The hemisphere needs to think bigger to solve its challenges in the 2020s
Revisiting a blog post I wrote 2005 while thinking about the scope of the challenges in the coming decade
Welcome to the Latin America Risk Report - 26 December 2019
In this edition
The hemisphere needs to think bigger to solve its challenges in the 2020s
Corruption Corner on Mexico and Brazil
Reading List of links
Hello Debate Teams looking for Venezuela information!
Earlier this week, paying subscribers received an update on the political situations in Ecuador and Bolivia. Please feel free to forward this free weekly newsletter to your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up at https://boz.substack.com.
The hemisphere needs to think bigger to solve its challenges in the 2020s
In November 2005, I opened a blog post about the “Limits of Free Trade” with the following:
I was walking down the street in Bogota, Colombia last night heading out to dinner when I passed the same family of garbage collectors that I've seen on that street many times before. They were piling up a cart full of items that could be resold, recycled for money or reused. In many developing countries, trash collection combined with some entrepreneurial spirit have become a driver of an enormous black market economy. These are the ultimate in capitalists, and they are also among the most impoverished, making only a few dollars per night.
The image of that family, both parents and two young children with their wooden cart full of neatly sorted trash stayed in my mind for the rest of the night. I'm pro-free trade, but even the most ardent pro-globalization person must recognize that free trade isn't going to magically make this family less poor.
I wrote that blog post several months after the US free trade deal with Central America was passed and while the deal with Colombia was being debated (though it wouldn’t pass for years). It was one of the first blog posts I wrote to go big and get read by a wider audience.
On Christmas Eve 2019, I was walking down the street in Bogota and there was a family of garbage collectors. Parents and two young children, sorting through garbage, looking for items they can recycle for money to scrape by another day. I still see garbage collectors like that all the time, but seeing that family on Christmas Eve brought me back to my blog post. Years after the US free trade deal with Colombia passed, the black market entrepreneurs sorting garbage remain a key part of Bogota’s urban environment.
However, this story is different than the one I wrote in 2005. My perspective is different because I’m almost 15 years older, now living in Bogota with two kids of my own. And the situation is different because that family’s trash cart in 2019, like so many others, has a Venezuelan flag. Though Colombia still has plenty of its own poor and displaced populations, the Venezuelan refugee crisis is now front and center. That’s something I certainly did not imagine in 2005.
For Latin America, this decade ends worse than it started. The region faces multiple refugee crises from Venezuela and Central America. It has governments stuck in low-growth traps in which they can’t meet the demands of the population. Violence has worsened in many countries. Investigations have exposed hundreds of billions of dollars lost to corruption and political systems infiltrated by criminal organizations. While the region is still far from the dictatorships of the 1970’s, authoritarian and populist leaders have taken advantage of the political moment to degrade the hemisphere’s democratic gains.
These challenges highlight just how much the 2000’s were a missed opportunity for the governments of the region and for the US’s relations with its neighbors. My 2005 blog post linked above hints at the problem, but I also failed to understand the scope of the challenge. Looking back from 2019, the debates of the 2000’s were a moment in which policymakers argued over small details about free trade and police reform and missed the big picture on democracy, economic prosperity, security and transparency.
This hemisphere isn’t going to solve its big problems with small solutions. Reducing a tariff on a textile export won’t solve Haiti’s political crisis. A few million dollars in aid won’t convince the Honduran child I met in 2016 to not risk that trip to the US. And the current policies on Venezuela aren’t going to give any reason for that family of garbage collectors I saw two nights ago in Bogota to return to their home country.
Latin America leaves the 2010s in a dark moment that includes crises and protests. It is likely 2020 is going to see greater political instability, low economic growth and rising crime and corruption, but that doesn’t mean that governments can’t begin to correct what went wrong in the past decade and work towards big solutions for the people of this hemisphere. We, as a hemisphere, should see 2020 as an opportunity to start putting things right for the decade to come.
The hemisphere needs to rethink its security policies in a way that measures success by whether citizens are safer and governments are less infiltrated by organized crime, not by the numbers of criminals arrested or drugs seized. There should be a renewed hemispheric push to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials. The region must prevent additional democracies from failing due to authoritarian politicians, stolen government funds, and bureaucratic mismanagement.
I’m eager to promote big solutions for the hemisphere’s challenges. In 2014, I called for over a billion dollars in aid per year to Central America, a policy I continue to endorse. I support the creation of a regional investigative body to target corruption and applaud the journalists doing the difficult work to uncover stories about corruption. I fully believe in implementing a policy on refugees and migrants that respects their human rights and understands that improving their lives improves the entire hemisphere. I also think the hemisphere should engage in a more aggressive effort to rebuild democracy in countries where it has been lost and deliver aid to those who need it.
I speak as a US citizen, wanting to see a more ambitious and constructive US policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean, but this needs to be a hemispheric effort in which the US is just one of many countries working cooperatively to improve the region.
Thanks to readers for indulging a more personal essay during this holiday season. In the coming year, my newsletter will strive to provide the best analysis possible. I will generally avoid discussing the US political debate unless it’s directly relevant to the issues of political and security risks in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, I’m not going to pretend to be neutral as I write my analysis. We need to think bigger and do better.
Corruption Corner
Mexico - Irma Sandoval, an ally of AMLO who serves as comptroller, said Manuel Bartlett Diaz, the director general of the CFE, is not guilty of using his position to enrich himself or his family. Carlos Loret de Mola reported in August that Bartlett had over US$30 million in assets including 23 properties in Mexico City that he had failed to declare. A later investigation also found Bartlett had relationships with 12 businesses he failed to declare. The decision to exonerate Bartlett has been strongly criticized in Mexico’s media given the evidence against Bartlett, raising questions about Lopez Obrador and Sandoval’s commitment to anti-corruption efforts. As with other scandals, Lopez Obrador appears to be politicizing the anti-corruption process. He uses corruption investigations and allegations to attack critics and rival parties while allegations against AMLO allies accused of corruption are generally ignored.
Brazil - President Jair Bolsonaro strongly defended his son against money laundering and embezzlement allegations as Rio de Janeiro state prosecutors raided the homes of several people close to the president and his family. The investigation into Flavio Bolsonaro highlights several links the Bolsonaro family has to corruption, undermining a key campaign promise by the president. The controversy has also become part of a right-wing infighting between the president and Rio Governor Wilson Witzel.
Reading List
NYT - Fighting as Masked Vigilantes, Brazil’s Police Leave a Trail of Bodies and Fear
NYT - Nicaragua Has a Simple Message for Protesters: Don’t
The Economist - Juan Guaido: The way to change Venezuela
The Intercept - Inside the Plot to Murder Honduran Activist Berta Cáceres
Vox - The abandoned asylum seekers on the US-Mexico border
Daily Beast - The Venezuelan Doctor Fighting Malaria and Maduro
Global Americans - Latin America and China: Choosing self-interest
The Economist - 2019 in review: protest and populism in Latin America
Chatham House - Latin America 2020
Hello Debate Teams!
I’ve been informed by a number of high school students that January’s national debate topic is “The United States should end its sanctions against Venezuela.” I’ll write something to address that next week and send it out to the free list. I’ll also keep the topic on my mind as I write newsletters in January. Feel free to send me questions and I’ll do my best to respond to them in a way that benefits all readers.
Thanks for reading
Have a great final week of 2019!
I love everything about this, Boz. Thank you for your words.