{"id":1191,"date":"2026-05-30T19:31:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridamovingchronicle.com\/?p=1191"},"modified":"2026-05-30T19:31:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:31:21","slug":"florida-taxpayers-fund-largely-conservative-think-tank-for-latin-america-at-fiu-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/floridamovingchronicle.com\/?p=1191","title":{"rendered":"Florida taxpayers fund largely conservative think tank for Latin America at FIU"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

The Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom at Florida International University identifies itself as a \u201cworld-class, independent, non-partisan think tank that aims to inform, influence, and inspire\u201d the public. Its goal is further to \u201cadvance economic freedom and human prosperity.\u201d The Center aims to accomplish these goals through lectures, public events, research, selected certificate programs and new degree programs offered to FIU students.<\/p>\n

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Yet, six years after its founding, the Center has become known for hosting its annual fundraiser at Trump National Doral, including one held this month. As President-elect Donald Trump was about to take control of the White House again, the Center sponsored an inauguration event to celebrate his election. And last year, the Center hosted a convention of right-wing think tanks from across Latin America, which also featured the Heritage Foundation, a think tank closely associated with the Republican president.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One faculty member described the Center as a \u201cTrojan horse\u201d and as a \u201cway to penetrate the university\u201d with right-wing politics. Another lamented that \u201cthere is no transparency\u201d with how the Center is being operated. One person feared that \u2014 with little transparency \u2014 state taxpayer dollars could be used as a \u201cslush fund\u201d for unclear purposes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While Florida has moved to eliminate alleged left-wing \u201cindoctrination\u201d from higher-education institutes across the state, skeptics view the Adam Smith Center as utterly hypocritical: Indoctrination with a conservative flavor.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a monthslong investigation, WLRN has begun to peel back the layers of the Center, an entity that has long raised questions on campus about being an overtly political project. What has become clear is that the Center has deep ties to a network of conservative think tanks spread across Latin America and the U.S., positioning itself as a regional conservative hub at a public university.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although the Center has received lavish, ongoing funding from the state, it has only spent a fraction of the money and appears to hold a $25 million surplus, documents show.<\/p>\n

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READ MORE: Florida removes Sociology from \u2018core curriculum\u2019 as faculty cry foul<\/b><\/p>\n

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The founding director of the Center, Carlos Diaz-Rosillo, who was a senior advisor to Trump during his first administration, acknowledged that there is widespread skepticism about what the Center does. But in an interview with WLRN, he confirmed that the Center is inherently biased towards a specific definition of \u201ceconomic freedom,\u201d a definition that differs from many on the political left.<\/p>\n

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\u201c We\u2019re not partisan in what we do. Now, we are ideological in the sense that we\u2019re pro-free markets,\u201d Diaz-Rosillo told WLRN. \u201c We need a government that regulates smartly, that provides order, not a government that suffocates the private sector with so many regulations that it stifles creativity and people\u2019s abilities to make decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Staffers of the Center are almost entirely from right-of-center think tanks, political movements and political parties, including the Republican Party in Florida.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Center has organized conferences in Argentina and Peru, and its staffers regularly speak at events across Latin America. That has begun to tilt the center of gravity in conservative movements across the hemisphere toward Miami.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami has always been a center of culture in Latin America. But now, it\u2019s becoming more of a political center. Almost every part of Latin America has political connections here,\u201d former Venezuelan interim President Juan Guaid\u00f3 told WLRN after a recent talk at the Center. \u201cA lot of that is thanks to the Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But unlike many privately-funded think tanks that aim to shift society in a different political direction, this project is paid for with taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While visiting FIU in September of 2025, Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke about how proud he was signing the Center into law in 2020, and he explicitly talked about the project in a regional geopolitical sense, spilling well beyond the borders of the U.S.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The governor said the Center \u201chas really been a focal point, I think, of promoting economic freedom throughout the Western Hemisphere, particularly in Latin America.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust me, we need it in this hemisphere,\u201d said DeSantis. \u201cI think that that\u2019s been a really important thing, not just for the students, but I think it\u2019s had a ramification beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The \u2018veneer\u2019 of academic work<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

The Adam Smith Center of Economic Freedom doesn\u2019t look like much. Situated on the second floor of FIU\u2019s Management and Advanced Research Center in west Miami-Dade County, the office is simple, nearly to the point of nondescript. A blue rug in front of a door with a golden-colored plate announces the name of the location. There is not much else to it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In reality, many of the most influential conservative politicians from the Western Hemisphere have deep connections to it. Former Colombian President \u00c1lvaro Uribe, former Argentinian President Mauricio Macri and former Mexican President Felipe Calder\u00f3n have served fellowships in these halls. Trump has spoken during its programs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Florida Legislature provided $1 million to kickstart the Center when it was created in 2020. But what started as modest funds from taxpayers to create the Center quickly accelerated. In 2023, the state supplied $5 million. By the following year, the state was supplying $15 million in recurring taxpayer dollars per year to the institution.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The bill that created the Center in 2020 was sponsored by then-Republican state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, who is now the chancellor for the Florida State University System.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Despite all the funding it has received from the state government, the Center has not hired full-time faculty. The think tank does produce some research on bureaucracy and risk analysis in Latin America, but it has not produced any peer-reviewed research.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Eric Hershberg, a professor emeritus at American University in Washington, D.C., has studied the institutional landscape of Latin American studies globally for decades. FIU has been on his radar for years because of the quality work the university overall has done on Latin American and Caribbean studies, but he said from his perspective the Center is not to be taken seriously as an academic institution.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c They have zero relevance to the worlds I operate in, in terms of the academic study of Latin America or the universities and higher education and knowledge production,\u201d said Hershberg. \u201cNobody in the university world would take them as in any way academically or intellectually serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More than actual academic work, Hershberg said he sees the Center as a \u201clegitimating strategy,\u201d a way for conservative Latin American politicians to achieve the \u201cveneer\u201d of doing academic work at a prominent U.S. university.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it is, is a kind of advertising, marketing and networking for the Latin American right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Katie Rainwater, a sociologist and visiting scholar at FIU, has been researching the Adam Smith Center and drawing connections between its staff and figures on the political right, both inside the United States and in Latin America. The Center publicly claims that it is a non-partisan organization, but Rainwater sees the Center as deeply ideological, a publicly funded hub for a sprawling continental conservative project.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s attempting to create a network of right-wing politicians and think tanks in Latin America that are going to support American interest in the region,\u201d said Rainwater. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s non-partisan. I also don\u2019t think it\u2019s independent. I think it\u2019s politically directed in that it was put on FIU\u2019s campus to further a partisan political project.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rainwater said the \u201cclearest way to understand\u201d the Center is by reading \u201cAtlantic Strategy,\u201d written by the Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The \u201cAtlantic Strategy\u201d calls for the cultivation of U.S.-aligned \u201csub-national\u201d actors like think tanks and local governments throughout Latin America in order to counter Chinese influence in the region. The series calling for the \u201cAtlantic Strategy\u201d was written by, among others, Heritage Foundation staffers Kiron Skinner and James Jay Carafano.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Both have worked for the Adam Smith Center since penning the pieces. Skinner worked in the U.S. State Department during the first Trump administration, and she served as a Senior Leadership Fellow of the Adam Smith Center in 2023. Carafano is currently a Research Associate at the Center. In 2023, the Adam Smith Center hosted an event about Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation document broadly seen as the roadmap for the second Trump administration.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c We hosted an event with them,\u201d said Diaz-Rosillo, referring to the Heritage Foundation. \u201cAnd we do another event a year in which we are co-host and they\u2019re co-hosts as well. But other than that, there\u2019s no formal relationship with the Heritage [Foundation] or with any other think tank from anywhere in the world. We\u2019re just doing individual events with multiple hosts.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A parade of conservative Latin American politicians<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

The Adam Smith Center lists visiting scholars and researchers as members on its website. The list of names reads like a who\u2019s who of prominent figures of Latin American conservatism. Axel Kaiser, the co-founder of Chilean conservative think tank Fundaci\u00f3n para el Progreso (Foundation for Progress) is a research fellow at the Adam Smith Center. Several staffers of the Foundation for Progress have been tapped to join the government of Jos\u00e9 Antonio Kast, the most right-wing government that Chile has had since a return to democracy. Francisco Barbosa, the former attorney general of Colombia and a prominent critic of leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro, is working at the Center.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Former and aspiring conservative Latin American politicians regularly give lectures to FIU students. Those speakers include former Bolivian President Jeanine \u00c1\u00f1ez; Maria Luisa Jayem, the economy minister of El Salvador under authoritarian President Nayib Bukele; Keiko Fujimori, former Peruvian congresswoman and daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who in effect ruled as a dictator.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Months after completing a stint at the Center, Keiko Fujimori finished first place in the first round of Peruvian presidential elections. The nature of her work and questions about her payments from the Center have become somewhat of a scandal in Peruvian media during the election cycle after she claimed that she was a \u201cglobal professor\u201d at FIU. As questions arose, Diaz-Rosillo revealed to Peruvian media that Fujimori was paid $45,000 for a full year of work.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

WLRN has requested contracts for other Latin American politicians and political consultants who work at the Center, but was quoted more than $2,000 to release the records. Diaz-Rosillo told WLRN the pay for other prominent Latin American politicians is comparable to what Fujimori was paid.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Joshua Espinosa, a double-major of economics and political science, has attended several seminars with former heads of state, and he completed a certificate course that was taught at the Center by Republican former Speaker of the Florida House Paul Renner, who is now running for governor. Espinosa is involved in politics with the Libertarian Party, but stressed that he would speak about his experiences at the Center in a purely personal capacity.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For Espinosa, two things are true at the same time: he appreciates the Center for providing access to politicians of great influence. Secondly, he recognizes that the Center is ideologically aligned with himself and the political right.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the economic right. They don\u2019t fall on, like, the social-political right. So you\u2019ll never see an event from the Adam Smith Center being like, \u2018Oh, get trans men out of women\u2019s sports,\u2019 \u201d said Espinosa. \u201cThey\u2019re economically right wing and support the free markets versus being economically left wing and supporting a collectivized or a state-run economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Espinosa said most of the domestic politicians brought into the Center are in the Republican Party, and that he sees it as a missed opportunity. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of Democrats that are leftist, but there\u2019s also a lot of Democrats that support capitalism,\u201d he said. Overall, he said much of the criticism lobbed at the Center for using taxpayer dollars for an \u201cexclusively right-wing\u201d project is valid, even as he enjoys the programming.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI get that criticism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But he said it\u2019s hard to see how it could be otherwise. Florida Republicans have controlled the governor\u2019s office and both houses of the Legislature since 1999. The president of FIU, Jeanette Nu\u00f1ez, was a lieutenant governor under DeSantis, and so conservatives being far more represented than liberals at the Center is more a \u201cconsequence of the circumstances that we\u2019re living in\u201d than proof that the Center is \u201can arm of the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Diaz-Rosillo acknowledged that most of the politicians brought to the Center from Latin America are conservative, but he noted a few exceptions. The economist Diana Alarc\u00f3n, Mexico\u2019s representative to the World Bank, was a senior fellow at the Center last year. This year, Mexico\u2019s top representative for the FIFA World Cup, Gabriela Cuevas, is a senior fellow at the Center. Both are close to Mexico\u2019s leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c Whenever I bring somebody on the left, I get heavily criticized by the right as well. So I get criticized by the left and by the right. It might be hard to believe, but, believe it: The criticism on the right is actually pretty heavy,\u201d said Diaz-Rosillo.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Diaz-Rosillo said he has spoken to DeSantis about work at the Center \u201cmaybe two or three times\u201d but that the governor has \u201cnever meddled\u201d in operations or hiring.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Center was modeled after the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, said Diaz-Rosillo. Unlike at the Center, a solidly bipartisan roster of lecturers speaks to students at the Harvard institute. As he sees it, much of higher education \u2014 even in Florida \u2014 leans to the ideological left, and the Center is simply the state\u2019s attempt to achieve equilibrium.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c If you look at the guests or the speakers or the fellows \u2014 however you call them \u2014 that typically speak at universities, the vast majority are what you would consider to be on the left,\u201d said Diaz-Rosillo. \u201cSo yeah, yeah, you don\u2019t see that here. We\u2019re providing a balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The \u2018Contracorriente\u2019 podcast<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

Every week the Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom drops a new episode of its flagship podcast \u201cContracorriente\u201d (\u201dAgainst the Current\u201d). The host of the show is Gabriel Bauducco, a former Playboy M\u00e9xico magazine editor. He records the episodes from a studio in Mexico City.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first season of \u201cContracorriente\u201d was originally produced in 2021 by Fundaci\u00f3n Federalismo y Libertad, a right-wing think tank that is based in Argentina and is very close to Argentinian President Javier Milei.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then, starting in 2022, the Adam Smith Center paid $20,000 for the think tank to continue producing the show under FIU\u2019s umbrella, contract records obtained by WLRN show. Starting in 2024, the school began to pay Bauducco directly to produce the program, paying him $500 per show. Shows mostly consist of Bauducco interviewing former conservative heads of state from Latin America, a cohort that now consists of visiting scholars and researchers at the Center.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Episodes rarely garner more than 3,000 views, according to the YouTube page.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last year, FIU updated its contract with Bauducco to include his role as the copy editor of AGENDA, a magazine co-published by the Center and Nuevas Generaciones, a separate conservative think tank in Argentina.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Issues of AGENDA feature right-of-center figures celebrating the Trump administration\u2019s policies, and at times, providing analysis of current events. Issues have featured commentary from the likes of Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, former Republican Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar and prominent conservative voices from across Latin America.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A total of $79,000 in state taxpayer dollars have been paid to Fundaci\u00f3n Federalismo y Libertad and Bauducco to produce \u201cContracorriente\u201d and for Bauducco\u2019s new role as copy editor for the magazine, according to contract records obtained by WLRN.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Fundaci\u00f3n Federalismo y Libertad think tank, the group that started the podcast, has longstanding ties to Argentina\u2019s Milei. In comments that he made while accepting an award from the Foundation in December of 2024 in the city of Tucum\u00e1n, Milei credited the think tank for his entire political career, which began with his notable television appearances.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first TV appearance was in 2014, and it was here in Tucum\u00e1n, in this space created by the Fundaci\u00f3n,\u201d said Milei. \u201cThat\u2019s to say, if there was no Fundaci\u00f3n Federalismo y Libertad inviting Milei to talk all those years ago, there would be no President Milei today.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A polarizing figure, Milei has been broadly praised by conservatives across the world for taking a trademark chainsaw to public spending in Argentina and for dramatically bringing Argentina\u2019s runaway inflation under control. The country\u2019s economy has grown under his leadership, earning praise from international institutions. Critics contend that the country\u2019s poverty rate sharply increased as Milei slashed welfare spending, devalued the country\u2019s currency and rolled back labor rights as job losses mounted and as pension payments plummeted.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fundaci\u00f3n Federalismo y Libertad registered as a nonprofit in New Jersey in 2022, months before getting the contract to produce \u201cContracorriente.\u201d The headquarters was listed as the personal residence of Frank Zimmerman, a Cuban American who helped bring the Argentinian organization to the U.S. Zimmerman is now senior advisor of communications at the Adam Smith Center.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Argentinian group receives funding from the Atlas Network, part of a sprawling global coalition of conservative think tanks that aim to reshape the political landscape from New Zealand and Buenos Aires to New York. The group has been especially active in Latin America. Reports on international risk and bureaucracy published by the Adam Smith Center are largely authored by Atlas Network-affiliated think tanks across Latin America.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

The Adam Smith Center co-published a research paper on bureaucracywith the Atlas Network in 2022. In that paper, Diaz Rosillo wrote that the Center was in a \u201cpartnership\u201d with the conservative network, but he told WLRN that currently no formal relationship exists with the conservative group.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we don\u2019t have any relationship with them,\u201d said Diaz-Rosillo. \u201cWe do events sometimes in which they\u2019re invited.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Argentinian Fundaci\u00f3n is also partly funded by the International Republican Center, an organization that is funded by the U.S. federal government and does work abroad. The leadership of the group is largely made up of Republican lawmakers, lawmaker aides and former lawmakers. Marco Rubio was a board member as a sitting U.S. senator until Trump nominated him to become secretary of state.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At the gate of Reagan International Airport just outside Washington, D.C., a pair of electric billboards advertise the Adam Smith Center to travelers. On the billboard is a photo of D\u00edaz-Rosillo embracing the Argentinian president and right-wing firebrand.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The billboards took Hershberg, the American University scholar, by surprise during recent travels.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c I thought that was very interesting \u2014 that their marketing and communications folks have the funding to do that in Terminal C of D.C. National Airport,\u201d laughed Hershberg.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The advertising and promotions budget for the Center has gone up from $680 in 2023 to over $122,000 this year, budget records show.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hershberg suggested that, because it has been difficult for faculty or the public at large to track the spending and operations of the Center, Florida taxpayer dollars could be paying political operatives and consultants who work across Latin America, possibly as they are involved in campaigns in the region.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c It might be a very convenient way for the Florida Legislature to try to get a right-wing government in Colombia,\u201d suggested Hershberg as one example. \u201cIf they can do that with a couple million dollars of what they allocated to Adam Smith [Center], that would be a very appealing use of taxpayer dollars from the point of view of the Florida Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Diaz-Rosillo, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs during the first Trump administration, said money from the Center is \u201cabsolutely\u201d not going to political campaigns in Latin America.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cZero,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But he said many people associated with the Center freely speak to the media about political campaigns and operations in Latin America. Diaz-Rosillo himself frequently comments on Latin American politics and elections in local media. Recently he has voiced support for Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, who was a fellow at the Center last year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c I always ask them not to mention the Center because I don\u2019t want anybody to think that I\u2019m using the Center to promote a political viewpoint, because I don\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201c I can think of another three or four fellows or former fellows who are actively promoting candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Money raised, money not spent<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

A 2023 bill that banned \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion\u201d programs across the state and restricted how curriculum mentioning race and gender issues could be taught also expanded state support for the Adam Smith Center and similar institutes across the state.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While signing that bill into law, DeSantis said the mass public funding of the institutes was needed in order \u201cto prevent woke ideologies from continuing to co-opt our state universities and state colleges.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The following year, the Adam Smith Center presented DeSantis with a \u201cGuardian of Freedom\u201d medal at a lavish fundraiser dinner at the Phillip & Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An annual dinner for the Adam Smith Center was held at the Trump National Doral in 2025, and this year the event in May was again held at Trump\u2019s resort. A free night stay at the hotel was being offered for sponsors that dropped at least $50,000 on the event.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Since attendees are donors, the guest lists for fundraising events are barred from being released, according to the university. The 2024 fundraiser raised $126,101.97, and an additional $592,943.51 was raised in 2025, according to FIU. The money raised during a May 16, 2026, fundraiser at the Trump National Doral has not yet been tallied up.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All money raised by the fundraisers goes to the FIU Foundation, a tax-exempt charity that raises funds for the university.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On top of state tax dollars and fundraising, the Center received a $240,900 grant from the conservative John Templeton Foundation in 2025 and expects to receive the same amount this year, FIU told WLRN.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An additional $80,000 came in 2024 from a National Endowment for Democracy grant, a program funded by federal tax dollars. That money was used to pay for the $40,000 annual salary of Guaid\u00f3, the former opposition figure in Venezuela, according to documents obtained by WLRN.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Guaid\u00f3 was considered the interim president of the country by the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. A state law bans Venezuelan nationals from being directly hired through the university system, including at FIU, as WLRN has previously reported.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The grant money is on top of funds that the Center receives from Florida taxpayers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At $15 million, the annual state allocation for the Center is more than the annual state funding for the College of the Florida Keys, which serves about 1,000 students; or the budget for North Florida College, which serves about 900 students.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But six years after it was founded, the Adam Smith Center is only starting to roll out degree programs, and it is unclear why the state is spending so lavishly on the Center. In recent years, the Center has not spent the money that it has been given. During the 2025 fiscal year, a whopping $10.9 million went unspent, according to budget records provided to WLRN.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Center spent only $1.3 million out of the $5 million received in 2023, records show. In 2024, it only spent $2.3 million out of the $16 million it received \u2014 the Legislature threw in an additional $1 million in non-recurring money to the Center that year, leaving nearly $13.5 million unspent.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The state has allocated $39 million to the Center since it was founded in 2020. Only $13.4 million of that money has been spent, representing less than half the allocated money, records show.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For years, the Center\u2019s ties to Latin American politicians and conservative movements have raised eyebrows. FIU faculty members, skeptical of the Center\u2019s operations and spending, tried to get the university to hand over basic budget records to a subcommittee of the FIU Faculty Senate last year. The university did not provide the budget and the effort was abandoned. The budget numbers are being reported by WLRN for the first time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The revelations of unspent money come as the Florida Legislature holds a special session in which it is trying to pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re not spending what the state gives them, how can Tallahassee justify the budget?\u201d one FIU staffer granted anonymity to speak told WLRN. \u201cWhat\u2019s happening with all that surplus?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the budget provided to WLRN, $10.9 million is listed as being spent on \u201cFIU Partnerships\u201d in 2025 alone. The Adam Smith Center has been a marquee partner of major events like the American Business Forum, featuring President Donald Trump, Argentina\u2019s Milei, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, soccer star Lionel Messi and more.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But the FIU administration told WLRN that the money was not spent on that event or others like it. The money earmarked for \u201cFIU Partnerships\u201d was unspent money that was \u201creturned to central administration\u201d of FIU \u201cto be used for FIU projects,\u201d the university\u2019s senior director of media relations, Madeline Bar\u00f3, wrote to WLRN in an email.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether the rest of the Center\u2019s unspent money has been returned to the university, or is sitting in a bank account somewhere. Bar\u00f3 did not respond when asked what happened to the rest of the unspent money.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the 2026 budget, over $1.5 million was spent on \u201cprofessional services\/officials\u201d more than on administrative salaries, faculty and staff salaries combined. \u201cMiscellaneous\u201d expenses climbed from $61 in 2022 to over $600,000 in 2025. Ever since 2025, travel expenses have exceeded $200,000.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While it is the only state-funded center of its kind to focus on Latin America, the Adam Smith Center at FIU has company in other Florida universities. The state has created other institutes in the same vein. The Institution for Government and Civics at Florida State University and the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civics Education at the University of Florida were both created by the Legislature in recent years. The Institute for Freedom in the Americas was created and partially funded at Miami Dade College, but it has not started operations yet.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Since 2020, state lawmakers have spent over $166 million on these institutes across Florida, according to state records analyzed by WLRN.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an extraordinary amount of money the state is pouring into them,\u201d said Rainwater.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The kind of role being filled by the Adam Smith Center was exclusively filled by privately-funded organizations. But in recent years, conservative state governments began to use public money to fund right-leaning think tanks and civic organizations on campus, said Ralph Wilson, the founder of the Corporate Genome Project, a research group meant to reveal little-known connections between right-leaning think tanks, industry leaders and governments.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What sets the Adam Smith Center apart from similar institutes in other states is its focus on Latin America, he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminds me of the University of Chicago,\u201d said Watson. \u201cGenerations back they were cranking out the Chicago Boys. They were able to take this university and make it a hub for policy change in Latin America.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very much that style of conservative Latin American ideology training, legitimizing and organizing,\u201d said Wilson, noting that the University of Chicago is a private university.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Confusion in Uruguay, and the future<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

In late 2025, newspapers in Uruguay reported that the Adam Smith Center planned to open a facility in that country, a claim allegedly confirmed by the Uruguay government.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Diaz-Rosillo told WLRN the whole thing was \u201cfake news\u201d and a misunderstanding about a conversation that he had with leftist President Yamand\u00fa Orsi during a breakfast at the United Nations in New York City.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c We don\u2019t have any plans anytime soon to open up shop in Uruguay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But while erroneous news was spreading through South America, Andres \u201cAndy\u201d Rivas, a top Argentinian political consultant who lives in Paraguay, was cited by Uruguayan media as being a spokesperson for the Center and for FIU. Rivas had attended in Miami a 2024 Adam Smith Center event where Paraguayan President Santiago Pe\u00f1a was awarded the Center\u2019s first ever \u201cChampion of Freedom\u201d award, and he also attended a Trump 2025 inauguration event alongside the Paraguayan president.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Paraguayan press has described Rivas as a \u201cconsultant in the shadows\u201d and as a political operative who moves \u201cin secret.\u201d He has worked in political campaigns across much of Latin America, and in 2024 gave a keynote speech in Paraguay for a regional conference on how conservative movements can replicate the victory of Milei in Argentina.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Speaking to WLRN, Diaz-Rosillo said that Rivas \u201crepresents us in Uruguay,\u201d meaning that his job is to \u201clook for venues where we can do events\u201d and to \u201ctry to get people excited about our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One FIU faculty member WLRN spoke to followed the confusing saga and questioned why a prominent political consultant was speaking on behalf of the university in South America. They wondered how much Rivas was being paid, and the nature of his work.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

WLRN requested records connected to Rivas\u2019 relationship with the university, along with other personnel contracts, but was quoted more than $2,000 to produce the records.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The episode is emblematic of a gulf of trust that many faculty members have with the Adam Smith Center, even as faculty-level politics and relationships continue to play an integral role in the Center\u2019s future. The Adam Smith Center of Economic Freedom will soon begin offering a bachelor\u2019s and a master\u2019s degree in Business and Government Leadership, programs that were approved by the FIU Faculty Senate.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Center is \u201chiring aggressively,\u201d said Diaz-Rosillo. Administrative salaries have more than tripled since 2024, up to $720,000 from $218,000.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As he looks to the future, Diaz-Rosillo has set his eyes on expanding past Latin America and integrating the Center with similar free-market thinkers across Europe. But doing so could require more independence from other faculty members.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re growing tremendously,\u201d said Diaz-Rosillo, \u201cbut we don\u2019t have the facilities of a college even though we\u2019re performing the duties of a college.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For the first time since its founding, the Center is in the process of hiring faculty. However, because it is not an independent college, it cannot offer tenure to scholars without asking other departments to give tenure status. Diaz-Rosillo said this amounts to a \u201climitation\u201d on his goals for the Center, likening it to \u201cbureaucratic red tape\u201d that he would like to do away with.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c I think we\u2019ve built a world-class program,\u201d said Diaz-Rosillo. \u201c But we cannot offer tenure until we become a college. Medium to long term, I think that\u2019s a model that would allow us to do what we cannot do by ourselves right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Florida taxpayers fund largely conservative think tank for Latin America at FIU<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This report was produced by Miami Herald news partner WLRN Public Media.<\/i><\/p>\n

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