Bush Excluded by Latin Summit as China, Russia Loom
By Joshua Goodman
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Latin American and Caribbean leaders gathering in Brazil tomorrow will mark a historic occasion: a region-wide summit that excludes the United States.
Almost two centuries after President James Monroe declared Latin America a U.S. sphere of influence, the region is breaking away. From socialist-leaning Venezuela to market-friendly Brazil, governments are expanding military, economic and diplomatic ties with potential U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran.
Since November, Russian warships have engaged in joint naval exercises with Venezuela, the first in the Caribbean since the Cold War; Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a free-trade agreement with Peru; and Brazil invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a state visit.
“Countries in the region are more aware than ever that they live in a globalized, post-American world.”
“A lot of this is designed to stick it in the eye of the U.S.,” says Peter Romero, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere from 1999 to 2001. “But underlying the bluster, there’s a genuine effort to exploit the gap left by a distant and distracted U.S.”
The effort is most evident in the bloc of countries allied with the anti-American president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.
Bolivian President Evo Morales last month expelled the Drug Enforcement Administration, alleging that DEA agents were conspiring to overthrow him; U.S. President George W. Bush dismissed the charges as absurd and suspended trade privileges for the Andean nation.
Drug-War Defeat
In Ecuador, meanwhile, President Rafael Correa has refused to renew the lease on the U.S.’s only military outpost in South America, a critical platform for the U.S. war on drugs.
The summit reinforces such regional initiatives as the Union of South American Nations, which was formed in May by 12 countries to mediate conflicts such as political violence in Bolivia, bypassing the U.S.-dominated OAS.
Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, says the nature of American influence is only changing, not declining, as the region matures.
No Invitation Sought
The fact that “there’s no warfare, weapons proliferation, suicide bombers or jihadists” in Latin America may make its issues “less urgent,” though no less important, Shannon said. The U.S. remains the region’s dominant investor and trading partner: Foreign aid to Colombia to fight drug traffickers and Marxist rebels totals $700 million a year, and remittances from Latin Americans living in the U.S. totaled $66.5 billion last year.
The real battle is for a larger share of the region’s abundant resources and expanding economies, and China has led the way.
Even Colombia, which is spending $115,000 a month lobbying the U.S. Congress to approve a stalled free-trade pact, signed an investment treaty last month with China. During this year’s U.S. campaign, President-elect Barack Obama said he opposed the accord over concerns that Colombia isn’t doing enough to stamp out violence against labor organizers.
Changing relationships are also evident in arms deals. Chavez turned to Russia for at least $4.4 billion in weapons after the U.S. blocked sales of aircraft parts. Brazil, the region’s largest economy, is also shopping around: Defense Minister Nelson Jobimsaid in Washington this month that his government will only buy weapons from countries that agree to transfer technology for local production.
Brazil may sign a deal with France for four nuclear submarines intended to help secure its oil basins in the Atlantic when French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this month.
Reactivating a Fleet
The U.S. plan to reassert its naval presence by reactivating the Fourth Fleet after 58 years to patrol the Caribbean has triggered negative reactions ranging from Chavez’s threat to sink the convoys to the more-diplomatic Lula’s demand for explanations from the Bush administration.
Latin American leaders are looking to Obama to restore relations after the Bush presidency’s initial pledges of greater engagement gave way to a focus on the 9/11 terror attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the honeymoon with Obama may be short-lived, says Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter- American Dialogue in Washington. He says that the issues that have dominated Latin American relations -- including Cuba, immigration and U.S. trade barriers on agricultural products -- may remain in dispute.
“Latin America wants the U.S. to be engaged, but in very different terms that it has in the past,” says Shifter. “In any case, they’re not waiting around for the U.S. to change its mindset.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Goodman in Rio de Janeiro jgoodman19@bloomberg.net
Americas decline self sought and self wrought. has arrived. We have spent 50yrs destroying our manufacturing base. 20 years destroying our economic strength and 50 yrs educating our children that this is how it should be. The only ting left is our military strength and that will be gone if things aren't changed in the next 10yrs.
Some here will not only agree that the Decline of America is evident but will cheer it. To that I say to you be careful what you wish for.
What has me concerned is my children and someday their children. We have destroyed our steel manufacturing, we have destroyed our auto manufacturing, and the final nails are being driven into the value of the Dollar, and that's caused by it being no longer based on gold but oil instead. A product we have plenty of but refuse to develop.
The last century was the US century. This next century by the end will not be.
Who's century do you want it to be? Russia's, China's, or Iran's ? The EU has no future to lead they can't influence each other let alone the world.
So I ask you and I do it honestly. Tell me which of the 3 you feel should be the worlds guiding light this century why and what will be the benefits
Death of America
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