Thread: Latin America isn't buying into our system

www.commercialappeal.com

LaRosa: Latin America isn't buying into our system
By Michael LaRosa
November 15, 2005

Bio info: Michael LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College with expertise in Latin American history.

Those who follow the politics and history of Latin America were not surprised when hundreds of protesters turned out in Argentina on Nov. 4 to denounce President Bush and U.S. policies in the region and the world.

Ostensibly, the protest organized in a Mar del Plata soccer stadium by Venezuela's leftist, populist/demagog president Hugo Chavez was intended to denounce U.S. support for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, a hemispherewide free-trade zone that has little if any chance of being implemented. But Latin Americans' discontent these days runs deeper than trade and is centered on several fundamental issues.

The United States has long advocated free trade in the hemisphere, and the 1994 NAFTA treaty between the United States, Mexico and Canada was the culmination of a spirit of trade integration in the Americas. But trade liberalization has hardly resulted in a happier, wealthier or more secure Latin America. The wealthy and well educated have done well, but the poor have done miserably.

Recent statistics from the United Nations show that a staggering 222 million people in Latin America (43 percent of the population) live in poverty. Of those, 96 million live in "extreme poverty." In Brazil, the average monthly wage is about $80.

And free trade is hardly free: The average annual subsidy paid to U.S. farmers in 2000 was $13,000, according to a report in The New York Times. How can farmers in Latin America compete against the power of the U.S. economy which supports inefficiency for political purposes, especially in the cotton- and sugar-growing regions of our own country?

Latin Americans have opted for moderate leftist leaders in part as a repudiation of the Washington-imposed trade and finance policies of the past two decades. Recently, the presidencies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Venezuela have all been won by left-leaning populists who have begun implementing social reform programs that mitigate against the impersonal free market.

Other reasons for Latin American discontent with U.S. polices go beyond trade. Many Latin Americans do not like our lecturing them about democracy, especially at a time when senior aides in the White House have been under investigation for improprieties. They question the certainty with which we export our style of democracy and believe we overestimate the strength of our own system, or the need for the rest of the world to adopt it.

Serious doubts remain regarding the formulation of U.S. policy in the run-up to the Iraq war, and many Latin American citizens do not believe that President Bush won the White House fairly in 2000.

A perception of hypocrisy also exists among many Latin Americans with regard to the U.S. position on human rights issues. They know that the United States supported some of the most notorious abusers of human rights in El Salvador and Guatemala during the 1980s and backed Chile's ruthless right-wing dictator, Augusto Pinochet. They also question our military aid program to Colombia (amounting to billions of dollars since 2000), as some of the ugliest human rights abuses in recent Latin American history have been attributed to groups linked to the Colombian military.

The photos out of Abu Ghraib prison and the current debate over treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay also are widely known in Latin America.

Many Latin Americans are tired of hearing U.S. officials lecture them on how to escape poverty. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, they -- along with the rest of the world -- saw that we have hardly alleviated poverty in the United States, and they know that during the past five years the Bush administration has had little to say on the topic. They also know that it is our country's trade policies that have helped widen the gap between the haves and have-nots in Latin America.

These are difficult days, indeed, for U.S. and Latin American relations: President Bush has no political capital to spend in the region and has preferred to invest his energies and priorities in the Middle East. The administration has been unable to engage Latin America on any issue, and that will likely continue for the remainder of the President's term.

Serious initiatives on immigration reform, debt reduction and trade have started to flow from south to north, as Latin American nations start looking at ways to solve problems on their own. They are unwilling, and unable, to wait for a new administration in Washington. Three years -- even in Latin time -- is a long time to wait.

This is an excellent article and in my opinion, the Latin American People have what it takes to make their own way. It is time to stand up, take charge of their politics and their economies rather than wait for some Miracle from the United States, which frankly and sadly, we can not deliver at this time.

What we can deliver is a System that pre-Bush worked well and to the benefit of our citizens, not all but most. It does not work under the current policies since Bush came into office. All the statistics that matter are in decline.

Americans have a lot of work to do be rebuild our nation and fix our own problems and pay our own bills. We can no longer be judged by what you see in the Movies. We have rising poverty, declining wages, population growth we can not support or sustain because of illegal immigration and excess legal migration. Our trade policies and NAFTA widened the income gap in the United States as well as the other countries. CAFTA will do the same.

Unbeknownst to most of us, we did not know about the other I believe 38 trade agreements passed by this US Congress and signed into law by President Bush until just recently. Thus, our problems are much deeper and wider than we previously realized.

Latin Americans, both Central and South Americans, have the opportunity to build your own System, using the best of ours as an example, and then customizing it to fit your needs and special circumstances.

You do not need the United States to achieve your goals of building a better life. You have beautiful rich lands, oceans, forests, resources...the same as we had....you have beautiful people, who work hard, and who have great down-to-earth ideas and great intelligence.

You have within you all you need to build a great country within South America and this Hemisphere as a nation, with your independence intact, your sovereignty intact, your environment protected and regulated by you, your precious rain forests and natural resources protected and regulated by you.

As Americans, we are to be your friends. We are here to buy products as we can and when they are necessary and we hope that you would consider our products and purchase them when they are necessary or appealing.

But, we do not want to create a situation where our companies exploit your people or rob your land or pollute your land or ravage your forests or your natural resources.

Americans believe and always have in international trade. When we have something you want, we would like to sell it to you...without government intervention or regulation. When you have something we want, we would like to buy it from you...without government intervention or regulation. We do not want the World Trade Organization or its tribunals involved in our lives or yours, our nation or yours, our laws or yours.

We want our population to stay here and your population to stay there.

We have more population than we can sustain.

We want your population to succeed and hopefully there is something about our American Experience that you can learn from and adopt. When our system is free of these Globalists, it is I believe one of the best systems in the world.

Study our history and development, economic and political up through around 1990 or so. There will be much that you can use to develop your system from our experience. Throw out the bad, pursue the good, and arrive at your system that works for you, your people, and your nation.

Americans are not imperialists. But our present leadership has lost sight of US and is interested in an Agenda that Americans do not support.

In other words, WE here in the United States have some issues which we need to work out with our Government; get things back on track; and then perhaps once again we may be a shining example of freedom and democracy for others to follow.

Unfortunately, at the present time, that is not the case.

However, we are working on the problem and are quite optimistic that we will have it resolved in the not too distant future.

We thank you, Latin Americans, for standing up against the FTAA. Many of us have reviewed this proposed agreement and like CAFTA and NAFTA believe it would be highly detrimental to both the USA and our friends in Latin America.

We are grateful that many of you have arrived at the same conclusion and stood tall and bravely protested it during Bush's visit to South America.

Thank You Very Much!!

as Latin American nations start looking at ways to solve problems on their own.

A couple of hundred years late, but better late than never.

Yes Indeed, Gearhead...better late than never. But a good thing, a very good thing indeed!

That may be the best thing to come out of the War in Iraq.