Are We Prepared for the Trump 2.0 Challenge? Guatemala in the Crosshairs of the New World Order
As Donald Trump and his inner circle participate in a solemn Thanksgiving service at St. John’s Episcopal Church, across from Lafayette Square in Washington, Guatemala watches from a distance, facing difficult questions about its future. What does Trump’s return mean for a country whose stability depends, in large part, on its relationship with the United […]
Cognitive Malnutrition: The Educational Backwardness Condemning Guatemala’s Competitiveness
In Guatemala, we are becoming increasingly aware of the devastating consequences of malnutrition within our population. The latest National Maternal and Child Health Survey (2014–2015) revealed that 46.5% of children suffer from chronic malnutrition, placing us with the worst rate in Latin America and among the most backward countries in the world. To understand the […]
The High Cost of Our Culture: Collectivism, Submission, and Unconsciousness in Guatemala
According to the UNDP Human Development Index, Guatemala ranks 136th out of 193 countries. We are barely above Honduras and Namibia, and far below countries such as Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. We are still far from reaching nations like Belize or the State of Palestine. Not to mention the top 70 countries, which make up […]
Competitiveness at Stake: Why Guatemala Is Not in the World Bank’s Business Ready
Throughout several columns, I have insisted on the urgency of a radical change for Guatemala. While the government and some media outlets celebrate that the country maintains a trend of macroeconomic growth or that remittances increased in January —despite the dramatic drop in December— reality is far less encouraging. If we measure per capita growth […]
From Absence to Disrepute: How Guatemala Is Losing the Battle of Global Perception
Guatemala faces a crisis of perception and strategy. Not only do we fail to appear in the key global competitiveness rankings, but when we do appear, we are portrayed as a country in decline, comparable to authoritarian regimes and fragile economies. The case of the World Bank’s Business Ready report is revealing: Guatemala was not […]
The Ideological Cost of an Inexperienced Government: Between Inefficiency, Debt, and Poverty
Last week, we mentioned five urgent structural changes for Guatemala, among them one fundamental principle: spend better, not more. Several readers suggested expanding on this idea, especially because the current government is falling into precisely that mistake. And it is not only a technical problem; it is an ideological one. Most officials in the current […]
The Country That Settles for Too Little: How the Lack of Ambition Has Destroyed Our Competitiveness
On a March afternoon, with the sun painting the jacarandas purple and the palo blanco trees gold, Guatemala looks like paradise. The song of blackbirds and the flight of hummingbirds remind us that we live in a privileged land. But the danger of paradise is conformism. We have clung to stability, to the idea that […]
Guatemaltecos por la Nutrición: A Ray of Freedom for the Forgotten of Our Country
Among ravines and rugged mountain ranges, in a hollow of one of the most remote corners hardest hit by malnutrition in Guatemala, an oasis of hope emerges. It is the small community of El Injerto, in the municipality of La Libertad, Huehuetenango, near the border with Mexico. There, the project “Guatemaltecos por la Nutrición,” an […]
Double Investment in Guatemala? Panamanian Stability and Dominican Agility Could Make It Possible
Guatemala is stagnant: we invest barely 16% of our GDP in fixed capital, while Panama and the Dominican Republic reach 32%. History gives us an even bigger clue: countries that grow rapidly surpass 23%. Singapore reached 46% in the 1980s, Ireland achieved 53% in 2019 before the pandemic, and China has averaged 42% since the […]
Guatemala: The Gold We Leave Beneath the Earth and the Sea
On any given morning, traffic in Guatemala City is a silent chaos: cars crawl forward at a snail’s pace, horns sound like a collective lament, and time is lost in the air. It is a perfect metaphor for our productivity: we are moving, but we are not getting anywhere. Two weeks ago, we spoke about […]