A Conversation with President Laurentino Cortizo of Panama

President Laurentino Cortizo had less than a year in office before COVID-19 upended his administration’s agenda. The country has since recorded more than 366,000 coronavirus cases and over 6,200 deaths. The economic toll has been severe. In 2020, Panama’s economy contracted by 18 percent, one of the worst recessions in Latin America. The pandemic’s second wave has caused further disruptions.

Cortizo, whose Partido Revolucionario Democrático holds a congressional majority, is promoting a 125-point economic recovery plan. The strategy leans heavily on public works: Panama will spend $7.7 billion on infrastructure this year, including an expansion of the Tocumen International Airport and a $2.8 billion, 21-mile monorail in Panama City that will tunnel under the Panama Canal.

Economic recovery, however, is not the only challenge Cortizo will confront during the rest of his five-year term. Panama has seen an explosion of migrants, many of them children, crossing the Darien wilderness from Colombia. It is also struggling with the impacts of climate change, including droughts that disrupt canal operations and sea-level rise displacing Kuna communities on islands off Panama’s Caribbean coast.

Please join the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program for a conversation with President Cortizo on Thursday, May 13, 2021, from 10:30 a.m.– 11:30 a.m. ET. This is the fourth of the Latin American Program’s “Crisis Conversations,” a series of dialogues with Latin American leaders about overcoming policy challenges during this pandemic. Earlier events featured President Lenín Moreno of Ecuador, President Luis Abinader of the Dominican Republic, and President Francisco Sagasti of Peru.