What Jumps Out: Reality TV

Whoever, in the Petro administration, thought it would be a good idea to televise live a cabinet meeting over several hours, is likely gone already. Chaos is the only word, with government members openly criticizing one another in front of a TV audience that must have been delighted at the quality of the entertainment.

Unfortunately, they were likely even more perturbed at what they were watching, amidst yet another cabinet reshuffle and an increasing lack of direction. The 2026 elections are now on the horizon and the political jockeying is under way.

Petro’s 18-month countdown to-do list is littered with impossible and improbable items. Top of that list is ‘Total Peace’ – as events in Catatumbo have demonstrated, it isn’t going to happen. Guerrillas to both the right and left (in fact, do they any longer have an ideology?) are shipping ever more cocaine and are willing to trade body bags to get their way.

In terms of the reform process, it was always going to be a big ask. He should always have stuck with a couple of items, education and the political system being the most important, and tried to hang his legacy on those. He attempted to reform everything and is going to badly underexecute.

The migrant dispute with the US has already passed, and personally, I think there is value to demanding dignity in the face of a bully, others think it was a step too far. That said, the whole of the Colombian economy needs to try and pivot away from the US market.

This week we saw export data from Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística – DANE Colombia for December. There was a 0.6% increase YoY for the month, but the 2024 total was down 0.5%. Commodities dragged whilst coffee and manufactured goods fared better.

Last week we saw January vehicle sales rise 24.3% and now ANDI – Asociación Nacional de Empresarios de Colombia and FENALCO are estimating a full-year increase of 9.4% to 220,000.

We will have January CPI with an expectation of another drop to 5.12% (from 5.20% in December) – this will be a move towards Fedesarrollo‘s YE estimate of 4.18%. Despite a somewhat chaotic picture locally, the Peso had a stable week ($4175) as the fears over a trade dispute with the US eased somewhat.

Have a great day.

Roops.

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Headline Image: Coffee farmer. Photo credit: HunterProducciones from Pixabay.