BBC- Antony Blinken’s maiden trip to South America as secretary of state is to two of the continent’s strongest democracies, Ecuador and Colombia. Both at home and abroad, the high-level visit is being regarded as a show of support for allies in a turbulent region increasingly rent by ideological splits and facing challenges from organised crime and drug-trafficking.

On Tuesday, he met recently elected Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso and Foreign Minister Mauricio Montalvo. He has a sit-down scheduled on Wednesday with Colombian President Iván Duque and Vice-President and Foreign Minister Marta Lucía Ramírez.

The meetings in Ecuador and Colombia will give the American secretary of state a chance to address a number of pressing concerns in a region that is geographically close to the US, but not always at the top of its diplomatic agenda.

Venezuela: The Nicolas Maduro regime has been a thorn in the US side through three presidential administrations. Now President Joe Biden’s team will take its turn trying to rally regional support for democratic reforms in the socialist-run nation. The effort is off to a rocky start, however, with Maduro cancelling talks last weekend with the Venezuelan opposition coalition led by Juan Guaido following the extradition to the US of a Colombian businessman accused of money laundering for the Maduro regime.

During a press conference in Quito on Tuesday, Blinken said Maduro’s action was “deeply unfortunate” and was indicative of a leader putting his personal interests over those of the people he should serve.

The standoff is casting a shadow over next month’s regional elections, which the US has warned already appeared unlikely to produce a free and fair result

“Irregular” Migration: Venezuela’s political and economic crises have created an outflow of millions of refugees into Colombia, Ecuador and other nearby nations, threatening to destabilise the region. Of similar concern to the US, however, is the role South American countries have served as “transit nations” for migrants from elsewhere.

The recent unprecedented surge of Haitian migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border had its origin in countries like Chile and Brazil, where dwindling job opportunities and new immigration restrictions prompted recent arrivals and long-term residents alike to consider the arduous journey north in the hope that the US would be more welcoming.

Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in a pre-trip briefing that the Haitian situation will be a “substantial focus” of a regional ministerial meeting in Bogota on Thursday – and that every country in South America has a shared responsibility in stemming the migrant flow.

China: In Quito on Wednesday morning, Blinken is scheduled to give an address on “democracy and good governance”. Part of the purpose of this trip, according to Nichols, is to underline what the US sees as the “vibrant and inclusive” democracies of Colombia and Ecuador. Unstated is the contrast the US wants to draw with decidedly undemocratic China – as the strategic and economic rivalry between the two global powers plays out across South America.

On Tuesday, Blinken said that the US partnership with Ecuador was not defined by any third country and that no nation should have to choose between the US and China.

But he followed that with a warning – that in certain “narrowly defined areas”, working with China comes with risks; that Chinese companies, when push comes to shove, will do the bidding of the Chinese government.

Free and open democracies, the American thinking goes, will be more inclined to become “partners of choice” with the US than with authoritarian China. That marks a distinct contrast with the Trump administration, whose “America first” foreign policy was more transactional and less focused on a partner nation’s governance.

This change in US outlook fits neatly with Biden’s rhetorical emphasis on what he sees as an era-defining struggle between the world’s democracies and authoritarian governments.

“Ultimately we’re focused together on demonstrating that democracies can achieve tangible results for our people,” Blinken said. “That’s the test.”

But if South American nations do have to pick a side, the American hope is that they look north, not across the Pacific.

Reports in Colombian and Ecuador’s media highlighted US officials saying that Blinken’s presence in these countries was intended as a “clear sign” of support for “vibrant and inclusive democracies that respect the rights of their citizens”.

These reports also noted that Ecuador and Colombia and Latin America as a whole, as well as the United States, were grappling with the phenomenon of big surges of migrants on the move. The installation over the last year of left-wing governments in Bolivia and Peru had also reduced the numbers of Washington’s friends in the Andean region.

A 19 October editorial in leading Ecuadorean daily El Comercio noted that after a decade in which bilateral ties were distant during the 2007-17 rule of the country’s left-wing President Rafael Correa, Ecuador and the US had resumed a closer relationship after 2017 and Blinken’s visit would strengthen relations with the current government of President Guillermo Lasso.

El Comercio predicted that Lasso’s government would be looking for more generous US co-operation to help it fight corruption and confront threats from transnational drug cartels.

In a move that appeared to reflect these growing problems, President Lasso late on 18 October declared a 60-day state of emergency that mobilised the army and police to fight “insecurity”.

In Colombia, leading daily El Espectador published an opinion column on 19 October that said Blinken’s visit would seek to bolster the Colombian-US “special relationship” in the midst of a “difficult panorama”. The column was written by former foreign minister Rodrigo Pardo.

Pardo commented: “The most pessimistic analysts consider that democracy itself is in danger in the region”. Citing the cases of Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Nicaragua, he added: “That is why the visit by Blinken in these turbulent times… is as complex as it is crucial”.

The queue snakes around the block and each day it gets longer: hungry residents of Heliopolis, São Paulo’s largest favela, waiting in line for the handout that will keep them going until the next morning.

They are given a bowl of pasta with meat and a portion of rice, two packets of biscuits and a carton of milk, shared between a whole household and usually their only meal of the day. Before the pandemic, 300 people would queue up here. Now it is over 1,000, and the charity that runs it has 650 others across São Paulo.

“The vast majority of people who live in the favelas work in the informal economy, as cleaners in homes or helping to bake cakes, so when businesses close or houses stop using them, they feel the impact,” says Marcivan Barreto, the local co-ordinator.

“You see people queuing up at 03:00 for food. I’m very worried that as the pandemic continues, a hungry father will start looting supermarkets. When you’re starving, despair hits.”

During the first wave of the pandemic, Brazil’s government introduced emergency relief, known as “coronavouchers”. More than 67 million people received a monthly sum of 600 reais (£83; $107, at the time).

It was the biggest single injection of financial aid in Brazil’s history, introduced by a president, Jair Bolsonaro, who had previously railed against welfare spending. It pushed extreme poverty to its lowest level since the 1970s – and boosted the president’s support.

But the relief was temporary. With ballooning public debt, the government first suspended the programme and then reintroduced it but at a far lower level of 250 reais and for fewer people.

The drop in aiThe crisis caused by the pandemic has forced a growing number of people to depend on food donations has hit Luciana Firmino and her family hard. She and her husband now depend on the food handout to feed their five children, living in a cramped couple of rooms in one of the favela’s narrow alleyways.

When the pandemic hit, she lost her job in a manicure studio and her husband’s occasional work dried up.

Clutching her nine-month-old daughter, she says each day is a decision whether to pay for milk or diapers. “We can’t afford the rent anymore. So we will soon be out in the streets or under a bridge.”

Then she breaks down. “I was hoping for a good life,” she says through tears. “Sometimes I think I should give my children away to social services.”

Brazil is in the grip of a health and social emergency. It has the world’s second-highest death toll from the pandemic at over 370,000, and hospitals are near collapse. A study last week found that 60% of Brazilian households have food insecurity, lacking sufficient access to enough to eat.

President Bolsonaro – who once dismissed the virus as “just a little flu”, opposed lockdowns and failed to secure vaccine supplies in time – has lost support, particularly as the food handouts have declined. Attempts at impeachment are stirring.

But he still has his devoted fans, who insist “the establishment” are trying to destroy him.

Three hours’ drive out of São Paulo, the corn harvest is underway on Frederico D’Avila’s farm. He has 1,300 hectares of the crop, as well as soybean, barley and fava, nestled beside dense pine forests.

And as the harvester cuts through the stalks of corn, he talks of how the president is slashing “the system of kleptocracy – chains of corruption – that have run here for 35 years”.

“President Bolsonaro wants to preserve liberty; he wants people to get out, work, feed their children,” he says. “He wants people to decide if they want the vaccine, not to be obligated by the state. Freedom in Brazil has always been under threat.”

I put it to him that the price of that policy is the public health disaster that Brazil is living through. “It’s not a disaster”, he replies. “We don’t have all the data from other countries so we don’t know true numbers of dead.”

Supporters of the president echo the same line, hammered home by the effective Bolsonaro communication machine with claims that if other institutions, including the Supreme Court, had not tied his hands, he could have managed the pandemic fully.

To the charge that Brazil was desperately slow to order vaccines, they reply that the shots could not have been ordered earlier as they had not yet been approved by Brazil’s health regulator.

When I remind him that many countries ordered large quantities of vaccines pending regulatory approval so they could then be rolled out quickly, Mr D’Avila tells me the Supreme Court could have sued the president if the shots were ordered and then not approved.

“If he had unlimited power like a king, it would be better. He wouldn’t need to deal with the Supreme Court and pressure groups,” he says.

President Bolsonaro is on the back foot. Under fire for mishandling what is becoming a humanitarian crisis and facing a threat from former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose conviction for corruption was recently overturned, paving the way to challenge the president in next year’s election.

And all the while hospitals fill up, the food queues grow longer, and this shattered country watches helplessly as fresh graves are dug.