A Latin America weighed down by low growth and uncertainty about policies to be taken by the incoming administration of Donald Trump will also look to the United States for cooperation in combating drugs and human trafficking, according to prominent Latin American political figures. The leaders also stressed that Latin American nations can today celebrate important advances in democratization and the fight against corruption.

Concerns raised by participants about Trump policies centred on whether the deal-making instinct would prevail over respect for rules and how a possible roll-back of President Obama’s opening to Cuba might strain Latin American-US relations. “Even deals have to be done in a context of a minimum of rules; we’ve made rules,” said Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD. Support for the opening to Cuba is clear. “The issue of Cuba is a very important point for normalization of relations between Latin America and the US. It will be sad to see that go backwards,” said Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, Secretaría General Iberoamericana (SEGIB).

Latin America suffers the highest murder rates in the world, fuelled by drug violence, which causes more homicides than all wars worldwide, panellists said. “Drug trafficking is an international crime and we doing our best at country level” but an international conversation and cooperation from the US is needed to attack this problem, said Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara, President of Paraguay. This view was supported by Grynspan, who said that violence diminished when the flow of arms was contained. She stressed that the region “needs the US” to fight narco-trafficking and human trafficking.

Latin American countries face a long to-do list to boost sluggish growth and position their economies to compete globally. The pending tasks include stimulating innovation, tackling inequality, informality, and corruption, upgrading education and building institutions. However, these challenges have been around for a long time, said Moisés Naim, Distinguished Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who criticized the “circularity” of conversations about Latin America.

Transparency and the fight against corruption are two areas that have seen unusual gains. In Paraguay, for example, a new transparency law reveals “how much everyone earns, putting us closer to the people,” said Cartes Jara. And Guatemala successfully applied a legal process and ousted its president recently.

Brazil’s ongoing corruption investigation, which has led to the jailing of top political and business leaders, was cited as an example of law enforcement for the region as a whole. Rodrigo Janot, Prosecutor-General of Brazil, said: “I want to underline two points that allowed for the investigation to advance: the independence of the attorney-general’s office of Brazil and the cooperation between the attorneys-general of Latin America and Iberoamerican countries.” He also cited the “extreme cooperation” from the Swiss attorney-general’s office which made it possible to locate assets in Switzerland.

Asked for suggestions of policies that would offer “quick wins”, panellists argued in favour of re-energizing the Pacific Alliance – the trade bloc of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru – and bringing in more countries such as Argentina and Brazil. They also emphasized the boost to be gained from incorporating more women into the labour force and management positions, and giving them equal pay.