Posted on 12/26/2005 1:13:11 PM PST by FerdieMurphy
When historians in the future look back at the year 2005, they will describe it as the year in which the United States lost much of its once almighty influence in Latin America, and former outsiders -- such as China -- began to play a modest but rapidly growing role in hemispheric affairs.
Some researchers are likely to say the loss of U.S. clout in the region was due to the the rise of hostile regional subpowers such as oil-rich Venezuela, which won growing influence thanks to a combination of checkbook diplomacy and populist demagoguery.
Others will say it was a self-inflicted retrenchment, because the United States lost interest in a region stuck with 19th century anti-free-market ideologies at a time when China, India and the former Eastern Europe were embracing capitalism -- and U.S. corporations -- with near religious zeal.
Whichever the case, the fact is that Latin America's economy grew by a reasonably healthy 4.3 percent in 2005, but below the 5.7 percent combined average growth of all developing countries, and even more significantly behind China's 9 percent growth, or India's 7 percent growth, according to United Nations figures.
RIFT IN RELATIONS
Politically, it wasn't a happy year for U.S.-Latin American ties. The Bush administration failed to get a majority at the 34-country Organization of American States for two successive Washington-backed candidates to head the group, and irked Mexico by supporting a congressional bill to build a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
And while Washington signed a free trade deal with Central America and the Dominican Republic, and managed to get 29 countries in the region to support continuation of free-trade negotiations during a 34-country summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina, President Bush was publicly humiliated by Argentina's President Néstor Kirchner and Venezuela's authoritarian president Hugo Chávez in widely broadcast speeches in which they blamed Washington for the region's ills.
CHAVEZ CENTER STAGE
Historians will agree that Chávez was the most visible -- although not necessarily respected -- regional leader in 2005, thanks to his country's phenomenal oil revenues, and to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's gradual loss of leadership in South America. Lula da Silva was weakened by domestic corruption scandals, and Chávez was quick to fill that void.
While Chávez's ''Bolivarian Revolution'' failed to reduce poverty -- as Venezuela's own National Statistics Institute reported early in the year -- Chávez made headlines writing fat checks to his neighbors. He offered to buy more than $1 billion of Argentina bonds and $500 million of Ecuadorean bonds, and committed $50 million to social programs in the Caribbean. In addition, Chávez launched the Petrocaribe and Petrosur regional oil production projects, and created the Telesur regional news network to challenge U.S.-generated newscasts in the region.
Toward the end of the year, Bolivia's leftist coca growers' leader Evo Morales, a close ally of Chávez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, won Bolivia's elections by a landslide, triggering fears in Washington of a leftist indigenous rise in upcoming elections in nearby countries such as Peru and Ecuador.
Meantime, China was emerging as one of the largest trade partners of South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. While press reports about China's alleged intention to invest up to $100 billion in Latin America over the next five years turned out to be wild exaggerations, China's imports of raw materials from South America are expected to reach the $100 billion-a-year mark by the end of this decade.
ECONOMIC PROGRESS
By the end of the year, Peter Hakim, head of the Inter-American Dialogue research group, was forecasting that U.S.-Latin American relations would continue to worsen in 2006.
''The region will remain peripheral to the central concerns of U.S. foreign policy,'' Hakim wrote in the January 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. ``At best, the region will sustain its recent modest economic growth, but will not offer the trade and investment opportunities that U.S. businesses find in Asia or Central Europe.''
What will historians conclude? That the United States lost ground in Latin America in 2005 and countries in the region continued lagging behind China, India and Central European countries that were reducing poverty at record rates by becoming increasingly competitive in the global economy.
But while Chávez was grabbing the headlines, Chile, Brazil and other countries were becoming increasingly successful players in the global economy, scoring better results than Venezuela in reducing poverty and influencing others in the region to follow their lead. That may be the real story of 2005, and the U.S. retrenchment may be an asterisk. But I better leave that up to historians.
Thanks to the Georgia socialist, Jimmie Kahtah the Panama Canal was handed over to "Panama" who turned the operation over to Hutchison-Wampoa a Chinese company closely allied with the PRC.
A series of big and little mistakes.
Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.
Carter and the Panama Canal.
Bush's failure to depose Chavez when he had the chance during that coup. I think the CIA probably neglected to give him the right advice, but he still should have acted.
These ignorant Kennedys made a dog's dinner out of anything they touched from Cuber to Marilyn Monroe's mysterious death.
Nincompoops running the USA just never works.
the seriousness of the situation can be observed by the ground invasion and our lack of response to repeal said invasion.
International relations, like politics in general, abhors a vacuum. There's no doubting that our worsening relations will be balanced by collateral increase in influence by China and more anti-American bad guys like Chavez.
Just curious, what you have done if you had been CinC in October of 1962 upon receiving photo recce proof of the Soviet missile force setting up for business in Cuba? I ask because I was smack in the middle of that decision as a young intelligence officer at major command level.
Just curious, what you have done if you had been CinC in October of 1962 upon receiving photo recce proof of the Soviet missile force setting up for business in Cuba? I ask because I was smack in the middle of that decision as a young intelligence officer at major command level.
communisim always looks great on the surface. Venezuela will be okay for another three to five years, maybe a few more - but it will then collapse and become a third world country.
By then, though, Chavez will have turned it from a democratic country into a Cuba clone.
The question is, will the people of Venezuela accept this?
Should we arm the people in Venezuela?
or should we turn our backs and wait and see what the Chinese do first?
of course we should continue policy here inside the US to welcome our own invasion?
Too many choices.....
or too little lack of will?
Ping to this article
I mean no offense BoBToMatoE....
just playing off of you to try and promote some discussion.
also an apology to FerdieMurphy if you are offending by my butting in.
I'll cease now!!
best plan I've heard to date...
I hate to say it, but we are finding out too quickly who and who not is lining up for us and against us. I honestly had expected that process would take longer.
No, Panama did not turn over the operation of the canal to Hutchison-Wampoa. Panama operates it. Hutchison-Wampoa’s job is building and managing the Balboa and Cristobal ports.
They got the job because they came up with the biggest bribe.
I hope Jimmy Carter rots in hell someday.
Another thing, and as much as I hate to admit it, Hutchison-Wampoa is doing an excellent job. The management is British and the rest of the workers are Panamanians.
South America is a sh*thole now and will be a sh*thole 20 years from now.
Not only that, they are uppity as well. Lets watch the Chicomms squirm as the South Amricans get more and more "needy". The duration of their gratitude is measured in milliseconds.
Go ahead China - throw a buncha resources down THAT rat hole!
Funny, that's what everyone said about the Europe, Japan and currently, the Middle East before we committed ourselves to reshaping the landscape.
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