After the Cold War, Cuba and China developed a strong and comprehensive alliance. Today, their collaboration is two-fold. Firstly, the economically-dependent Cuba helps China advance its myriad of interests in Latin America and the Caribbean. Secondly, the alliance meets China’s strategic needs in two broad areas: military-intelligence and biotechnology/neurosciences.

Cuba is a poor investment and trade partner, has failed to repay China billions of dollars in loans, and requires major support and humanitarian aid. However, the country has enabled China’s enormously successful economic, political, and geostrategic offensive into the region.

China has become South America’s first trading partner and the region’s second-largest after the United States. With trade growing from USD 12 billion in 2000 to USD 445 billion in 2021, China has secured new markets and privileged access to raw materials. The roughly USD 150 billion in loans from China have given it control over critical infrastructure projects, including 56 ports and telecommunications in 29 countries. Military personnel from the region now receive training on cybersecurity and military doctrine in China. This has all accelerated risks for malign commercial activities, political and economic coercion, and asymmetric attacks on infrastructure. Furthermore, it has boosted China’s civilian-military fusion strategy, which seeks to make its military the most advanced in the world and able to defeat the U.S.

Last June, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cuba and China were jointly operating four electronic eavesdropping facilities in Cuba and negotiating to establish a military training facility there. Since the 1990s, China has reportedly sold military equipment and provided training to Cuba while jointly engaging in military and intelligence projects. The Chinese presence in Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) stations in Cuba goes back to the 1990s—one defector reports it as far back as the 1980s. The terms of China’s involvement are unclear but it has been reported that China provides Cuba with equipment, supplies, and technical training in exchange for a presence on the island and the sharing of collected intelligence. The radioelectronic activities have been camouflaged in Radio China transmissions from Cuba and by China’s building of Cuba’s telecommunications infrastructure.

Numerous defectors have long reported that Cuba’s Communist regime has always collected extensive intelligence on the U.S. and other countries, which it shares with allies for profit and to strengthen relations. According to a Cuban regime official interviewed confidentially, the country’s Radio-Electronic Brigade, a Division of the Military Intelligence (DIM), currently runs its SIGINT operations from an underground facility south of Havana. The brigade’s longstanding priority has been to intercept all U.S. military communications within reach into the mainland, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. It has also systematically monitored the Cuban population and foreign targets in Cuba, and has used encrypted communications with its embassies, intelligence centers, and vast network of spies around the world.

With China’s help, Cuba has also used information technology to monitor Venezuela strategically and spread digital authoritarianism regionally. In particular, Cuba’s armies of trolls have helped to advance its interests in the cyber space. Its information warfare has even confused air traffic controllers in New York and jammed pro-democracy broadcasts to Iran. According to the U.S. government, China’s electronic espionage from Cuba was enhanced in 2019. Coincidentally, in the midst of an economic crisis, Cuba continued to order Chinese broadcasting equipment at remarkably high volumes. Between 2016 and 2021, this figure increased considerably to USD 276.6 million, surpassing food and medical imports from China as overall imports declined.

Another fundamental pillar of the Cuba-China relationship is the strategic alliance in biotechnology, in line with a Chinese government mandate for China’s biotech sector to expand and surpass that of the U.S. and the West. It has relied on Cuba’s know-how and technology transfers in at least 30 collaborative biotech projects. This is concerning because Cuba has had biowarfare capabilities since the 1980s. Into the early 2000s, several defectors also reported on a suspected biowarfare program.

Cuba and China also conduct joint research in neurotechnology and bioengineering and are developing five neuro-technological products. Cuba’s mind-control and neuroscience programs stem from the 1960s and have been used to torture political opponents and U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam. Since the 1980s, it has developed novel neurological drugs and treatments by way of experimental practices of questionable safety, marred in ethical deficits and claims of atrocities.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has been warning that China seeks to acquire technology to take over the biotechnology and neurosciences sectors. In December 2021, the U.S. imposed a ban on exports and transfers to China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, along with eleven entities believed to be involved in creating brain-control weaponry to dominate Chinese citizens and repress minorities. Several reports by the People’s Liberation Army have detailed the brain warfare research underway in mind control technologies meant to subdue the enemy, as well as “neuro-defense” equipment and brain-implanted microchips meant to fend off similar attacks.

It is difficult to acquire evidence proving these illicit activities. Secrecy is intrinsic to military and intelligence operations, and biotech and neuroscience institutions are tightly guarded operations within the two authoritarian states of China and Cuba. Thus, a comprehensive examination of all potential threats is in order. The international community should demand expert inspection of Cuba’s biotechnology facilities, including their activities and exports, to verify compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention, as well as an independent review of neuroscience collaborations with dual-use capabilities.

The United States has laws and mandates in place that would, if fully enforced, better contain Cuba, hinder resources for the dictatorship, and aid the Cuban people in attaining their freedom. A thorough review should be undertaken to assure their full enforcement, starting with the State Sponsor of Terrorism designation, the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, and the Trafficking in Persons Victims Act. If the Cuban economy and the regime’s hold on power continue to weaken, China would have to reevaluate its investments in the Caribbean Island. The region would then greatly benefit from a free and democratic Cuba.

Maria C. Werlau is co-founder and Director of the Free Society Project/Cuba Archive, a non-profit think tank defending human rights through information. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and a Master’s degree in International Studies from Universidad de Chile. This article is based on a scholarly paper that will be published in an academic journal by year-end 2023.

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Russia underwent considerable political upheaval in late June 2023 as the Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group briefly threatened President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power. While the rebellion failed, the future trajectory of Russian politics and Putin’s role suddenly looked less certain. That has implications for Russian foreign policy. In the case of Latin America, the rebellion is not likely to change Moscow’s policy direction, but it does raise questions over the long-term reliability of Russian policymakers to focus on the region, which has grown in importance since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in February 2022. In many regards, Russian relations between Russia and Latin America are a marriage of convenience. Both sides need and want a diversified set of trade relations, share an interest in advancing some type of multipolar global order, and have a complicated relationship with the United States.

One of the central narratives in Latin American geopolitics is Russia’s return to Latin America. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the major rival of the United States, focusing on keeping Cuba’s Castro regime in power, providing assistance to Central America’s revolutionary movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and opportunistically poking at Washington’s “near abroad,” similar to Russia’s near abroad in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1992, Moscow made a rapid retreat from Latin America, a transition that was particularly brutal in Cuba.  

The geopolitical landscape changed in 2007 when Putin made a sharp foreign policy turn. Speaking in Munich, Germany, he served notice that Russia was back as a great power, that U.S. global hegemony was bad, and the new world order should be multipolar. Indeed, the Russian leader accused the United States of creating a unipolar world “in which there is one master, one sovereign.” To emphasize the change in foreign policy direction, in 2008 the Russian military intervened in Georgia in a brief war to punish the small Caucasus nation for becoming too close with the West and in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine as well as carved out two satrapies in eastern Ukraine.

In the face of the U.S. and European economic sanctions, Russia paid closer attention to Latin America. While Russia maintained a core set of relations with leftwing authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, it gradually broadened its trade relations with other states, including Argentina and Brazil, both of which became dependent on Russian fertilizer needed for their economically important agricultural sectors. Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 only heightened Latin America’s attractiveness.  

Russia also became active in Latin America seeking to cultivate a positive image while undermining U.S. interests. In this, significant resources were poured into strategic communications through media platforms such as RT and Sputnik, which cast themselves as alternative sources of information. This is part of an active campaign of using misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda to undermine the role of the United States in the region and target its regional allies. Russia’s strategic design vis-à-vis Latin America also includes the sale of weapons, providing advisors and technicians, and visits by high-level military and top policymakers.

Many of the above themes were evident during the April 2023 visit of Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the region. In Cuba, Lavrov asserted, “We cannot agree that the world should continue to live permanently according to these American ‘rules.’ Tensions are being escalated in the international arena, and the West’s attempts to dictate its will and ignore the legitimate positions of others not only persist, but are growing.” A few days after the June 2023 rebellion, Lavrov accused the West of putting “brazen pressure” on countries in Africa and Latin America to comply with measures taken against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s Latin America diplomacy since its invasion of Ukraine has been relatively successful. Although most countries condemned the invasion, the majority have not followed the West in imposing economic sanctions. Russia’s growing regional role would not be possible without a relatively positive response from local governments, most of which prefer nonalignment as a means of hedging against U.S. hegemony. Moreover, many Latin American countries are uncomfortable with the idea that the international system is increasingly defined by two blocs of countries: one that is liberal democratic and rule of law-based; and the other that is authoritarian and gaining influence by state-driven economic statecraft. Russia has more recently been stressing that unlike the United States and Europe, it was never a colonial power in Latin America—a claim which has had a positive response, especially on the local left. This, of course, overlooks Russia’s own often brutal imperial history in Eastern Europe and Asia.

The economic factor is also important. Although Russia’s economic relationship with Latin America lags well behind that of the United States, Europe and China, it has been more targeted to places which need what Russia can produce, which broadly defines its relationships with Argentina and Brazil. Moreover, Russian companies, like Gazprom and Rosneft, are active in the energy sector in Cuba, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Considering that many Latin American countries are struggling economically, picking a side in the West-versus-Russia competition or for that matter in the “new” Cold War between China and the U.S. would put them in a difficult position.  

Like many other countries, Russia is also pushing into Latin America’s critical metals sector. While the world was transfixed by the Wagner rebellion, Bolivia quietly announced that had granted Russia’s state-owned Rosatom an opening in its lithium sector, which could see an investment of USD 600 million in the Andean country.

Latin America’s relationship with Russia is not without complications. This was recently evident in the flap over Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s support for a multipolar world order with more emphasis of the Global South. This, among other items, included visiting President Xi Jinping in China, advancing a peace plan for the Russo-Ukrainian War, announcing that Ukraine and Russia equally shared the blame for Russia’s invasion, advocating the dethronement of the U.S. dollar, permitting Iranian warships to stop in Brazil, and giving a well-publicized and loving embrace of Venezuela’s dictator and Russian ally Nicolás Maduro on his visit to a Latin American leaders summit in Brazil.

Sensitive to Russian inroads in Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.S. has indicated its displeasure with Latin America’s seeming ambiguity over the war and picking a side in the struggle between liberalism and autocracy. Indeed, the Biden administration’s response to Lula’s comments that suggested that the West had been “encouraging” war by arming Ukraine accused the Brazilian leader of “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without looking at the facts.” At the same time, the U.S. has increased its visits of top diplomats to the region, including Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s June 2023 meeting with CARICOM leaders in Trinidad and Tobago and Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Green to Brazil in May.

Although the June 2023 Wagner Group rebellion was dramatic and underscored Putin’s tenuous hold on power, Moscow will likely continue to push ahead with targeted economic engagement, aggressive propaganda, and closer ties with its regional allies, like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Russia will also calculate which other countries could be susceptible to strategic communication disruptions with an eye to maneuvering more pro-Russian candidates into office. Latin America remains attractive as a place to strike at the U.S. in its strategic underbelly, and how this unfolds will depend on the United States’ response. Despite efforts to be more proactive in Latin America, Washington is finding that most Latin American governments do not see their national interests served in abandoning nonalignment, preferring to keep their options open. Barring a major reversal on the battlefield in Ukraine or a successful rebellion, Russia, along with China, India, Iran, and Turkey, offers Latin America another option from the traditional choices of the U.S. and Europe.

Scott B. MacDonald is Chief Economist at Smith’s Research & Gradings, Research Fellow at Global Americans, and Founding Member of the Caribbean Policy Consortium. His latest book, The New Cold War, China and the Caribbean, was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit to China has once again brought attention to the increasingly complex dynamic between the two countries. While China emphasizes the importance of stable relations, the United States has expressed concerns regarding China’s actions in areas such as the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and East China Sea, as well as human rights. While these broader concerns are significant, it seems that the administration’s bandwidth is stretched thin. This has meant that a proactive approach is reserved for large-scale foreign policy priorities only. It is important not to overlook smaller, but still crucial, aspects of the global power struggle, for example, what is happening in the Americas. It is not enough to simply “let it be” as the Beatles would sing. While a great song, this approach is not an effective foreign policy, and the United States cannot ignore regions or issues that are not perceived as full-blown crises. While the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has become increasingly engaged in the hemisphere, “letting it be” has become the thrust of the U.S. foreign policy approach toward Latin America. This approach risks developing an increasingly disadvantageous environment for the United States.

The United States faces growing challenges and competitors in the Americas. Despite positive steps, the United States has not developed a holistic, strategic approach to the region. China’s rapid growth and subsequent demand have driven the region’s commodities boom. Roughly twenty years ago, China accounted for less than 2 percent of Latin America’s exports. Over the following decade, trade grew at an average annual rate of 31 percent, reaching around USD $180 billion in 2010. The growth continued, and last year, trade amounted to approximately USD $450 billion. China currently ranks as Latin America’s second-largest commercial trading partner, and there are no signs of this growth in trade slowing. It is projected that over the next 12 years, trade between Latin America and China could reach USD $700 billion.

China’s expanding presence, particularly in South America, raises concerns as China strengthens ties and influence through financial dependence, investments in critical minerals, vaccine diplomacy (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic), and cultural propaganda. By strategically increasing its involvement, China could hinder the United States’ ability to project influence in the region. Growing extra-hemispheric influence is not limited to China. For instance, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s recent tour of Latin America highlighted the potential exploitation of the region by emerging global powers. This pressing issue requires the attention of the United States, as China, Russia, and Iran all pose challenges to America’s influence in Latin America.

Given Latin America’s significance in great power competition and the risks it poses to U.S. national security, clear objectives, prioritization, sustained attention, and targeted engagement are crucial. Inaction, as suggested by “Let it be,” is inadequate—the United States must prioritize its engagement. Not doing so could strengthen rival powers and lead to detrimental outcomes. To effectively manage risks and seize opportunities in Latin America, the United States must adopt a comprehensive “whole-of-government approach” (WGA), coordinating efforts across various government agencies. Mexico, due to its proximity and strategic importance, requires particular attention, risk mitigation, and contingency planning.

Despite the U.S. government’s limited approach, there have been some positive developments. The June 13 meeting between President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou aimed to strengthen trade ties in the region. However, “one-off” meetings alone are insufficient to effectively counter China’s activities in the Americas. These meetings need to be accompanied by clear and substantive “next steps.” It would have been a timely action for the Biden administration to explicitly endorse the bipartisan “United States-Uruguay Economic Partnership Act” as this bill is designed to promote bilateral trade by reducing U.S. tariffs on certain Uruguayan exports and facilitating visas for trade and investment. An endorsement would have provided much-needed clarity and served as a demonstration of the administration’s commitment to economic growth in the region. This is especially important considering that the bill aligns with the principles of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP), which is a priority for the Biden administration. Implementing these measures would not only solidify the partnership with Uruguay but also help address the challenges posed by China’s growing commercial influence.

The importance of the region for the United States requires a more expansive engagement from across the U.S. government. In addition to the broader WGA effort, there is a need for additional reforms to engagement, including enterprise funds, project financing, debt forbearance, and new lending. A more pragmatic, targeted, consistent, and contemporary approach is essential to provide policymakers with a diverse toolkit for advancing U.S. interests in the region. To effectively coordinate responses, a standing WGA effort should be in place, allocating adequate resources, attention, and staffing for Latin America. The United States cannot afford to simply ignore these challenges. The United States cannot simply “Let it be.”

Carl Meacham is a Managing Director at FTI Consulting, where he specializes in political risk management and government affairs. Prior to joining FTI, Mr. Meacham led PhRMA’s advocacy efforts for Latin America, Canada, and Europe. Prior he held the position of Senior Manager for Public Policy and Government Relations for Uber in South America and served as the Director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). Mr. Meacham spent over a decade as Senator Richard Lugar’s (R-IN) senior professional staffer for Latin America on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC). He has also worked for Senate Majority Leaders Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) and held a political appointee position in the Clinton administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Though born in the United States, Mr. Meacham was raised in Chile, his mother’s country of origin.

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The world is undergoing major geopolitical transformations. The rise of Asia, particularly China, has presented unprecedented challenges to the Western-centric liberal order of the postwar era. These changes have become even more apparent with the onset of a major military conflict in Ukraine, which further polarized political alliances along East-West lines. It was to be expected that these trends would provoke confusion and international analysts need to take special care in order to make sense of the complex dynamics unfolding in the world. This is particularly true when examining countries that have traditionally had less influence in the international arena, but whose fates have often depended upon their ability to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by evolving global power trends.

Brazil is one such example. Latin America’s largest economy has recently seen its share of turbulence. In fact, after a stable period of democratic consolidation that lasted between 1985 and 2015, Brazil saw a rapid erosion in its democratic institutions. This process culminated in the 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro, a divisive political figure whose authoritarian rhetoric and administrative mismanagement gave voice to an extreme right-wing nostalgia for Brazil’s military dictatorship. Although Bolsonaro is no longer in power and is presently battling multiple lawsuits, Brazil continues to face the challenge of rebuilding not only democratic procedures but also democratic values to ensure that democracy survives.

This task is now mainly in the hands of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former president who despite becoming a more polarizing figure in recent years, served two extremely successful terms in the early 2000s. Bringing the country together will require not only major political skills, which Lula has already demonstrated to have, but a feasible economic plan. In a global economy shaped by inflationary trends, energy shortages, and market instability, Lula’s domestic success will depend to a significant degree on his international achievements. While Bolsonaro obscured the relevance of the country in the global arena, Lula expanded Brazil’s presence in the early 2000s by enlarging the list of economic partners and diversifying strategic partnerships, particularly in the Global South. Notably, this was done without jeopardizing traditional relations with the United States or the European Union.

Since taking office, Brazil’s returning president has sought to promote a bold revival of his highly effective ‘active and assertive’ foreign policy. However, it will be much more difficult to reproduce Brazil’s achievements of twenty years ago given today’s challenging and changing world. Lula has made sure to start his international pilgrimages by visiting traditional and central partners, including neighboring nations and the United States. During his first month in office, he attended a meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC) in Argentina, where he emphasized a desire to strengthen Brazil’s relations throughout Latin America. Soon after, Lula visited U.S. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Washington. During their meeting, both leaders professed their mutual desire to promote democracy and a more environmentally-sound developmental path—particularly in Brazil’s Amazon. Following his trip to the United States, Lula visited China with the objective of deepening trade relations and leading a peace effort for the war in Ukraine. After his visit to China, he again met with traditional Brazilian allies, including Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France.

All things considered, this “many friends” approach is not so different from what he implemented 20 years ago. Back then, Brazil was largely welcomed as a rising diplomatic force in the developing world. During a 2009 meeting, President Barack Obama made special note of Lula’s “forward-looking leadership in Latin America and throughout the world.” However, the domestic and global contexts in which Lula now operates have changed. Within this context, what was once seen as a progressive pursuit of an autonomous and assertive foreign policy is now interpreted by many in Brazil and the West as divisive, inappropriate, or even a betrayal of Brazil’s traditional alignments. These views ignore Lula’s earlier international record and lack a wider, historical perspective.

For more than a century, Brazil’s diplomatic efforts have focused on promoting multilateralism and pushing for the peaceful resolution of conflicts. While it drew closer to Western allies throughout the 20^th century, successive governments in Brazil—be they progressive, conservative, democratic, or authoritarian—pursued a policy of self-determination. Shaped by those dynamics, Brazil’s foreign policy has served the country well as an instrument of national development.

It is concerning to see that even qualified analyses about Lula’s attempt to reposition Brazil in the world tend to be biased, particularly by taking parts for the whole. Some see Lula’s visit to China and his repeated calls for peace talks in Ukraine as a sign that Lula was espousing an anti-Western approach to international affairs. This is clearly not the case. Similarly, fears that Lula may be trying to create an anti-U.S. Latin American alliance with China are unfounded. Yes, Lula gave more than advisable attention to Nicolas Maduro during a recent visit to Brasilia for a meeting of South American nations. However, this does not mean that Lula is in alignment with Venezuela, nor does it diminish the role that Lula actually played in helping calm things down following the 2002 coup attempt in that country—largely with the approval of the Bush administration. Likewise, Lula’s recent attempt to revive UNASUR does indeed face important challenges. However, that does not diminish the fact that regional collaboration—a goal pursued by Lula’s predecessor, as well—has proven to be a challenging yet promising project. The purpose of the project is to provide economic and political stability, an objective that should be worthy of U.S. support.

The Lula administration will not risk the country’s future by picking sides on rising international conflicts or disputes. Rather, the president’s main task is the reconstruction of his own country’s democracy. He will need all the help he can get—especially from Brazil’s main historical partner, the United States, who recently played an important role in providing support to the country’s democratic processes. Accurately understanding the context behind Lula’s international overtures is critical if one is to avoid previous analytical traps that are detrimental to understanding Brazil and its relations with the United States and the broader international community.

Rafael Ioris is a Professor of Latin American History and Politics at the University of Denver. He is originally from Brazil and currently resides in Denver, Colorado.

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro introduced a new element of political risk into investment decision-making for institutional investors and other funds. The myriad of social reforms the government seeks to pass—either immediately or in the medium-term, such as the pension, healthcare, and labor reforms—have made Colombia too risky for some investors. Petro’s insistence on weaning the Colombian economy off of oil and gas exploration and production has not helped either. However, while traditional investors are put off, other investors—including those with questionable practices in their home countries and with a greater appetite for risk—now see Colombia as a more attractive destination for their capital, as it can bring along high rewards.  

Much like several other middle-income and emerging economies, Colombia is increasingly becoming a recipient country of capital hailing from non-democratic countries, such as China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and Venezuela, among others. This is partly due to the global nature of capital investments from sovereign wealth funds, a concerted diversification strategy from some Asian and Middle Eastern countries which President Petro encouraged.  

Capital investments from these origin countries can be corrosive or constructive to the recipient country’s development, depending on the recipient country’s oversight, traceability, and supervision mechanisms. Corrosive capital is characterized by opaque capital flows that seek to disrupt recipient countries’ institutions to influence or disrupt their economic, political, or social fabric. These investments can flow to ensure access to critical minerals such as copper, lithium, gold, ferronickel, or rare earth, as well as strategic sectors like oil and gas, critical infrastructure, and digital technologies. 

There are strong incentives for countries to accept these investments. This is particularly true of Chinese investments which are often offer below-cost financing and speedy construction that may be too generous for emerging economies to ignore. Moreover, these authoritarian countries’ perceived disregard for political, integrity, or security risks makes them well-suited for investment into tricky jurisdictions where populist presidents and frequent regulatory changes make other investors increasingly skeptical. 

Recent research from Colombia Risk Analysis into investment flows and growing trade relations with authoritarian countries draws light on important vulnerabilities in Colombia’s procurement and oversight mechanisms. Improvements to these areas could mitigate the corroding potential of investment from authoritarian countries. There are three main vulnerabilities which could be mitigated without significant resources and could significantly strengthen available information about capital flows from authoritarian countries into Colombia:

1. Colombian public institutions are unprepared to properly track, monitor, and oversee foreign direct investment in general, including from authoritarian regimes. There is no single institution fully dedicated to investigating these issues. Instead, there are overlaps and gaps of information between Banco de la República, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Trade, and the National Statistics Agency. There is a growing interest in making spending patterns visible and the process more participatory by engaging civil society.
2. Data asymmetry, regulatory loopholes, and excessive confidentiality generate negative outcomes. This erodes the capacity to make fact-based public policies that raise the standards for foreign investment and public procurement. These actions would incentivize accountability practices. 
3. There is a lack of knowledge and understanding about public debt, foreign capital flows, and the particular business protocols and practices of authoritarian regimes entering the Colombian market. Proper research and due diligence is often overlooked. This knowledge gap comes at a cost for the Colombian business environment.

This information would allow Colombia to understand and establish better procurement policies to more effectively identify the origin of funds and determine whether they constitute a threat to national security. Among Colombian public officials, there is generally little awareness regarding what corrosive capital is and how it affects and reflects on the wider society as a whole. It can be argued that this inadvertent ignorance has the potential to risk and lessen the effectiveness of public policies, economic growth, and positive social outcomes.  

A systemic lack of transparency can foster corruption, but civil society engagement can help increase awareness and promote co-creation efforts to promote accountability in the public and private sectors, Support from civil society can also help create mechanisms that provide proper oversight to turn inflows of capital from questionable nations and minimize the effects of corrosive capital. Investigative journals and portals already work on a limited budget in Colombia. Authorities should make it easier, not more difficult, to obtain information about how taxes are spent. These limitations are precisely what makes Colombia vulnerable to corrosive capital. Based on our research, these vulnerabilities require a comprehensive approach, but also political will, to address. This task does not lie solely within the realm of government. The private sector and civil society must establish clear guidelines for reporting and analyzing capital flows and assessing their risks or opportunities for Colombia.

President Petro has made it clear that he envisions a more prosperous and equal Colombia and that he will need foreign direct investment and capital to achieve that vision. For the government, it does not seem to make a difference whether that capital comes from authoritarian countries or institutional investors as long as projects get underway. While there is a campaign from the United States and other Western countries for recipient countries, including Colombia, not to receive Chinese investment, we believe that efforts to provide more information, strengthen institutions, ensure competitive bidding processes, and foster transparency will go further than threats or conditionalities to debt or aid. 

Sergio Guzmán is the Director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a political risk consulting firm based in Bogotá. Follow him on Twitter @SergioGuzmanE and @ColombiaRisk.

Sara Torres is the Communications Coordinator at Colombia Risk Analysis. Follow her on Twitter @saratorres_r.

Martha Aguilera is an Analyst at Colombia Risk Analysis. Follow her on Twitter @miaguilerac.

All opinions and content are solely the opinion of the authors and do not represent the viewpoints of Global Americans.

The post Colombia is Vulnerable to the Influence of Corrosive Capital appeared first on Global Americans.

The following article is an extended version of comments presented virtually by the author, in Spanish on June 7, 2023, to a forum on the topic in Madrid, Spain, put on by the Geopolitical Observatory for Latin America (OGAL).

Since the time of the first European explorers, Latin America’s political, social, and economic dynamics have been strongly influenced by European developments. Contemporary Latin American social structures, institutions, religion, and political culture continue to bear the legacy of colonial systems. The timing and outcome of 19^th Century independence movements—including the heritage of Brazil as the host of the region’s first European empire—was shaped by Napoleon’s invasion of Europe.

However, Latin America has generally been more of an object of influence than an agent. With the exception of Brazil’s support to maritime security in the Atlantic and its contribution to efforts to liberate Italy from fascist control, Latin America remained mostly on the sidelines during World War II—even though the region was profoundly impacted by the war. During the Cold War period, Latin America became a battleground for the Soviet Union’s attempts to advance a global Communist order.

The greatly expanded connectivity of the post-Cold War world arguably strengthened the interdependence between events in Europe and Latin America, but has not significantly increased Latin American agency in the relationship. European companies expanded their presence in the region almost eight-fold during the second half of the 1990s alone. Europe has long played a role in projects and the discourse in the region on development, human rights, and the environment. For instance, Europe has increasingly become a destination for the region’s drug supply and Europe-based organizations increasingly play a role in the region’s criminal dynamics.

Today, the impact of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and its ongoing military activities against Ukraine’s population and infrastructure to occupy the country is consistent with the relationship Latin America has had with Europe historically. The effects flowing from that interdependence have been significant and multifaceted against a backdrop of a region-making an effort to distance itself from them.

Economic Impacts

In the economic domain, Russia’s invasion disrupted global supply chains and caused price spikes for a range of products, including fertilizers, basic foodstuffs, and fuels. The difficulties in accessing fertilizer and the food and fuel price spikes came on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, which not only hit the region with the highest per capita mortality rates in the world but also decimated businesses and wiped out personal savings. The pandemic also left governments with grave fiscal imbalances, impeding their ability to effectively protect their residents from the new price spikes and supply shocks. Further compounding such pressures, fertilizer shortages and price increases in the Southern Cone countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, came at the same time as record droughts which decimated crops and related earnings from agriculture.

Western sanctions on Russia, even when not fully embraced by the countries of the region, further complicated the economic picture in Latin America. Some countries lost significant export earnings. Ecuador, for instance, exported a substantial portion of its shrimp to Russia prior to the invasion. Similarly, Russia was a major purchaser of Paraguayan beef. Similarly, many armed forces across the region use a significant amount of Russian military equipment, including Mexico, Colombia, and Peru. As a result, they had difficulty servicing that equipment and keeping it operating within the international sanctions regime.

More broadly, Russia’s invasion also damaged Latin America by increasing uncertainty in financial markets. This contributed to a depressed investment environment and sustained high-interest rates in the region, as apprehension drove investors to projects and assets in developed markets perceived as less risky. Overall, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has truncated the region’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Latin America’s GDP, which grew 5.2 percent in 2021 as the region bounced back from the pandemic, is expected to grow at a rate of only 1.3 percent in 2023.

Not all of the impact of the Russian invasion has been negative for Latin America. By contributing to the inflation of commodity prices, Russia’s war has helped bolster export earnings for select commodities in some countries. Still, such windfalls were reduced by the moderation of commodity prices caused by China’s weaker-than-expected recovery and agricultural producers, such as Brazil and Argentina, losing potentially valuable export earnings due to record drought.

Political Impacts

Beyond the explicit economic effects, Russia’s invasion has arguably contributed to a region that is less politically stable and with a weakened democratic foundation. The price shocks helped fuel protests and unrest in Peru, Panama, and Ecuador, among other countries. More broadly, the deepening of such economic stresses has helped to deepen longstanding dissatisfaction with the performance of democratic systems, already evident in the fall of 2019 with severe nationwide protests in Ecuador and Chile.

According to the polling organization Latinobarometer, the number of people in the region who agreed that democracy was the preferable form of government fell from 63 percent in 2010 to 49 percent by 2021. In the context of eroding faith in the ability of democracy to deliver, the stresses from the Ukraine invasion—on top of those from COVID-19—have while undercut the ability of democratic regimes to govern. This in turn has brought more populist leaders to power across the region and increased the risk of further turns to non-democratic alternatives in the future.

It would be an exaggeration to say that the economic, and by extension, political effects of Russia’s war played the decisive role in the December 2022 fall of Pedro Castillo in Peru, the political weakening of Guillermo Lasso in the context of the corruption scandal that forced him to invoke “Muerte Cruzada,” or the possibility that Ricardo Martinelli, just nominated by his “realizando metas” party in Panama will return to power in May 2024 as a populist leader. Yet the inflation and fiscal dilemmas fueled by Russia’s invasion have arguably been one important element in each, as well as other difficult political dynamics playing out across the region.

Despite these concerns, there are some sources of hope. In the context of a region already controlled by an unprecedented number of left-oriented regimes as well as the war’s bad publicity for anti-U.S. authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin and its adverse economic effects, could contribute in some cases to bringing right-oriented leaders back to power. The most significant near-term possibility is in Argentina’s October 2023 elections, where in the face of inflation of more than 100 percent and growing risks of a new fiscal default, both the Peronist President and Vice-President have said they will not run and the current front-runner, Javier Milei is a politically non-traditional libertarian.

Security Thinking and International Relations

Beyond its economic and political effects, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also had a significant, wide-ranging, if uneven impact on thinking about international relations in the region, particularly on security and other matters. For a Latin America which has not seen a full inter-state military conflict since the 1995 Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador, Russia’s invasion reminded the region that armed aggression by one state against another is still possible. Thus, highlighting the persistence of the traditional role of armed forces to defend state sovereignty and its population.

The war also had a significant, if diverse, impact on thinking in the region about the character of Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia. For states of the more “principled, democratic” left in the region—such as Gabriel Boric’s government in Chile—Putin’s invasion and associated human rights abuses made it difficult to continue the casual relations that many had maintained with Russia before the invasion.

Defying the broader trend, however, the embrace of Russia by a handful of authoritarian populist regimes in the region—including Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, the Ortegas in Nicaragua, and Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba—highlighted the ongoing strategic risks that those regimes pose to the U.S. and the region. Indeed, those populists have also begun forging alliances with Russia’s allies—such as Belarus’ Alexandr Lukashenko—in an attempt to demonstrate to domestic audiences that they have not become international pariahs. Instead, they are able to cooperate, albeit in limited ways, against the liberal order. The recent agreement to send Cuban military personnel to Belarus, supposedly for training activities but possibly to fight for Russia, is the most recent illustration of this broadening collaboration between illiberal regimes in both regions.

Beyond such political dynamics, the military developments of the war have arguably impacted thinking in Latin America about military training and doctrine. Although not excessively outspoken about the conflict, Latin American militaries are following developments in Ukraine closely. They are capturing lessons about mechanized warfare, the use of drones, missiles, air defense systems, and other matters. In addition, it demonstrated Russian deficiencies in training and logistics. Indiscriminate attacks against civilian targets and power and water infrastructure and Russia’s use of its own soldiers as “cannon fodder” have arguably had a chilling effect on the receptivity to Russian doctrine across Latin America.

Despite such far-ranging impacts, and consistent with its posture historically, neither Pro-Putin regimes nor democrats in Latin America have gotten involved in the conflict in meaningful ways. With the exception of Putin’s friends—defiant Central America regimes such as Xiomara Castro in Honduras and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, and more opportunistic actors such as Lula in Brazil—the majority of the region has generally voted to condemn Russia at the United Nations. Most Latin American states have also generally respected the international sanctions regime against Russia. Still, given the global reach of the U.S. financial system and its legal liabilities, respect for sanctions is arguably a reflection of economic self-interest and not an affirmation of the region’s condemnation of Russian aggression.

Indeed, the region has notably avoided imposing its own sanctions on Russia. Moreover, it has notably not sent military aid and has lagged behind Europe and other parts of the world in sending other forms of assistance to the Ukrainian people. Not even those countries most politically aligned with the U.S. in the region have embraced an initiative suggested by the head of U.S. Southern Command General Laura Richardson to donate their difficult-to-service Russian equipment to Ukraine and replace it with U.S. equipment. On the other hand, the new leftist regime of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil has criticized the U.S. for “prolonging” the war by helping Ukraine defend itself. Additionally, in the name of “peace,” Brazil welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the region and discussed expanded trade with the sanctioned country.

Conclusion

In the United States, I have been moved by the number of Ukrainian flags spontaneously hung by ordinary Americans in their homes in solidarity with the Ukrainian people in an otherwise deeply divided country. In Latin America, the region to which the U.S. is intimately connected by ties of geography, commerce, and family, I worry that the lessons of Ukraine about the fundamental importance of a rules-based international order and the need to sacrifice to defend its principles has been obscured by the region’s own troubles and deepened its cynicism about democracy, the protection of fundamental rights, and the rule of law.

This past week Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to Brasilia with an embrace, dismissing as a mere “narrative” the numerous outstanding criminal cases against him as well as the more than seven million Venezuelans forced to flee his regime. The same Lula criticized the West for helping Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s invasion as “prolonging the war.” What a contrast to Lula’s iconic predecessor Getúlio Vargas, who contributed a division of Brazilian forces to the campaign to liberate Italy in 1944. It is hard to imagine Vargas criticizing Allied efforts to defend Europe against the aggression of Hitler and Mussolini.

While the economic effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are grave, the truly worrisome development has been to deepen the wounds of a region whose pain from COVID-19, corruption, insecurity, and government performance has eroded the already fragile consensus on the importance of principle. The challenge ahead is to do better in making the case for why democracy and individual rights are not just eloquent words but meaningful concepts worth the price of defending. For those words to resonate, the United States must not only keep faith with Ukraine, but also with this hemisphere. It must give its people reason to believe that values can have meaning. It must show that democratic systems coupled with the location of economic value principally in the private sector, for all of its imperfections, is still the best way to generate value for a society and protect individual liberties.

Evan Ellis is a featured contributor with Global Americans and a Latin America Research Professor with the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. The views expressed herein are strictly his own.

The post <strong>The Impact of Russia’s Ukraine Invasion on Latin America</strong> appeared first on Global Americans.

With Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, returning from his recent visit to China, much buzz has been generated about his and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s successes at dealmaking. In early April, Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) similarly threw a friendly sign to China under the backdrop of rapidly growing bilateral trade and investment ties. He made the unusual move of sending a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping asking him for help to tackle Mexico’s fentanyl crisis, ruffling feathers in the United States. 

With distinct objectives, Brazil and Mexico are increasingly open to engagement with China, which is happy to oblige in partnership with both economies. The last few years have seen China come out of its COVID-19 cocoon and re-assert its influence in the region beyond pandemic-era vaccine diplomacy. With Lula’s ambitious foreign policy and Mexico’s blossoming ties with China, 2023 promises to be a big year for China’s influence in Latin America. U.S. policy would benefit from staying alert to the latest developments and crafting attractive alternatives to dealmaking with China.

Is Brazil Back?

Lula is a man with a bold vision. “Brazil is back,” he said in his victory speech after winning last year’s presidential election. With China, this vision seems to be coming to fruition—Beijing and Brasilia signed 15 deals covering topics ranging from satellite technology to the digital economy to the automotive industry at Lula’s April visit. At that event, Lula called for BRICS countries to use their own alternative currency instead of the U.S. dollar in trade. Lula and Xi also committed to China and Brazil staying in active communication about the Russia-Ukraine war. In a clear rebuke, Lula called on the U.S. to stop “encouraging” war in Ukraine.

While analysts predicted that Lula would cozy up to China and adopt a stance on the war that leaned pro-Russia, Lula’s critical rhetoric towards the U.S. was unexpected. Analysts anticipated that Lula would chart a middling path between the two great powers to secure a friendly arena for Brazil’s own foreign policy vision. Last month’s visit to China makes clear that Brazil continues to see China as a crucial partner in advancing a multipolar world with weakened dominance from the United States.

Brazil’s trade with China is booming, hitting a record USD 150 billion last year. Brazil also accounts for 47 percent of China’s foreign direct investment in Latin America. Before Lula’s visit, China had also lifted a suspension on imports of Brazilian beef, one of Brazil’s largest exports to China. In late March, a Brazilian bank controlled by a Chinese parent became the first financial institution in Latin America to be part of China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, which settles trade deals in Renminbi (RMB)—the People’s Republic of China official currency.

While Lula did visit the U.S. in February and bonded with President Biden over their commitment to preserving democracy and fighting climate change, the results of that visit were underwhelming. The most visible U.S. commitment from that visit was an initial USD 50 million donation to the Amazon Fund, a billion-dollar fund to reduce deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest—which is minuscule compared to the billion-dollar deals Brazil received from Chinese policy banks in the late 2000s and early 2010s. By contrast, Brazil’s agenda with China is more “concrete, wide-ranging and far-reaching,” according to Sergio Amaral, Brazil’s former ambassador to the United States.

Seeing how Lula navigates his renewed commitments with China without angering the United States will be a crucial development in China-Latin America relations this year. Additionally, how Lula exercises regional leadership closer to home to broker a China-Mercosur trade deal—which he’s come out in favor of—will be crucial to the region’s growing, formalized trade ties with China. Under a very different context with distinct goals, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)—Lula’s counterpart in the region’s second-largest economy—has a similar task of bending towards China while not irking the United States.

Mexico Hangs in the Balance

In April, AMLO called upon China to help solve Mexico’s fentanyl crisis, caused largely by demand from the United States. This strange yet compelling move by AMLO speaks to a more significant trend in China’s role in Latin America and the Caribbean. China has increasingly filled in, economically, where the U.S. had previously dominated. Twenty-two Latin American and Caribbean countries have officially signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s flagship global infrastructure initiative. Additionally, China has completed or is negotiating free trade agreements with five Latin American countries, including three of Brazil’s commodity-exporting neighbors–Chile, Peru, and as of December last year, Ecuador.

China’s commercial penetration in South America and increasing influence in Central America is not debatable and has been a long time coming. Mexico’s decided turn towards China represents the “nail in the coffin” for U.S. policy in the region. Mexico is the U.S.’s strongest ally in the region. The country is the U.S.’s largest goods trading partner, and it shares a border, an automobile manufacturing supply chain, and a significant trade agreement, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA). Mexico has not participated in major regional efforts to court China to the same extent as Brazil. But now, Mexico has asked China for help.

In response to these developments, the United States slapped sanctions on Chinese chemical suppliers whose products are used to make fentanyl. Instead of engaging directly with Mexico and acknowledging the systemic failures in U.S. domestic policy that keep fentanyl demand high, the U.S. resorted immediately to a “beat China” response. However, the U.S. can’t strike China out of Mexico, with trade war and COVID-fueled ties between the two countries at all-time highs. China’s exports to Mexico increased by nearly 30 percent in 2022, on top of a 50 percent increase the previous year. Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Mexico hit a record high of USD 400 million in 2021. Chinese companies are responding to trade-war-era restrictions by nearshoring to Mexico, reducing freight costs while evading thorny tariffs.

With AMLO’s reactionary and inflammatory rhetoric towards the U.S., Mexico’s China ties are one to watch this year. AMLO has threatened to meddle in U.S. elections with an “information campaign” in the face of Republican intentions to use military intervention to curb drug cartel activity in Mexico. He has also accused the Pentagon of spying on Mexico and railed against the State Department’s reporting of human rights in Mexico. Earlier this month, he sent a letter to the Biden administration complaining of U.S. support of Mexican opposition groups. The Mexican president is responding to U.S. interference and criticism with more antagonism and affinity to China, while Brazil is cozying up to China in hopes of building a global order that decenters U.S. hegemony. 

What Should the United States Do?

As Lula and AMLO each navigate the tightrope of courting China while not angering the U.S., the U.S. must offer these regional behemoths deals and partnerships with more heft on equal ground. The United States must consider its unique value propositions to Mexico and Brazil, but more broadly to the region. Could it be the center of a Latin American production sharing network, as it already has in autos with Mexico and Canada? Could it clean up its immigration policy so it doesn’t shift the blame and responsibility squarely on the countries sending migrants? Could it rebuild trust and recognize harm, to be a credible, capable alternative to China?

As the U.S.’s key partners are leaning on China, the question remains on how the U.S. can too be a source of support to these countries. The U.S. has taken leadership in climate change by committing USD 500 million to the Amazon Fund, following up on an initial USD 50 million commitment. However, funding approval from a GOP-controlled House may prove challenging. Rebuilding U.S. legitimacy in climate action after disastrous years under President Trump is also difficult. Currently, Chinese and European firms are funding Latin America’s energy transition due to classification issues in the United States, which predominantly does not fund middle and upper-middle income countries like those in Latin America. The U.S. can leverage the International Development Finance Corporation to make additional deals and support Latin America’s existing renewable energy initiatives. 

Another avenue is to foment existing economic advantages and ties. For Mexico, the U.S. could also encourage its firms to nearshore there and shift supply chains away from China. However, this solution will likely be politically costly as nativism and nationalist, anti-Mexico attitudes are on the rise. For Brazil, the U.S. is already far outstripping China on FDI, so continuing to encourage FDI is key. The U.S. faces complicated choices ahead to deepen ties with these two regional behemoths. Some degree of Chinese influence displacing U.S. initiatives is unavoidable, but the United States can leverage individual strength points to collaborate with both Brazil and Mexico.

Genevieve Slosberg is a Junior Fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focuses on China’s trade and economic involvement in third countries, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.

The post The Balancing Act: Brazil and Mexico Court Beijing While Managing Their Relationship to Washington appeared first on Global Americans.

The rise and fall of world powers has been a focus of intense scholarly interest. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the dawn of U.S. hegemony in the second half of the twentieth century, scholars of multiple disciplines have tried to assess whether the replacement of an established power by a rising one needs to involve major military conflicts. No agreement exists, but, in most cases, wars have expedited this type of transition, especially when the declining and rising powers do not share historical paths of cultural traditions. Regardless of the case, the world is witnessing today a crisis of the Western-centric domination of the last 400 years, with a likely return to an Asia-centered economic dominance. It is unclear how the process will unfold, but it is certain that nations historically tied to the European-U.S. center of power—particularly those in the so-called “The Other-West” like in Latin America—will face a challenging course in trying to (re)positioning themselves amidst this changing world order.

Of special relevance in the Latin American context, Brazil, the largest nation and economy of the continent, and a country that historically managed well to sustain a course of largely autonomous but close relations with the hemispheric hegemon, finds itself today in an especially challenging position. China has become the most significant economic player for Brazil, surpassing the United States. Within the BRICS—a loosely defined but nonetheless effective multilateral block that has helped reshape the economic and geopolitical balance of the world in the last two decades—both countries have come to pursue aligned projects to reshape the global context. Examples include the creation of the BRICS Bank, a multilateral funding agency for developmental projects in the Global South that could overshadow the traditional role played by the World Bank.

In the early 2000s, Lula managed to become Brazil’s first president with a working-class background. In power, he deepened the course of erecting a social welfare state in one of the world’s most unequal economies and innovated with ambitious foreign policy initiatives. Brazil seemed to be emerging on the world stage as the most promising democracy and diplomatic actor in the developing world. Tragically, this auspicious path was not sustained. Now, in his third mandate as president, Lula has the challenging tasks of rebuilding the country’s democratic institutions and repositioning his country in the world after the tragic years of the troubling administration of Jair Bolsonaro.

The timing for delivering on both fronts could not be worse, though. The domestic and global contexts are very different from the one when Lula became president for the first time, and what was then seen as the pursuit of an autonomous and assertive line of foreign policy—which fits well into the diplomatic history of the country—is now interpreted by many in Brazil’s and international communities as divisive, inappropriate, or even a betrayal of Brazil’s traditional Western alignments.

Interestingly, all Lula has tried to do in his foreign policy actions in his first months as president has been to try to revive the impressive achievements of his first administrations, when Brazil managed to sustain good relations with its traditional allies and trading partners, such as the United States and the European Union, while also expanding economic, diplomatic, and strategic projects with countries around the world, particularly among other rising powers, such as India and China.

To promote his most recent goals, Lula attended a Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC) meeting in Buenos Aires, where Brazil declared its interest in strengthening its ties with the region. Soon after, he visited Biden in Washington, DC, where both leaders professed their mutual defense for democracy and shared interests in more environmentally sound patterns of development, particularly in the Amazon region. After this trip, Lula visited China, where commercial agreements were signed, and then went to Europe to meet with traditional allies.

Besides not acknowledging that the Brazilian leader visited both old and new allies, Lula’s treatment from Brazilian and international media outlets lacks the necessary historical perspective. For over a century, Brazilian diplomatic efforts have defended multilateralism, peaceful resolution of conflicts, and self-determination. Moreover, its foreign policy has been largely defined by the need to serve as an instrument of the country’s development. Therefore, Lula’s overtures to traditional and new trading partners and defense of the need to find ways to resolve the stalemate in Ukraine are not surprising. Perhaps some of his statements about the war could have been phrased in more diplomatic language. However, he is right in pointing out that Brazil can serve as an intermediary towards peace, which in fact can only be achieved with Russia brought into the negotiation table—an invitation that Brazil has a privileged position to present.

Speculations about Brazil’s shifting allegiances in the rising economic, geopolitical, and diplomatic rivalry between the U.S. and China notwithstanding, the fact is that Brazil can’t afford to pick a side in these disputes. If China now exerts tremendous economic influence in carrying over the bulk of Brazil’s impressive agribusiness exports, Brazil’s economic, cultural, diplomatic, and historical ties to the United States and Europe are not to fade any time soon.

It is unclear whether Lula can revive the balancing act that he conducted so well 20 years ago. Economic and geopolitical global disputes are ever more prone to include a military dimension, and the war in Eastern Europe has no end in sight. Although Brazil could indeed play a peace-making role, neither side of the conflict seem ready to talk peace. At the same time, soon after Lula’s visit to China, the U.S. government increased by tenfold its economic commitments to the Amazon Fund—demonstrating that in this ever more divided and conflictive world, Brazil still has a role to play and that automatic alignments with any country are not in the best interest of a complex and powerful nation like Brazil.

Rafael R. Ioris is a Professor of Latin American History at the University of Denver and a Research Fellow at the Washington Brazil Office.

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Active Non-Alignment is the term some analysts and academics have begun to attach to an aspirational policy that would promisingly guide the nations of the Global South between the Scylla and Charybdis of Great Power competition in the 21st century. In truth, it is more likely to cause a shipwreck or at least a few rudderless ships of state.

The active non-alignment argument goes something like this. Latin America and the Caribbean are currently irrelevant on the world stage. Summitry between the European Union and the region is on life support and the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC) is lost in the halls of the UN, absent from the major debates. To remediate this identity crisis, the Non-Aligned camp argues that the best course of action is to rigorously abstain from choosing sides between China and the United States—as well as between Russia and Ukraine. As evidence of “relevance,” but a refusal to align, proponents point to Lula’s recent offer to broker Russia-Ukraine talks.

While Active Non-Alignment may be an accurate portrayal of some countries’ foreign policies, it would be disastrous as a regional strategy for two fundamental reasons. 

• Active Non-Alignment is anachronistic. Half a century ago, this approach relegated Latin America to “hermit kingdom” status, under development, and strategic irrelevance—and would do so again. 
• Pandemics, migrants, and climate change are agnostic about a nation or region’s alliances or non-alignment. Instead, these challenges compel neighbors to act in a geographically aligned manner.

The original Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of the Cold War—which still exists, but is truly irrelevant these days—was born in a very different era, one marked by European decolonization and newly emerging, independent states. As a convenient way to avoid becoming pawns in a nuclear NATO-Warsaw Pact confrontation, the NAM nominally served as a fig leaf. However, most of its discourse was decidedly anti-American, especially among Latin American adherents. For instance, Fidel Castro—who overtly aligned his country with the Soviet Union—chest thumped in the 1979 Havana Declaration that the purpose of the NAM was to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics.” 

Today, suggesting that not taking a stand on the Russian-Ukraine conflict is principled or supports sovereignty rings hollow. Talk to the Ukrainians about sovereignty when the Russian shelling stops. History is a harsh judge. Silence in the face of Russian expansionism and its state policy of war crimes and barbaric human rights violations, will only hurt Latin America’s voluntary benchwarmers. No one is asking for arms or money, but a symbolic UN vote for territorial sovereignty in a sovereignty obsessed region? This should not be a stretch. The Hemispheric South’s current reticence to criticize or castigate Russia’s unprovoked violation of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty makes abstaining Latin governments look weak and unprincipled. Far more admirable—and memorable—will be the principled voice of Chile’s President Boric regarding Russia’s aggression. 

Ironically, this stance also casts the region as irrelevant among the very powers—the United States, the Western Europeans, NATO, and the UN Security Council—from whom the Active Non-Aligners seek relevance and respect. We all know the story of the kid who takes his ball and goes home so the game ends. This is the equivalent of a kid with no ball who just goes home. 

In the 21st century, the world does not care if you do not want to play—you have to or you do not eat. Lula’s instincts are right. Brazil should be a global player. However, as an unproven, extra-regional referee in a conflict steeped in centuries of mutual animosity, he is most unlikely to lead Russia-Ukraine negotiations. Despite this, Brazil could—and should—play an active allied role as a rotating member of the UN Security Council and keep pushing for a permanent seat. 

Compare the Ukraine situation to the challenge of climate change—where Lula’s leadership is desperately needed and most welcome. Here, Brazil has an undisputed and critical leadership role to play. To be successful it must align itself regionally with its neighbors and globally with Paris Accord signatories—including extra-regional partners. Fortunately, alignment with China, Russia, the EU, and the United States is quite possible on this issue. 

Similarly future pandemics compel aligned regional action. Ditto for migration. Frankly, were Lula to use his hard-won democratic credibility to broker negotiations between the Maduro regime and the opposition to hold free and fair elections in 2024, it would be a far more useful contribution to hemispheric stability. Colombia’s Gustavo Petro was first to accept this challenge, but appears to be making a bit of a mess of it. However, it would be exceptionally relevant for Brazil and the nations of Latin America—who have absorbed the 7 million desperate refugees who have fled chavismo’s impoverishing and corrupt reality—were Lula to broker some sort of deal to get Venezuela to hold internationally observed elections.

The new Non-Aligned advocates stress that Latin America does not want to have to choose between China and the United States. In fact, they already are threading that needle on trade relations. However, on fundamental issues of human rights and democracy, how Latin American and Caribbean nations choose their allies today will very much determine their fate and future prosperity. Pre-emptively choosing not to choose is a recipe for precisely the irrelevance they seek to avoid.

Amb. (Ret.) John Feeley is the Executive Director of the Center for Media Integrity of the Americas. He is a former career U.S. diplomat who served as Ambassador to Panama, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Charge d’Affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Mexico, in addition to other postings in Latin America and the Caribbean. He is a former Marine Corps Officer.

The post <strong>A One-Way Ticket to Irrelevance: The Dangers of Active Non-Alignment by the Global South</strong> appeared first on Global Americans.

The People’s Republic of China’s influence in the Republic of Colombia has grown in size and scope over the past decade. China’s recent advance also applies to the rest of Latin America, where it has scaled up trade and investment. So far, 21 countries in the region have signed on to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a Chinese government-funded project that they launched in 2013 to invest in infrastructure, including railways, roads, and ports. Chinese banks have lent money to finance infrastructure projects globally to be built by Chinese construction firms. The OECD expects Chinese investments and loans to exceed USD $1 trillion from 2017 to 2027. Argentina, Ecuador, and Peru have all signed up to be a part of the agreement, and as a result, they have received Chinese investments in ports, dams, highways, telecommunications, and energy infrastructure. 

Although China’s influence in Colombia has grown over the last few years, Colombia has not yet signed on to the BRI. Nevertheless, Colombia’s largest recent infrastructure, transportation, and mining projects have been awarded to Chinese firms. These companies have won the tenders in open and transparent competition with other firms in accordance with Colombian laws and regulations, which favor low costs. China is expected to leverage investment opportunities in road, rail, port, and technology infrastructure. In addition, we expect they will seek opportunities in oil, gas, and mining projects scheduled to be tendered by the Petro administration in the short and medium terms. Though Colombia has openly embraced a warmer political and economic relationship with the middle kingdom, the South American country’s political, diplomatic, and economic institutions are ill-equipped to understand and address the risks this closer relationship entails.   

Surprisingly, China’s growing influence has not sprung a debate among Colombia’s academics, press, business leaders, and policymakers. The Colombian public ought to debate the relationship between Colombia and China, much like it has with Colombia’s relationship with the United States, Venezuela, Europe, and Russia. In 2021, at Colombia Risk Analysis, we sought to examine Colombia’s Role Amid Great Power Competition. We believe that China’s growing presence, coupled with a larger global debate about China’s rise as a global power, requires greater local scrutiny. 

As such, Colombia Risk Analysis and Cifras & Conceptos conducted a study about local perceptions of Chinese investment in Colombia, including a poll showing the general public’s perception of China. Among our main findings, there are three underlying conclusions:

1. Colombia’s government is unprepared to deepen its ties with China from economic, geopolitical, strategic, and oversight points of view. This conclusion does not simply speak to the current trade imbalance between the two countries or Colombia’s lack of a clear, coherent, and sustained foreign policy approach. It also entails how institutions that exercise control and oversight will be challenged by issues stemming from Chinese infrastructure companies, as they have happened elsewhere around the world and in Latin America.
2. Political, security, and contract risks are on the rise for businesses and foreign direct investment in Colombia. Growing uncertainty in Colombia will affect Chinese companies’ perception of the country, especially when three of its major projects in Bogota, Buritica, and Caqueta face growing challenges. Uncertainty will not only affect Chinese companies looking to invest in Colombia but also foreign direct investment more broadly under the Petro administration.
3. There is no uniform idea or viewpoint toward China among Colombian public opinion or public officials. The information gap not only stems from the language barrier between China and Colombia but also from stakeholders’ basic understanding of China—who often do not comprehend how that country is evolving and rapidly changing in a dynamic geopolitical landscape. The effects of the information gap can be mitigated by a more sophisticated press and civil society understanding of China; although, it is important to note that this process is constrained by the limited financial resources dedicated to the effort, the difficulties of conducting due diligence in China, and efforts by China to frame the narrative on its own terms.
   

Our interviews with sources throughout the country, including government officials, members of the local legislative bodies, community leaders, trade unions and associations, police and military authorities, private sector leaders, as well as journalists, NGO workers, and other relevant individuals from Barranquilla, Bogota, Buritica, Buenaventura, Cali, Cartagena, and Medellin suggest that there is no dominant narrative about Chinese investment in Colombia.

Among the poll’s main findings is that Colombians have a predominantly positive opinion about China: 67 percent believe Colombia should strengthen its economic ties with China, 59 percent believe it should strengthen its political relations, and 54 percent believe Colombia should foment Chinese investment in the country. At the same time, 44 percent of respondents believe Chinese investments follow tax law requirements, 42 percent believe they abide by labor regulations, 37 percent believe Chinese companies obey environmental regulations, and 27 percent believe they abide by human rights standards. The poll also shows that 37 percent of respondents hold China in “very good” regard, while 53 percent of niche market respondents (based in Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla, and Bucaramanga) have a “very good” perception of China. The technology of Chinese goods is considered positive by over 75 percent of respondents. Likewise, 56 percent of respondents positively assessed the prices of Chinese goods, while 46 percent did so for their quality. Finally, 53 percent of respondents believe Chinese companies come to Colombia to make economic gains, 28 percent believe they come to expand their geopolitical footprint, 11 percent say their main motivation is to support development, and 7 percent believe they seek to expand their political influence. 

China’s engagement in Colombia will likely center on its commercial and economic agenda in the near future. However, China’s political relationship with the Gustavo Petro administration will likely grow, not only as a result of the advances made under the presidencies of Juan Manuel Santos and Iván Duque but also thanks to President Petro’s inclination to diversify Colombia’s trade and investment partners. China will very likely continue encouraging Colombia to join the BRI. Although closer China-Colombia relations would face opposition from Colombia’s strongest trade partner and military ally, the U.S., growing antagonism between President Petro and the U.S. Republican Party would open the door for China-Colombia trade relations to deepen, particularly in strategic industries like energy, mining, port infrastructure, and digital infrastructure. 

Several interviewees suggested that China has a long-term strategy to engage politically and economically with Colombia, which means that China will not interfere in Colombia’s domestic politics. This belief makes China an attractive partner for the Petro administration as it does not necessarily want to be held accountable by foreign powers for its present or future record on democratic governance, total peace, environmental, or human rights issues. It also helps that China’s President Xi Jinping is not accountable domestically for failed investment decisions, foreign entanglements, or when investments go awry. 

On the other hand, Colombia does not seem to have a methodical approach toward China. As a result, Colombia’s China strategy lacks sophistication, planning, consistency, preparation, and depth. The country also lacks a generalized awareness, especially among Colombian public opinion and past and present officials, about China’s growing role in global affairs and its implications for Colombia’s geopolitical standing. 

Colombia has plenty to gain from a more intertwined economic and political relationship with China, considering the impact Chinese infrastructure projects could have on the country’s development and overall well-being. But, for these projects to successfully foster development, Colombia must have strong financial and engineering oversight mechanisms to avoid the experience of countries where Chinese investment has had negative social, environmental, and economic fallouts. To best prepare, Colombia ought to closely examine the risks and opportunities of its growing relationship with China in order to strategically evaluate the best way to engage while prioritizing Colombia’s national interests. 

This piece was adapted from Colombia Risk Analysis’ most recent report. Read the full report at https://bit.ly/CRASpecialReport_ChinaCol. Follow Colombia Risk Analysis on social media to be the first to read their latest insights.

Sergio Guzmán is the Director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a political risk consulting firm based in Bogotá. Follow him on Twitter @SergioGuzmanE and @ColombiaRisk.

Sara Torres Raisbeck is Communications Coordinator at Colombia Risk Analysis. Follow her on Twitter @saratorres_r.

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