MIAMI, FL.- One hundred percent dedicated to solving internal problems, the government of Joseph Biden is leaving the door open for the Chinese and Russians to expand their influence in the region like never before.
Latin America is a disaster zone due to the pandemic and bad governments. What you see coming is a fire of monumental proportions.
In April, Latin America concentrated 35 percent of the deaths from Covid in the world, and only has 8 percent of the planet’s population.
Populist governments are incapable of solving practically anything, not even buying vaccines, and they are adept at blaming others for their mistakes.
The United States suffered this situation with the populist Donald Trump, and came to contribute a quarter of the deaths in the world with only 4 percent of the population.
The news is bad for the region, but it is not the worst: here are more populist governments and the United States does not move a dollar or a vaccine to save the emergency.
You see your friends in crises, and only Russian and Chinese vaccines have arrived in Latin America.
At this rate, the United States will pay for its indifference.
If a crisis in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, which together number just 34 million inhabitants, causes humanitarian chaos on the southern border of the United States, what will happen with political instability, health and economic crisis in more populated countries?
Surely you already know it and, according to what a person with close ties in the State Department told me, in these weeks they have been evaluating which governments can be counted on and which ones cannot.
At this rate, they will have none, or almost none.
Next year there are presidential elections in Brazil, where two populists who have proven their ineptitude, Jair Bolsonaro and Lula Da Silva, will surely face each other.
Lula had good numbers, because he received a country with solid foundations and economic growth from the hands of Fernando Henrique Cardozo, but then the “miracle” collapsed into a pool of patronage and corruption.
Colombia also has elections next year, and it is not clear how they can prevent the triumph of an ultra-left populist, former M-19 guerrilla, Gustavo Petro.
Chile will go to the polls this year to elect a president, and for months the Communist Party candidate, Daniel Jadue, has led the way.
Do Chileans have something to thank the United States for? The vaccines they have given, in great quantity and very good, are Chinese.
Argentina is in the hole with the populist Alberto Fernández. There is no money, there is no employment, and there are no vaccines.
Fernández opted for the alliance with Mexico to jointly produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, since August. They were going to produce, at the end of last year, between 150 and 200 million doses. We are in May 2021 and how many vaccines have they produced? None.
Populists do not know how to govern and are usually a trunk of resentments.
The few vaccines that have been given in Argentina are Russian, and its president can speak about their results: two weeks after the second dose he was given Covid.
Bolivia returned to the populist route and the first action of the new president, Luis Arce, was to put his predecessor Jeanine Áñez in jail for “participating in a coup against Evo Morales.” What hit? Evo resigned, left it in writing, and Áñez was elected by Congress, as mandated by the Constitution in the absence of the president.
Bolivia has become Bolivia again.
Venezuela is getting worse. Part of its territory is dominated by Colombian criminal groups, drug traffickers and guerrillas, with an army deliberately corrupted by the government to buy their loyalty, as well as a presidency that has destroyed democracy and the economy.
Central America is in chaos. In Nicaragua there is a family dictatorship. Honduras in the hands of the narco, El Salvador under the possession of a mobster. Cuba is a Covid cemetery.
And in that panorama, where is the United States?
The friendly hand found by the population of these countries is the Russian and the Chinese. By dropper, but at least there is an intention to help.
Yes, of course, in exchange for a lot, like the political espionage systems (in Venezuela) or lithium. And something more important than that raw material for electric car batteries: the goodwill of the people towards them.
And the United States?
He’s belittled under Trump, and he’s acting infuriatingly slow with Biden.
Latin America is close to burning, and here – until now – there is no idea of what role to play in the South. Not even in self-defense.
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