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Expert Bio
Shannon K. O'Neil is the vice president, deputy director of studies, and Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on global trade, supply chains, Mexico, Latin America, and democracy.
O’Neil is the author of the The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter (Yale University Press, October 2022), which chronicles the rise of three main global manufacturing and supply chain hubs and what they mean for U.S. economic competitiveness. She also wrote Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead (Oxford University Press, 2013), which analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations Mexico has undergone over the last three decades and why they matter for the United States. She is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a frequent guest on national broadcast news and radio programs. O’Neil has often testified before Congress, and regularly speaks at global academic, business, and policy conferences.
O’Neil has lived and worked in Mexico and Argentina. She was a Fulbright scholar and a Justice, Welfare, and Economics fellow at Harvard University, and has taught Latin American politics at Columbia University. Before turning to policy, O'Neil worked in the private sector as an equity analyst at Indosuez Capital and Credit Lyonnais Securities. She holds a BA from Yale University, an MA in international relations from Yale University, and a PhD in government from Harvard University. She is a member of the board of directors of the Tinker Foundation.
Affiliations:
- Bloomberg Opinion, columnist
- MacroAdvisory Partners, senior advisor
- Tinker Foundation, board of directors, member
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A successful reform of the system is essential not only to reducing poverty, but also to restoring public faith in the country’s democracy.
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A case for greater intraregional trade in today’s changing world
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Nationalizing Mexico’s lithium reserves and extending state control over electricity and energy will undermine the region’s prosperity and security.
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Halfway through his term, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is moving from bending democratic norms and laws to breaking them—a slide that the U.S. cannot afford to ignore.
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Forget all the talk about the region’s “pink tide” and focus on which candidate is most likely to lift the greatest number of boats.
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Once the region’s no-frills, free-market poster child, Chile needs more government spending, not less, to sustain its growth trajectory.
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Once able to rely on larger-than-life finance ministers, the region’s business leaders now need to make the public case for free markets via retail politics.
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President Lopez Obrador’s plan to renationalize electricity generation will make it more expensive, dirtier and less reliable and jeopardize the inclusive economic growth he says he wants.
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The key to its success will be dodging zero-sum choices between the two superpowers.
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Suing U.S. gun makers may be good law and politics, but that won’t fix Mexico’s police or courts and end its culture of impunity.
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When it comes to “friendshoring,” Latin America has much to offer, and much to gain.
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With its clean energy matrix, the region could capitalize on the green transition—if leaders in Mexico and Brazil get with the program.
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President Biden is adopting a different approach than his predecessor to an increasing number of migrants who are arriving at the southern border after fleeing hardship in their home countries.
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