Pardee Center Hosts 2025 Janetos Distinguished Lecture, “Trump 2.0 and Latin America,” by Jamil Mahuad

Through threats of mass deportations, tariffs on Mexico, and of “taking back” the Panama Canal, Latin America has been one of the most affected regions by the initial policies of the second Trump administration. How will the region be impacted at a time when it is still recovering from its worst economic downturn in 120 years? What does this portend for U.S.-Latin American relations in years to come?

Jamil Mahuad, former President of Ecuador, addressed these questions and more when he delivered the 2025 Anthony C. Janetos Memorial Distinguished Lecture. President Mahuad’s lecture, titled “Trump 2.0 and Latin America,” took place on Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at the BU School of Law before an audience of more than 100 people.

The full lecture and discussion can be watched above or on the Pardee Center’s YouTube Channel.

President Jamil Mahuad is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee (1999) for the signing of the Ecuador-Peru Peace Treaty that, as President Clinton remarked, “resolved the Hemisphere’s last and oldest source of armed international conflict.” He is also a recipient of WWF’s Gift to the Earth Award (1999). Mr. Mahuad has been Co-Director of the Project on the Prevention of Global Violence, part of the Harvard Institute on Global Health (HIGH), under the office of the President of Harvard University (2009-2011); Co-founder and Senior Adviser of the Harvard International Negotiation Program at Harvard Law School (2004-present); Board Member of The Abraham Path Initiative; and Global Advisory Council Member of Mediators Beyond Borders. Mr. Mahuad is a Senior Fellow at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and teaches as Executive Education Faculty on Leadership and Negotiation at Harvard Kennedy School. With other former Presidents and Prime Ministers from Iberoamerica, he is a member of IDEA (Iniciativa Democrática de España y las Américas), the Freedom and Democracy Group, and the Latin American Presidential Mission.

The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future’s annual Distinguished Lecture is named in memory of Prof. Anthony C. Janetos, who served as the Center’s Director from 2013 until his death in 2019. The Janetos Distinguished Lecture celebrates his commitment to public scholarship of interdisciplinary research on globally important issues that contribute to long-term improvements in the human condition.