Recommended Weekend Reads

How Maduro’s Capture Puts Cuba at an Inflection Point, Mexico’s Morena Party is Floundering, The Iranian Regime Will Break – Then What Happens?, and the Geography of Science  

January 23 - 25, 2026

Below are a number of reports and articles we read this past week and found particularly interesting.  Hopefully, you will find them interesting and useful as well.  Have a great weekend. 

The Americas

• The Geopolitics of Maduro’s Capture: Cuba’s Inflection Point   Christopher Hernandez-Roy/Center for Strategic and International Studies

  The release of the US 2025 National Security Strategy that declared a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, along with the early January U.S. military action in Venezuela, is altering political calculations across the Western Hemisphere, with deep implications for Cuba. The January 3, 2026, military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and bring him to the United States to face terrorism charges, and the subsequent coercive management of the remaining Chavista regime, is a signal to the region that challenges long-standing assumptions about U.S. restraint, regime durability, change, and the use of external pressure in Latin America. Rather than pursuing traditional regime change centered on rapid democratization or wholesale dismantling of authoritarian systems, the United States has demonstrated a willingness to employ coercive power to manage regimes—controlling their behavior, extracting concessions, and preserving sufficient institutional continuity to avoid collapse.

• Mexico’s mighty left-wing government is floundering    The Economist

  Mexico’s Morena Party has no serious rivals in Mexico. The party has dominated Mexican politics. Together with its allies, it controls 24 of Mexico’s 32 states. It holds supermajorities in both legislative houses, more than two-thirds of the seats in each. It draws comparisons with the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico as a one-party state for seven decades until 2000.  But under Morena, Mexico has no money. Its economic growth has long lagged behind that of its neighbors in Latin America and comparable emerging economies in Asia, but the Morena years have been the most sluggish in a quarter-century. The IMF thinks the economy will grow by 1.5% in 2026, about half the Latin American average. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Plan México, a flagship development strategy, is faltering: in 2025, investment reached 22% of GDP, short of the 25% target. With weak growth and little sign of a turnaround, few believe the government can maintain expansive welfare payments until the end of her term, in 2030.

• Sheinbaum’s Cuba policy is testing Washington’s patience     Washington Post

  At a moment of extraordinary tension in the U.S.-Mexico relationship, the Mexican government is choosing to remain Cuba’s oil lifeline. For decades, Venezuela filled that role, sending up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day at the height of Hugo Chávez’s rule. In recent years, as Venezuela’s oil output faltered, Mexico has stepped up. According to industry data, it became the top supplier of oil to Cuba last year — well before the ouster of Nicolás Maduro.  While the Trump administration has not publicly detailed its full strategy toward Cuba, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signaled that the U.S. intends to bypass the Cuban government and direct assistance toward the Cuban people. Some members of Congress say Mexico’s approach points in the opposite direction.

• Delcy Rodríguez and the Architecture of Venezuela’s Kleptocracy    Felix Maradiaga Substack

  According to an investigative report recently written by “Transparency International Venezuela in Exile” under the title “Delcy Rodríguez se blindó para la era post Maduro,”  Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez has been a central operating executive within the machinery that turned a nation’s wealth into private enrichment, political leverage, and international bargaining chips.  The report notes that the Venezuelan vice presidency under Rodríguez, she received a staggering share of the national budget—40% in 2024 and 44% in 2025—concentrating extraordinary spending discretion around Rodríguez’s office.

  
  The Iranian Uprising

• How the Iranian Regime Breaks        Foreign Affairs

  Over the last few weeks, the Iranian regime has faced remarkable challenges—and displayed remarkable unity. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to protest the Islamic Republic in what has become the most significant internal challenge the state has faced in its 47-year history. But the elite has not yet fractured. Instead of squabbling over how to handle the demonstrations, Iran’s reformist and hardline leaders have worked together to suppress them. To date, none of the regime’s elites objected to the killings of thousands of innocent civilians by security forces. In fact, figures from across the political spectrum have all outwardly (and falsely) blamed the violence on foreign infiltrators.  But behind the scenes, the picture is undoubtedly more tense. Unless they exclusively watch state television and believe their own false narratives, Iranian officials understand that the domestic system is under existential stress.

• Iran’s Uprising: What’s the endgame?     Brookings Institution Podcast

  In recent days, the Iranian regime has conducted an unprecedented and bloody crackdown on protests across Iran. In this episode, Brookings Fellow Aslı Aydıntaşbaş is joined by two Iran experts, vice president of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney and visiting fellow Mara Karlin, to discuss the unique nature of the protests and the regime’s violent response, options for U.S. military action, and President Trump’s possible endgame.

• Iran’s coming reckoning: Regime collapse is likely — democracy is not    Middle East Institute

  Since tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in protest and then experienced intense and gruesome repression by state security forces, the question is now: what next?   Much will depend on four factors: 1) Foreign intervention 2) The behavior of the opposition 3) Information control and connectivity, and 4) Elite dynamics within the regime itself.   But, as the author argues, the Islamic Republic as we know it cannot endure. However, its collapse or transformation does not guarantee liberation. What Iran is entering is not a revolution’s endgame but a dangerous interregnum — one in which brutality has proven effective, legitimacy has evaporated, and the future remains profoundly contested.  But, as the author makes clear, the Islamic Republic as we know it cannot endure.

  Geoeconomics

• The Hollow Dollar?    Alexander Evans/The British Academy & Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

  Abstract: This paper explores whether the US dollar’s dominance in global finance – long a pillar of American geopolitical influence – is being quietly eroded. While the dollar remains the world’s primary reserve currency, its centrality in international payments is increasingly contested. The weaponization of the dollar, particularly through sanctions and the extraterritorial reach of the New York banking license, has prompted strategic responses from states such as China, Russia, and India. These strategic responses include the development of alternative payment systems, local currency trade settlements, and digital infrastructure. The paper argues that a ‘hollowing’ of the dollar’s infrastructural dominance is underway – (perhaps very) gradual, partial, but geopolitically significant. This shift may not end dollar supremacy, but it could fragment the global financial system, weaken US sanctions leverage, and diminish the centrality of New York and London as financial hubs. The implications for global order are subtle but potentially profound. A less dollar-dependent system may facilitate a more multipolar world yet diminish liberal democratic power.

• The Geography of Science    Abhishek Nagaraj & Randol Yao/

  Abstract: Science has long been concentrated in the Western world, but the global research landscape is undergoing a profound reorganization. Using data on 44 million publications from 1980 to 2022, we document the geography of science in terms of who produces it, what it studies, and where it diffuses. The share of publications produced in the United States has fallen from 40% in 1980 to 15% in 2022, while China’s share has risen from near-zero to 32%. This pattern extends even to elite outlets, with China now producing over 35% of top-journal publications. Notably, this is driven not only by an expanding researcher base but also—to a large extent—by increases in individual productivity. Similar to China, other middle- and low-income countries (including India, Russia, and Brazil) have also expanded output producing as much research as high-income European Union countries combined (about 21% overall), but they remain underrepresented in top-tier journals. Overall, our findings highlight both the democratization and fragmentation of global science, raising important questions about the future of the global scientific enterprise.

• The Macroeconomic Consequences of Capital Constraints   Office of Financial Research, US Treasury Department

  Abstract: This working paper quantifies the effect that regulatory capital requirements have on bank lending and real economic activity. Exploiting a change in capital requirements by the Federal Reserve at the onset of the pandemic recession, it establishes causally that looser requirements increased the ability for banks to extend credit to consumers. On average, banks that received relatively more balance sheet space from the policy change passed this along to their customers in the form of relatively higher credit limits from Q2 2020 to Q1 2021. This also led to relatively higher credit card borrowing among these customers. Using a general equilibrium quantitative model calibrated to match the empirical findings, the paper shows that absent the Federal Reserve policy change, consumption would have fallen by an extra 2.7% in the three years following the pandemic recession. Motivated by these estimates, this paper evaluates the efficacy of countercyclical capital requirements and finds that such policy could lower consumption volatility over the business cycle by as much as 12%.

• Macroeconomic Implications of Immigration Flows in 2025 and 2026: January 2026 Update  The Brookings Institution

  Abstract: The first year of the second Trump administration has seen dramatic changes in immigration policy, resulting in a sharp slowdown in net migration to the United States. Building on work released in late 2024 and mid-2025, we use available data combined with judgment to estimate a range of likely outcomes for net migration for the years 2025 and 2026. We conclude that net migration was likely close to zero or negative over calendar year 2025 for the first time in at least half a century.  Specifically, we estimate that net migration was between –295,000 and -10,000 for the year. For 2026, we project net migration is likely to remain in negative territory.  The downward pressure on population stemming from negative net migration has important implications for the macroeconomy. In recent years, growth in the U.S.-born working-age population has been weak, and nearly all growth in the labor force has stemmed from immigration flows.