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neophyte321: Could you explain to us, ignorant-incompetent Americans, the significance of a left-wing politician being elected in Ecuador, or of South America moving towards the left for that matter? How far left are you suggesting? Communism? Are you warning us of a future cold-war?
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November 30, 2006
SouthAmerica: No, South America is not going to become a block of communist countries.
No, we are not going to have a cold-war against South America.
I wrote an article published on June 2, 2005 - âWhile China Rises the US Falls in Brazil and Latin Americaâ â In that article I mentioned a few trends that have been under way for a number of years.
In the bottom listed the location of the article if you decide to read the entire article - since that article was published in June 2005 at least 8,000 people did read that article online.
Here I am quoting from that article as follows:
âUS Influence Declining in South America
The Arab-South America Summit offered to the Arabs commercial alternatives not available before, which will reduce the European and American hegemony in the Arab world.
The Arab Summit laid the foundations to further reduce the gap between the Arab world and South America, an area of the world that is becoming one of the major industrial and commercial trading blocs in the world.
On January 26, 2005 The Financial Times of London had an interesting editorial - "How America became the world's dispensable nation."
That Financial Times article started by saying: "In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited.
....The US, it turns out, is a dispensable nation. Europe, China, Russia, Latin America and other regions and nations are quietly taking measures whose effect, if not sole purpose, will be to cut America down to size.
Ironically, the US, having won the cold war, is adopting the strategy that led the Soviet Union to lose it."
To further illustrate the United States loss of clout and influence in South America, we just have to look at the results of the latest election of the head of the OAS.
One of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's goals in her trip to Brazil in late April 2005 was to convince President Lula to change his mind and have Brazil vote for the US candidate that would head the Organization of American States (OAS) for the next 5 years.
One week later, the candidate that Brazil was supporting all along, in opposition to the United States, Mr. Insulza from Chile was the winner. It was the first time in the organizations 60-year history that the candidate supported by Washington did not win.
This particular election sends a clear signal to the world of how fast the United States is losing its influence in South America. At the same time that the US is losing its influence,
China is quickly replacing the United States influence in the Area.
China's Rising Influence
In a very short period of time China is becoming the most important business partner of Brazil. China has been quickly replacing the United States' influence in Brazil - and that is also happening in other South American countries
On May 17, 2005 - The Financial Times of London had another article trying to explain why US influence was declining in South America: "Latin lessons the US faces a loss of leadership."
The article said: "Why have relations turned so sour? Economics is part of the reason. During the late 1980s and 1990s Latin America embraced free market policies and moved enthusiastically into the US orbit. But when reform often failed to produce growth that began to change, with many Latin Americans blaming the US for their problems.
"The failure of the Bush administration to help Argentina when it ran into a disastrous debt crisis at the end of 2001 was particularly damaging to its image in the region. "Whether or not Washington or Wall Street really bear the blame, many Latin Americans believe the US led them down the primrose path but then were simply not interested when times got tough," says Julia Sweig, a Latin America specialist at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
"After a number of South American countries embraced democracy, and many of the economic policies prescribed by Washington including all kinds of privatizations, the result of these changes did not benefit the South American population as expected.
"And South America's less than impressive economic performance over the past 15 years has led to a fresh bout of soul-searching about what kind of economic model is right for the region.
"... In particular, the role of the state - which policymakers were trying to cut back for most of the 1990s - is undergoing a rethink, in part reflecting South America's growing economic relationship with parts of Asia that have achieved much higher rates of growth."
There is another factor that contributed to the current state of affairs in South America. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States lost its interest regarding South America.
Some South American countries including Brazil, instead of whining or crying over spilled milk, did something about it, as a capitalist country they started searching around the world for new partners to establish new ties to replace their lost business.
The US decline of influence with Brazil did not happen overnight or because of political reasons; it was as a result of economic reasons as Brazil found new partners.
The Brazilian need to find new markets for its products coincided with the economic explosion that has been happening in the Chinese economy in the last few years. Today, China has an insatiable need for commodities of all kinds to feed its amazing production machine.â
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If you want to read the entire article then go to:
âWhile China Rises the US Falls in Brazil and Latin Americaâ
Published on June 2, 2005
http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9296/76/
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