8. A Progressive Wave in Latin America
Social movements catapulted three presidential candidates with strong inequality-fighting agendas to victory over the past year: Gustavo Petro in Colombia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and Gabriel Boric in Chile.
Petro recently scored a major triumph with the passage of a new law that will increase taxes on corporate profits and on coal and oil windfalls. Most notably, it will introduce a permanent progressive wealth tax. The government estimates this wealth tax will generate $319 million per year from the ultra-rich. In my colleague Omar Ocampo’s analysis, revenue could be far higher if the law’s new anti-evasion mechanisms prove effective.
Lula, the former trade union leader who will start his third stint as Brazil’s president in January, has vowed to scrap rigid spending caps so his government can prioritize fighting poverty and inequality. He’s also committed to raising taxes on the income and wealth of the country’s economic elites.
Former student movement leader Gabriel Boric had a challenging first year as Chile’s president. In September, voters rejected a constitutional reform that would’ve ushered in sweeping democratic, social, and economic changes in one of the world’s most unequal nations. But Boric — at 36, the world’s youngest national leader — has vowed to revive that reform process and advance key legislative priorities, including a wealth tax and increased levies on large…
