Latin America and the Caribbean will grow about 2.3% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund's October forecast, down from 2.5% in 2025. The Fund expects only a modest pickup to 2.5% in 2027, and the World Bank estimates a lower 2.2% for this year.

Latin America's economic history is a long argument with geography. The region has always been close to something valuable: first European demand for silver and sugar, later U.S. industry, and more recently China's appetite for copper, soybeans and oil. What it has rarely managed to do is turn that proximity into a durable increase in productivity.

I have followed Latin America's economy for more than two decades, and I keep returning to debt. It is not simply another economic indicator. It is the recurring character in every act, and influences what comes next.

Latin America has lived through a long economic odyssey marked by cycles of boom and bust, with recurring promises of transformation that have not kept pace with the progress the region needs.

Latin America is stuck in what the United Nations' Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, known as ECLAC, calls a "low-growth-capacity trap."