The Economist - USA (2020-08-08)

32 The Americas TheEconomistAugust 8th 2020

2

Bello Beyond the troika of tyranny

“F

or thefirst time in history, you can

truly envision a western hemi-

sphere that is secure, democratic and

middle-class, from northern Canada to

southern Chile, and everywhere in be-

tween.” So said Joe Biden in a speech at

Harvard University in 2014. Much has

changed since then, not least the de-

struction of lives and livelihoods

wrought by the pandemic. Even so, were

Mr Biden to be elected president of the

United States in November, for many

Latin Americans he would offer a vision

that is reassuring and familiar compared

with the unpredictable sound and fury of

Donald Trump.

Mr Trump won in 2016 in part because

he promised to build a wall to keep out

Latin American immigrants, declaring

that Mexico was “not our friend”. Nev-

ertheless, he has developed relatively

good relations with the most important

governments in the region. Jair Bolso-

naro, Brazil’s president, used Mr Trump’s

success as a template for his own cam-

paign in 2018. He has closely aligned

Brazil’s foreign policy, normally in-

dependent, with the Trump administra-

tion’s views. Andrés Manuel López Obra-

dor, on his only foreign trip in 21 months

as Mexico’s leader, last month went to

Washington and praised Mr Trump’s

“kindness and respect”. To keep the

border open for trade, Mexico’s govern-

ment has collaborated in shutting it to

asylum-seekers.

Wary of Mr Trump’s threats of tariffs

and sanctions, many governments have

fallen into line “out of necessity and

especially out of fear”, says a Latin Amer-

ican official. Ordinary Latin Americans

are not impressed: the percentage who

express a favourable view of the United

States fell from the high 60s in 2015 to

around 45 in 2017, according to the Pew

Research Centre.

Mr Trump’s Latin American policy has

centred on a (so far) failed bid to overthrow

what John Bolton, his former national

security adviser, called “the troika of ty-

ranny”—the leftist dictatorships in Vene-

zuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. In his recent

memoir Mr Bolton blamed the failure to

oust Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, despite

swingeing sanctions, on Mr Trump’s lack

of constancy and foot-dragging inside the

administration. As important, the admin-

istration underestimated the difficulty of

prising the army away from Mr Maduro. Its

critics say its Latin American policies are

based on the president’s need to win Flori-

da, home to large Cuban and Venezuelan

diasporas, in November. “Domestic poli-

tics always figures in policy towards Latin

America, but never before to this degree,”

says Michael Shifter of Inter-American

Dialogue, a think-tank in Washington.

Were Mr Biden to win, his priorities

would be the American economy and

dealing with China. But Latin America

might not be at the bottom of his to-do list.

He knows the region far better than recent

presidents. In Barack Obama’s second

term Vice-President Biden took on re-

sponsibility for the Americas. “He dedi-

cated time to it, set out to learn about it

and talked to a lot of people in the re-

gion,” says the Latin American official.

Juan Gonzalez, who advised Mr Biden

on Latin America back then, stresses that

the region and the world are not as they

were in 2016. “The challenges are much

greater,” he says. But he thinks there are

opportunities for the United States in the

region, not just threats to be managed.

American firms that bring supply chains

back from China could benefit Mexico

and Central America. Mr Biden has long

supported immigration reform. As presi-

dent, he would be likely to resume his

previous policy in Central America, with

an aid programme aimed at fighting

corruption and deterring migration

through economic development.

On Venezuela, Mr Gonzalez says that

sanctions should be part of a broader

policy that would include seeking nego-

tiations for free elections. A Biden presi-

dency would revert to Mr Obama’s Cuba

policy, which saw engagement as more

likely to weaken the communist regime

than Mr Trump’s intensification of sanc-

tions. It would press Mr Bolsonaro on his

failure to protect the Amazon.

An immediate issue concerns leader-

ship of the Inter-American Development

Bank. Breaking with a 60-year under-

standing that its president is a Latin

American, the Trump administration

wants the job for Mauricio Claver-Ca-

rone, an official at the National Security

Council and an architect of its Venezuela

policy. He may get it at a meeting of the

bank’s governors next month. A Biden

administration would probably force

him out in favour of a less polarising

figure. To do that, Mr Biden must win.

A Biden presidency might seem reassuringly familiar to Latin Americans

the government cannot afford. The budget

deficit last year exceeded 10% of gdp. Mr

Santokhi persuaded public-sector unions

to wait for the pay rise. He has begged

banks for cash, raised income-tax rates and

deferred payment of a loan taken out last

year to buy a hydroelectric dam.

Suriname, like Guyana, is an emerging

petro-power. Apache, an American oil

company, and its French partner, Total, an-

nounced this year three big oil finds off-

shore. Others are about to drill. Surinamese

may share Guyanese worries over how well

the windfall will be managed. Mr Santokhi

is a former police commissioner and jus-

tice minister but the new vice-president,

Ronnie Brunswijk, seems less strait-laced.

He began his career as Mr Bouterse’s body-

guard, fought a guerrilla war against his

former boss in the 1980s, and has been con-

victed by a Dutch court for cocaine smug-

gling. He owns a football club and a gold-

mining business.

The oil will not flow for perhaps five

years, which means that Mr Santokhi,

whose term ends in 2025, may reap as little

political benefit from it as the unlucky Mr

Granger. The economy will shrink by 5%

this year, reckons the imf. Gold may help

before the oil money arrives. It accounted

for more than three-quarters of exports last

year. Investors’ mistrust of the dollar has

pushed its global price to a record high.

Dutch-speaking Suriname’s largest eth-

nic groups, like Guyana’s, are of African

and Indian origin. But its political divide

reflects attitudes to Mr Bouterse rather

than ethnic identity. He has now left the

scene. The fight over how to spend Suri-

name’s new riches, when they come, may

be less bitter than Guyana’s. That, perhaps,

is Suriname’s real gold. 7