Posted on 05/12/2005 10:55:14 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
America may be flexing its military muscle in the Middle East, but in South America it is losing the diplomatic battle. Irene Caselli reports.
The United States is nursing a bruised ego. After decades of funding malleable regimes, fomenting right-wing coups and building economic hegemony in the Americas, Washington just found itself locked out of its own backyard.
This week saw leaders of the Latin American and Arab worlds meet in a historic summit in Brazil - and the US was denied even the courtesy of observer status. Washington is outraged, fearing that this was more than just a diplomatic slight: it sees it as the latest gesture of defiance from the two regions that bear the deepest grudge over recent US foreign policy.
The Summit of South American-Arab Countries, which concluded on Wednesday and was attended by Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, furthered Latin America's drive to strengthen relationships away from the United States. Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva led moves by South American states to cement alliances outside the US, which has traditionally held the South on a short leash economically.
On the surface, the summit's "Brasilia declaration" was predictable. Arab states ensured there was a condemnation of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. But Capitol Hill is said to be more concerned about its rumblings of dissent on its doorstep.
"It is time to change the commercial geography of the world," Lula said at the summit. "If we are alone, then none of us can compete with rich nations."
Commentators in the US have taken the move very seriously. "This is mind-boggling in its significance," Larry Birns, head of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, one of Washington's most prominent independent think tanks, told The London Line. "There is a growing tendency in Latin American states to break out of the ghetto of US diplomacy," he said. He compared the attitude of President George W. Bush's administration to its poor cousins in the South to Russian President Vladimir Putin's clamping down on the efforts of many Eastern European states to distance themselves from Moscow. "The symbolic message of the snub couldn't be huger," Birns said.
Across Latin America, a new left has swept to power. In Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Chile and, most recently, Uruguay, charismatic leaders vociferously opposed to the US' free-trade agenda have won elections over the past six years. Ill feeling towards their northern neighbours is running high: in a recent poll, 85% of Latin Americans said they opposed Bush's re-election.
The State Department dismissed suggestions that the US' continental dominance is under threat. "We hope our friends in the hemisphere do not fall back on the failed policies of the past," said a State Department official, who declined to be named. "We will work with any country, provided its leader is democratically elected," he said. " We urge them to crack down on corruption and promote free trade."
That exhortation seems to fall on deaf ears. Washington's grand plans for a Free Trade Area of the Americas have stalled after Latin American leaders objected to proposals restricting access to US markets and continued subsidies for US industry. The rhetoric of the Brazilian summit will do nothing to quell fears that the FTAA is dead in the water.
Washington's most throbbing Latin American headache takes the form of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Birns believes Chavez, a man who has publicly called President Bush a "dickhead", was "instrumental in orchestrating the summit".
Venezuela, which controls 40% of the US' oil imports, has moved closer to Cuba, the bête noire of US-Latin American relations, since Chavez was elected president in 1998. He survived a US-backed coup in 2002 and, with the example of his radically socialist "Bolivarian revolution", is giving the rest of the continent a lesson in bucking the north's neo-liberal agenda.
The snub completes a bad month for the US in Latin America. Both their preferred candidates for the presidency of the Organisation of American States were defeated two weeks ago in a bruising race eventually won by Chilean socialist Jose Miguel Insulza.
It remains to be seen how far Latin America's bid for greater independence can go. The continent still receives US$1.6 billion financial assistance from the US, and owes vast sums to the IMF and the World Bank. With antagonistic appointments in Washington - such as that of Roger Noriega, a man implicated in the Iran Contra scandal - tensions between Washington and Latin America show no sign of improving in the near future.
Destruction by design...
What they are saying across the Pond.
It sure looks like their carefully planned subversion of the American system could go badly awry.
even relatively liberal news sources like the bbc have declared the South American Arab summit to have gone poorly.
What we really have here we have seen before, in the halls of the UN, in Arab nationalism, in the grotesque political machinations of M. Chirac. It is simply that organizations unified by anti-Americanism that fail to articulate what they are for are doomed to irrelevance and futility.
"February 2005 Import Highlights: Released on April 25, 2005
Monthly data on the origins of U.S. crude oil imports in February 2005 has been released and it shows that two countries exported 1.5 million barrels per day or more of crude oil to the United States; in addition, three other countries exported over 1.0 million barrels per day of crude oil to the United States (see table below).
The top sources of U.S. crude oil imports in February 2005 were: Saudi Arabia (1.525 million barrels per day), Canada (1.513 million barrels per day), Mexico (1.488 million barrels per day), Venezuela (1.357 million barrels per day), and Nigeria (1.114 million barrels per day). Rounding out the top ten sources, in order, were Iraq (0.523 million barrels per day), Angola (0.369 million barrels per day), Ecuador (0.356 million barrels per day), Russia (0.288 million barrels per day), and Algeria (0.219 million barrels per day). Total crude oil imports averaged 10.158 million barrels per day in February, an increase of 0.314 million barrels per day from January.
The top five origins accounted for 69 percent of U.S. crude oil imports in February and the top ten sources accounted for 86 percent of all U.S. crude oil imports."
How could Venezuela third of the top five exporters of crude to the US market which top five exporters account for 69% of US oil imports, account for 40% of US oil imports?
Imports from SA, Canada, Mexico and Venezuela are roughly the same. 40% X 4 = 160%
Venezuela does not account for 40% of US oil imports and all their exports are high sulphur low grade and NG.
See: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
I really don't see why it matters at all about this conference.
What's the big deal? It's not like oil won't be available or that South American countries won't talk to us again.
One of the reasons Chavez can shoot his face off is that he knows the Venezuela oil supply is not critical to the US unless he cuts it off all together which he will not do because it's a cash cow.
As the Brits say he's "Taking the piss". As the Americans say he's all hat and no gun.
As my dad, a former London Bobby used to say. "Move along please there's nothing to see here."
Kind of interesting when you look at what happened this week. The meeting in Brazil with the Arabs has been described as historical. Also, lest we forget, the six latin American presidents coming to Washington to lobby for CAFTA and meet with Bush was also described as historical.
The 6 countries that came to the US were Nicaragua, Honddura, Costa Rico, Guatamala, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. The seven leftist countries are Brazil, Bolivia, Venezula, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Chili and Uraguay. It looks like the Dominican Republic is playing both sides of the fence.
I find it strange that both of these so called historical meetings were the same week. It kind of makes you wonder which meeting was planned first.
So far, I haven't read anything that was accomplished with these six countries in Washington. Hopefully, nothing.
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