and 

competing with local populations for scarce healthcare and other services.

Amidst a backdrop of the widespread persistence of the virus across the region, its lethality 

will likely be far greater than in the United States and Europe due to the relative shortage of 
intensive care unit and other hospital beds and equipment (e.g., ventilators) for treating 

seriously ill patients. As the crisis stretches out in time, it will increasingly expose the 

shortcomings of the public health sector in the region. The limited number of medical 

personnel, and the limited resources of governments in the region to correct such deficiencies, 

will increase the entire population’s vulnerability to infection over a year or more. The relative 

youth of the region, however, means that COVID-19 will kill not just the elderly, but also an 

important portion of the current and future workforce.

ENDURING ECONOMIC DISTORTIONS AND IMPAIRED GOVERNMENT 

PERFORMANCE

The International Monetary Fund predicts that Latin America’s gross domestic product will 

contract by 5.2 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic, devastating the region’s already weak 

economies. Even more important than the anticipated contraction, COVID-19 may produce 

devastating long-term economic effects in the region, including enduring changes to the 

structure of economies as well as a loss of resources available to states for effective governance. 

Governments already facing high debt levels will be unable to continue borrowing enormous 

sums to fund programs protecting small businesses and workers, particularly if disease 

outbreaks and associated restrictions on human and commercial interaction extend into 2021 . 

The harm to businesses and the informal sector, as well as the loss of tax revenue to 

governments, could worsen by continuing low demand for their exports and decreased tourism 

revenues from the United States and the European Union.

Amidst protracted malaise and fiscal limits in the ability of governments to help, a 

significant portion of temporarily closed small businesses is likely to disappear permanently 

through bankruptcy. Similarly, vulnerable Latin America-based financial institutions may also 

consolidate, compounding the liquidity crisis faced by Latin American businesses.

Manufacturing in the region, such as the automotive sector in Mexico and Brazil, is likely to 

be particularly hard hit by continuing weak demand for goods both domestically and in export 

markets. While some sectors such as agricultural exports, mining, and petroleum may rebound 

with resumed PRC and global demand, the permanent contraction of other sectors—including 

small and medium businesses, manufacturing, and tourism—will eliminate an important part of 

the economic base sustaining the region’s middle class and impose severe pressures on the 

region’s social fabric.

Beyond the economic effect, the combination of reduced government revenue streams and 

greatly increased debt service will oblige governments to cut spending, even more than during 

debt crises of the twentieth century, on everything from social and infrastructure programs to 

the military and national security. In some cases, such as Argentina, governments may default 

on their debts, locking them out of Western credit markets. Some countries may then turn to the 

PRC for new lending, agreeing to conditions which dramatically expand PRC influence. Such 
agreements effectively redirect a sizeable portion of economic activities to benefit Chinese rather 

than host-nation companies in exchange for short-term relief.

EXPANDING CRIMINALITY AND VIOLENCE

The enduring disappearance of tens of millions of jobs across the region, and the 

evaporation of opportunities in the informal sector, is likely to push a portion of the greatly 

expanded mass of desperate persons into criminal acts and make them vulnerable to 

recruitment by criminal groups. At the same time, gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha (commonly 

known as MS-13), Barrio 18, and other territorially focused criminal groups may seek new 

revenue streams and become more aggressive as traditional sources of illicit income—such as 

extorting nightclubs and small shops—are limited by social distancing measures and depressed 

economic activity. 

Other criminal groups such as drug cartels, human traffickers, smugglers, money 

launderers, and illegal miners will also be adversely affected as the enduring shutdown of 

borders makes revenue-generating smuggling activities more complicated and disrupts supply 

chains. Indeed, the supply chain for fentanyl and precursor chemicals for synthetic drugs from 

the PRC to Latin America has already been affected. Illegal mining will be affected by everything 

from possible difficulties in obtaining mercury, to the devastation of their workforce with 

disease transmission through unregulated prostitution and unsanitary, crowded living 

conditions. 

In other ways, COVID-19 may expand criminal opportunities, including for contraband 

medicine and equipment, cybercrime, and the robbery, extortion or embezzling of COVID-19 

related aid. The pandemic will similarly give criminal groups new opportunities to enhance their 

control over local populations by handing out food, medicine, and other needed goods or 

enforcing curfews in areas they dominate, as has occurred in Mexico and Brazil. Increased 

common crime, recruitment opportunities for criminal groups, and pressures on those groups to 

adapt their behavior and expand into new territories and revenue streams, will likely increase 

insecurity and violence.

Police and other security services will be ill equipped to respond. On one hand, with the 

continuing threat of contagion, they will be hard pressed to engage in the close-contact 

community policing necessary to combat the expanded crime and violence. At the same time, 

their limited resources will probably continue to be diverted to respond to the pandemic itself: 

enforcing curfews and maintaining checkpoints, helping to deliver or providing security for 

deliveries of medical equipment, food, and eventually, vaccinations. As noted previously, debthobbled governments will have few additional resources for security forces to aid them in 

performing their expanded responsibilities. 
TAKEOFF IN SOCIAL UNREST AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY

As restrictions on human interaction are lifted in Latin America, the social unrest that began 

to sweep the region in the fall of 2019 is likely to reappear on a far greater scale. Mass protests 

that shook Ecuador, Chile, and to a lesser degree Colombia, reflected the hardships of the region

and the widespread discontent with government performance in addressing them. Although 

COVID-19 temporarily suppressed such protests, it also greatly expanded those hardships and 

causes for discontent with governments. The new grievances include the ongoing public health

crisis, mass unemployment, evaporation of businesses, and likely expansion of crime and 

violence in the coming months. Dissatisfaction with governments for their response to the crisis

includes several cross-cutting issues. Anger over the economic damage inflicted by shutdowns is 

amplified by perceived violations of rights and liberties and excesses in restricting the 

movement of persons. Alternatively, others seethe over lives lost due to the government’s 

perceived slowness in imposing shutdowns, the perceived inadequacies in the public health 

system in confronting the crisis, inefficiencies in the government’s response, and corruption 

associated with emergency spending on both medical goods and social protection programs. 

The previous round of mass social protests that shook Latin America were enabled in part by 

social media. Given the expansion of virtual connectivity that COVID-19-related social 

distancing has obliged, these social media tools will probably play an even greater role in the 

spread of the new round of mass mobilizations.

EXPANSION OF CHINESE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INFLUENCE

The biggest winner as the crisis in Latin America deepens is likely to be the PRC. As occurred 

during the global economic crisis in 2008, the PRC will likely expand its commercial presence 

and political influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. The PRC is emerging from the 

pandemic crisis more rapidly than the United States and the West. Chinese companies will be 

well positioned, with the help of PRC government and financial partners, to expand their role in 

global supply chains, acquiring the strategic assets that bankrupted or distressed local and 

Western companies will seek to sell. 

The PRC’s expanding commercial presence in the region, and associated assertiveness in 

protecting its interests there, will generate frictions with local workers, businesses, and 

politicians, just as it did after 2008. Such frictions will feed off and reinforce existing distrust 

and resentment toward the PRC, including the perception that its secrecy and mismanagement 

of the response to COVID-19 substantially contributed to the pandemic.

At the same time, expanded PRC economic and political leverage will help it to suppress

open discussion of such grievances among politicians, businessmen, and scholars in the region. 

Additionally, the PRC will benefit to some degree from its donations of testing kits, medical 

equipment, personal protective gear, and other needed goods. Governments in the region will 

also perceive, as in 2008, that PRC loans, investments, and resumption of demand for primary 
products and foodstuffs is a desperately needed economic lifeline as demand from Western 

purchasers, investors, and lenders remains limited. Some in Latin America will see the PRC’s 

emergence from the pandemic relatively sooner than Western governments as evidence that the 

PRC’s state-led authoritarian approach to governance is superior. Despite this model running 

roughshod on numerous rights and freedoms, it may appear better able to protect citizen health 

and welfare, and avoid other risks of the global interdependent economy, than the more chaotic 

Western model of democracy and free markets.

POLITICAL CHANGE

The reinforcing effect of the health, economic, and public security crises in the region, the 

reemergence of mass protests, and the new economic and political dynamics afforded by the 

PRC’s expanded presence will transform politics in the region. Not only may many governments 

change, but parties, movements and ideological cleavages may shift dramatically, too. COVID-19

will drive a reexamination of the fundamental responsibilities of government and the standards 

on which regimes should be judged. It will also cause reconsideration of the appropriate balance

between rights, liberties, and opportunities versus citizen health, economic, and physical 

security. Even more than in prior eras, beleaguered Latin American and Caribbean citizens may 

consider more favorably authoritarian models, such as the PRC’s, which seem to offer some level 

of social order and economic stability, for the price of rights and liberties traditionally seen as 

inviolable in the West.

CONCLUSIONS

The deterioration of conditions likely to occur in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 

coming year will present significant challenges to US interests and strategic positions in 

multiple areas and in many ways (via US physical, commercial, and human connectivity to the 

region). The protracted health crisis in the region will threaten new outbreaks of the pandemic 

in the United States through the many people who regularly cross the US border for commerce, 

work, tourism, and family ties. The economic crisis in the region will impact US businesses 

operating there, including those that rely on production facilities in Mexico, Central America, 

the Caribbean, and elsewhere. Bankruptcies, supply chain interruptions, and defaults in the 

region will also affect US investors and bondholders.

Beyond such business and supply chain effects, the crisis, and the associated expansion of 

criminality and violence in the region, will create pressures for expanded migration to the 

United States on an unprecedented scale. Expanded illicit activities such as narcotics, goods, 

human trafficking, and weapons smuggling will involve criminal groups in the United States as 

well as those in the region. The weakening of governance in Latin America and the Caribbean 

will create expanded sanctuary for terrorists and provide them opportunity to plan and conduct 

operations against the United States from the region. As these worrisome dynamics play out, the 
political upheaval in the region, combined with the expanded PRC presence and influence, will 

decrease US latitude to work with beleaguered partners there to combat such threats.

Insofar as the crisis is likely to continue through the coming year, whoever is in the Oval 

Office on January 20, 2021, will be obliged to make fundamental policy decisions about 

protecting the United States from the threats from the region (and elsewhere). Such protection 

could come via significantly expanding controls over the flows of people, goods, and money with 

the region to achieve for the United States greater commercial self-sufficiency and diversity of 

supply. But, sound policy must also consider working with the region on an unprecedented scale 

to strengthen its governance, security, human and commercial health, in order to reestablish 

together a hemisphere that is more secure and prosperous for all.

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The views expressed in this Special Commentary piece are those of the author and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department 

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