Unions at Antofagasta Minerals’ Centinela mine voted 98.73% in favour of a strike over equal pay, then took their protest to Santiago. Across the region, workers face unemployment, rising household costs and decisions made by central banks, courts and governments. The institutions set the terms; people on the receiving end are organizing, blocking roads and contesting who gets heard.
Who Sets the Rules
Brazil’s first-round election is scheduled for Sunday, 4 October. A Quaest runoff poll released Monday put President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro at 42% each. Datafolha’s poll on 24 September put Lula at 47% and Flávio at 45%, within the margin of error; a runoff is scheduled for 25 October if needed. Voters choose between candidates, but the electoral machinery also decides which political speech stays visible.
The Superior Electoral Court began hearing a case on Wednesday over false posts claiming Flávio Bolsonaro would strip Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil’s patron saint, of her title. The court formed a majority to keep offline posts that linked Flávio Bolsonaro or his family directly to the claim. Under the electoral code, authorities can’t arrest voters from Tuesday until 17:00 on 6 October, except when they catch them in the act. Officials administer the campaign’s boundaries and the protections around voting from above.
In Colombia, the central bank raised its policy rate by 25 basis points to 12.25% on Wednesday, against expectations of a hold. The vote was 4–2–1. Unemployment rose to 9.4% in August, DANE reported, against an 8.1% forecast and 8.6% a year earlier. The rate hit its highest level in 20 months. The government requested an IMF technical mission and discussed possible financing, while Carf projected a 2026 deficit of 7.8% of GDP, compared with the government’s 7.2% projection.
Who Pays, Who Pushes Back
Chile’s June–August unemployment reached 9.6%, its highest level since 2021, according to INE. The head of shipping line CSAV said labour reforms were costing US$4 billion. Industrial production fell 5.7% in August, and copper output dropped 12.8% to its lowest level in about 15 years. Against that backdrop, Centinela mine workers made equal pay the focus of a strike vote and carried their protest to the capital.
Colombia’s trucking association counted 2,841 road blockades over the past four years, with an estimated cost of about 12.7 trillion pesos, or US$3.8 billion. The figure puts a price on disruption without erasing the conflict behind it. A decree also banned imports made with forced labour. President Abelardo de la Espriella ordered Juan Guillermo Monsalve, a key witness in the Uribe case, transferred to the high-security Cómbita prison. Monsalve spent a short time in hospital, left and then went to Cómbita.
In Argentina, the Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for Javier Milei’s decree lifting limits on foreign ownership of rural land. Pensions rose 1.66% for October, rents under contracts adjusted every three months by the central bank’s ICL index rose 6.72%, and utility bills also changed. An Ámbito report said Milei’s image recovery was slowing because of wages, utility bills and household debt. Mining exports topped US$6 billion in eight months, helped by a 190% jump in lithium, while INDEC estimated residents held US$268.8 billion in foreign cash and deposits outside Argentina’s banks.
In Mexico, Hurricane Polo made landfall twice: first in Baja California Sur, then in Sonora. It flooded parts of Puerto San Carlos and closed schools in Sonora; no deaths were reported in Baja California Sur. On Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned 21 people and 25 entities linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, including Carlos Torres Torres, the ex-husband of Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila.
Markets and Official Measures
Brazil’s Ibovespa closed Wednesday up 1.37% at 186,340 points, and the real firmed 0.53% to 5.1743 per U.S. dollar. Mexico’s IPC fell 1.38% to 64,214 points, while the peso weakened 0.12% to 18.07 per U.S. dollar. Argentina’s Merval rose 1.32%; Colombia’s COLCAP fell 0.38% to 2,549 points after the rate decision, while the peso firmed 0.68% to 3,307.50 per U.S. dollar.
Mexico’s exports rose 40.4% in August to about US$78 billion, and shipments of electrical and electronic equipment more than doubled, according to INEGI data. Banxico Governor Victoria Rodríguez Ceja said Mexico needn’t mechanically follow the Federal Reserve; the policy rate was 6.50%. In Chile, retail trade grew 3.4% year on year in August, above a 2.0% forecast. These figures sit alongside unemployment, household bills and workers’ demands. Economic measures don’t land evenly.
Javier Milei was in Paris for an investment week, with a speech at the OECD and a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron scheduled for Thursday. The roundup also reported regional unease over Washington’s visa restrictions on officials and relatives in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, as well as discussion of the U.S.-backed Shield of the Americas. In Haiti, the electoral council warned parties against campaigning early for the 13 December vote; in the Dominican Republic, diesel prices rose again. Official decisions keep coming. So do the costs, and the people who refuse to absorb them quietly.