President Trump’s row with Mexico has placed U.S. cooperation with its southern neighbors in jeopardy—and with it U.S. national interests and security. But it’s not too late to change course.
Who to pick? The country led by the guy who regularly refers to citizens south of the border as criminals or “bad hombres”? Or the new seemingly dynamic global economy that has pledged to increase trade to Latin America by $500 billion?
In an ongoing series examining the consequences of President Trump’s policies on the region, Kevin Gallagher looks at what this administration’s trade policies will mean for China’s influence in Latin America.
It’s clear that a new wave of protectionism is likely next. The WTO may be our best hope for avoiding a trade war.
Don’t be fooled — the US president-elect does not have a plan to make America great again.
Some of the people slated to enter the administration have made a career peddling theories of Islamist threats in our hemisphere. There are genuine reasons for concern, but not for the disproven assertions many have been pitching for years.
As the year comes to an end, the demise of social order in Venezuela is the chronicle of a foretold death. Though 2016 began with high expectations of a peaceful change in government, neither the Maduro administration nor the opposition have shown the courage and leadership needed to find common ground and to pull the country out of the deep hole it finds itself in. Unfortunately for Venezuelans, who are deeply suffering from the economic, social and political chaos, they have little to look forward to in 2017.
The historical problem Brazil has been unable to solve is the need to build an inclusive economic model that can help alleviate poverty and reduce inequality. That will require cutting subsidies and benefits to interest groups that have long benefitted from fiscal spending. As the year comes to an end, Brazilians will be happy to forget a bad year in terms of politics and the economy. Unfortunately for them, 2017 might not be much better.
China’s engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean increasingly impacts the region, and by extension, the economic and security environment of the U.S. As such, China’s new document on its approach toward the region is important for policymakers, analysts and businessmen with an interest in that relationship. This article thus examines that document and provides recommendations for U.S. policymakers of how best to respond.
Even with its geographic connectedness to the United States, and although Latin America eclipses even China and Asia as the U.S. principal foreign trading partner, and despite the fact that more U.S. residents have family in the region than any other part of the world, Latin America, and the Caribbean continue to be remarkably absent from the U.S. strategic and foreign policy discourse.
