On Feb. 28, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party won a supermajority in Congress, making Bukele his country’s most powerful elected leader in decades. Critics immediately expressed grave concerns over what the young, popular and imperious president would do with such power. Bukele proved them right.

On Saturday, in its first meeting as a newly instituted legislature, El Salvador’s National Assembly trampled over the country’s constitution. In a clear breach of due process, it ousted five magistrates from the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber and replaced them, without proper debate, with judges more to the government’s liking. The assembly then proceeded to abruptly remove Attorney General Raúl Melara.

Reaction was swift. “Bukele has broken with the rule of law,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch. Both Vice President Harris and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), condemned the power grab. “Democratic governance requires respecting the separation of powers, for the good of all Salvadorans,” tweeted Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Bukele didn’t take criticism well. “We are cleaning house, and this does not concern you,” he tweeted. These antics will continue. Bukele’s “allies have already announced that there will be more dismissals through the same legislative route,” wrote journalist Oscar Martínez.

For the Biden administration, Bukele’s coup adds to an increasing list of complex challenges in Latin America.

In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has undermined the separation of powers by attempting to use his own legislative majority to expand the term of the country’s top magistrate, a move widely seen as unconstitutional. Not unlike Bukele in El Salvador, López Obrador has attacked Mexico’s democratic institutions, most recently targeting the country’s independent electoral authority.

Nicaragua and Honduras have been cause for concern for some time now. Meanwhile, Colombia is a powder keg. The government’s ruthless response to massive dissent against a proposed tax hike has left at least 20 people dead and more than 800 injured. During the protests, local nongovernmental organizations documented more than 1,000 instances of police brutality, including examples of guns being fired into the crowd. President Iván Duque has backtracked on the proposed tax reforms, but the country remains on edge.

Under Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil is living a tragedy. Bolsonaro’s response to the pandemic has been deemed “the worst in the world” — and rightly so. The far-right president’s insolence and cruelty are unmatched. Bolsonaro is now being investigated over his handling of the crisis. This, while deforestation of the Amazon continues at a heartbreaking, relentless pace: Under Bolsonaro, the Amazon lost 4,000 square miles between 2019 and 2020 alone.

The headaches don’t end there. In just a few weeks, Peru will hold a second round of voting to choose its next president. The June 6 election will match Keiko Fujimori, the controversial daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori, with Pedro Castillo, a Marxist rural teacher who gained recognition after the 2017 magisterial protests and shot to national prominence after unexpectedly winning the first round of voting in April. Religious and conservative, Castillo is both a cipher and a controversial figure.

“If Castillo wins the second round, it would be a real catastrophe for Peru,” said Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. “Peru has to avoid the catastrophe that is Venezuela.” While it remains to be seen if Peru will avoid becoming Venezuela, it looks increasingly unlikely that it will avoid Castillo, who leads polls by nine points.

For the Biden administration, engagement in Latin America is unavoidable. It should, of course, tread carefully. Often careless and sometimes murderous, American foreign policy has left justified historical resentment across the region. Still, in the midst of the pandemic and its aftermath, the administration has an opportunity for greater productive influence.

The responsibility to lead this effort seems likely to fall to Harris who, on Tuesday, vowed to “respond” to the Salvadoran parliament’s “move to undermine the nation’s highest court.” On Friday, she will meet virtually with Mexico’s López Obrador.

What Harris decides to bring up in the meeting will offer a clear indication of how the Biden administration sees its role throughout the region, where a turn toward autocracy, poor governance, violence and the repercussions of covid-19 anticipate further turmoil.

The stability and progress of Latin America have to become urgent concerns to policymakers in Washington.

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