Tom Phillips
Tom Phillips covers struggles for power and democracy across Latin America, with a focus on how political upheaval affects lives on the ground. He is The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, reporting on elections, authoritarian governance and international intervention across the region. His recent work centres on Venezuela and Brazil, including contested elections, institutional clashes and far-right campaigns.
Latin American elections and far-right resurgence
Phillips follows Latin American elections at close range, tracing how shifts in public mood and institutional battles shape outcomes. Recent reporting on Brazil’s presidential contest examines the ferocious dispute within the supreme court on the eve of the vote and the sense that the race is “a coin flip” as the far right attempts a comeback.
In these pieces he pays close attention to judges, campaign operatives and voters, showing how they navigate polarisation and threats to democratic norms. The tone is direct and reported, built around institutional conflict and campaign dynamics rather than commentary.
Venezuela, opposition campaigns and US influence
Phillips devotes sustained attention to Venezuela’s prolonged political crisis, chronicling opposition campaigns, government tactics and foreign pressure. In longform work such as his investigation into the five-star “spooks hotel” that serves as a nerve centre for US operations around Venezuela’s contested leadership, he combines detailed scene-setting with an examination of how intelligence and diplomatic efforts intersect. Shorter news pieces cover themes such as claims that the anti-Maduro campaign is “stronger than ever”, opposition figure María Corina Machado’s strategy and statements by Joe Biden describing candidate Edmundo González as the “best hope for democracy”.
Across this reporting he treats Venezuelan politics as a regional and global test case, linking domestic actors with their backers and critics abroad.
Human stories in crises and disasters
Beyond electoral politics, Phillips often writes about people caught up in disasters and public-health emergencies. Earlier reporting from Haiti includes coverage of British firefighters rescuing a two-year-old girl from a collapsed school in Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of an earthquake, as well as an obituary for humanitarian leader Zilda Arns. From China he has reported on the suspension of Beijing’s anti-doping laboratory and on a “toxic school” case that forced the closure of a nearby chemical plant, framing regulatory failures through their impact on families and athletes.
These stories show a consistent interest in how policy choices and institutional failings play out in everyday lives.
Longstanding global reporting experience
The Guardian’s archive shows Phillips reporting for the masthead since at least 2010. Across this period he has written obituaries, breaking news, investigative features and campaign-trail dispatches spanning Latin America and China. He is The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent and has previously served as its Beijing bureau chief, bringing experience from covering China to his present Latin American beat.
The breadth of formats and geographies gives his current politics coverage a long view on how power shifts and crises repeat across different systems.
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