With no more than 12% of the world’s population, the Americas now account for half of the world’s fatalities from the COVID-19 pandemic, with some 640,000 deaths. Of these, over 400,000 have taken place in Latin America, triggering what the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has called the region’s worst crisis in a century. There is plenty of blame to go around for this tragic state of affairs – starting with China, where the virus originated, and continuing with the incompetent management of the pandemic (that arrived in the region two months after it did in the rest of the world) by the region’s governments.
Less remarked upon has been the proactive role played by the United States in creating the conditions for this tragedy. As reported by the New York Times, in the course of 2019, Washington strongly pressured the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador and El Salvador to expel the teams of Cuban doctors working there, which they proceeded to do, just before the onset of the pandemic. This left these countries without a critical mass of health professionals that would have been invaluable in containing the virus. Hand in hand with that, and for related reasons, Washington proceeded to a major defunding of the Panamerican Health Organisation (PAHO), which left it in a shambles. PAHO was thus not able to assist countries in the region in fighting the virus, as it had done with previous pandemics.
The results are there for all to see. Ecuador, with 12,000 deaths, is Exhibit A of that effect, and Bolivia, with 8,000, is not too far behind. Even in June 2020, as the virus was ravaging the region, USAID would nut budge, refusing to restore funding to PAHO. Once again, Latin America is falling victim to another Cold War, in this case, the continuing obsession of Washington with all things Cuban, and, the way things are going, with all matters Chinese.
As Latin America ponders the way to get out of this crisis, which will lead to a projected negative growth of 8% in 2020, the worst performance of any region, and the prospect of yet another lost decade, it is time to give serious thought to a different approach. The reason the government of President Jair Bolsonaro kick-started this all with the expulsion of Cuban doctors from Brazil and, (with Washington) the defunding of PAHO, was to earn brownie points with the United States in its anti-Cuba offensive.
Aboriginal tribes in the Amazon have been decimated by the pandemic, among other reasons, because, without the Cuban doctors, they have been left with no medical care at all. The same motive to gain favour with Washington drove the right-wing governments of Bolivia, Ecuador and El Salvador to acquiesce to Washington’s request to expel these doctors.
Rarely has the willingness of Latin American governments to engage in the Cold War games played by Washington proved to have such deadly and devastating consequences. As the tensions between the United States and China escalate to what some have referred to as a Second Cold War, this tragic occurrence should serve as a warning to what lies in store if measures are not taken to steer course into a different direction.
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It is for that reason that, with my colleagues Carlos Fortín and Carlos Ominami, we have proposed a policy of Active Non Alignment for Latin America. In the 1950s, when the first Cold War emerged, several countries in what was then known as the Third World, decided they would not be forced to choose between Washington and Moscow, between capitalism and socialism. They went their own way instead. Led by leaders such as Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, they would later establish the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and espouse a New International Economic Order (NIEO).
Sixty years later, we live in a different world. We no longer refer to the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America as the “Third World”, but use the term Global South instead. Moreover, we have also witnessed what the World Bank has referred to as a massive “Wealth Shift” from North to South and from the North Atlantic to the Asia Pacific. From representing between 20% and 30% of international trade and investment flows in the 1960s and ’70s, the Global South has come to represent 50% of these flows in 2015. That year, China represented 30% of global economic growth. But the enormous growth of countries from the Global South, particularly of China and of India, but also Brazil (under Lula), Indonesia and Turkey, does not occur in a vacuum.
It has gone hand in hand with a growing populism and protectionism in countries of the developed North, which proceeded to dismantle the very liberal international order they once created, and to turn inwards. When the world’s fastest growing and most dynamic region is Asia, the very notion of what is the centre and what is the periphery, acquires a different connotation. We are witnessing a major reordering of international economic order hierarchies, that Latin America has not yet recognised. Old platforms like the NAM are being replaced by new ones like the BRICS. The old diplomacy of the Cahiers des doleances is replaced by that of collective financial statecraft through entities such as the Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (the so-called “BRICS Bank”).
It is these new entities and opportunities that Latin America must engage with. Far from locking herself up within the confines of the Western Hemisphere, as the anachronistic application of a newly dusted-off Monroe Doctrine portends, Latin America must open up to this new post-Western world, in Oliver Stuenkel’s expression. In this new world, the parameters, norms and resources will no longer originate solely from the North Atlantic powers, as it was for most of the 20th century. They will also hail from the newly emerging powers, led by the BRICS, but also from other countries in Asia and Africa, trailblazers in what observers refer to as the ‘Asian Century’.
This is not about the romantic resurrection of a bygone era. Rather, it is about drawing from the non-aligned traditions and adapting them to this new epoch, in a world in flux. As opposed to the old non-alignment, that had a strong defensive component (including defining itself by what it was not), active non-alignment would look to expand, not to limit, the ties of Latin American nations with that vast non-Western world that is emerging before our very eyes.
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The strengthening of regional bodies; a commitment to multilateralism; an action plan on climate change; the establishment of a regional Center for Disease Control (CDC) funded by Latin American countries; redefining obsolete notions of national security that have little or nothing to do with tanks crossing borders, and more with pandemics, droughts and global warming; a commitment to gender equality and fair labour relations; and a genuine non-alignment, that does not surrender to any of the two major powers, but focuses instead on the region’s own goals and objectives, are some of the things such an active non alignment would entail.
Some would say the current crop of Latin American governments is unlikely to take up such an unorthodox approach. Well, that remains to be seen. The crisis in the region has reached such depths that ruling leaders and coalitions are likely to pay a heavy price in the next electoral cycle that is about to start, something similar to what happened in the 1930s after the Great Depression. At that point, fresh thinking on the region’s foreign relations will be in heavy demand. Chilean foreign minister Andrés Allamand has already expressed his support for a policy of what he has called “active neutralism”. The result of the recent elections in Bolivia and the return of the MAS to power would seem to indicate a region ready to look for different approaches to foreign policy.
The main message conveyed by US President-elect Joe Biden’s team so far is that Latin America should not expect too much from a new administration that will have its hands full with domestic challenges. And that is fine. What the region cannot countenance is the sort of US interference mentioned above, that can have such negative consequences. And Latin America does not need charity. What it needs is the ability to freely conduct its own foreign relations without having to request a permit slip from Washington as to which countries are acceptable as trading and investment partners, and which ones are not.
US President Donald Trump hosts a working dinner with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, US, March 7, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Tom Brenner
China, on the other hand, is obviously interested in garnering as much international political support as it can, and the MoUs signed with 19 Western hemisphere countries on the Belt and Road Initiative are a good example of that. That said, it is fully aware of the sensitive geopolitical situation in place today, and does not expect Latin American countries to take Beijing’s side in its differences with Washington on issues that do not affect the region.
Latin America is at a crossroads. Its current fragmentation and deep-seated crisis call for a fresh approach on how it relates to the rest of the world.
Jorge Heine is research professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University.