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Headlines : GovernmentCuba, Bolivia, Venezuela Reject U.S. Trade
Although Bolivia’s formal entrance into a trade agreement with Venezuela and Cuba will not yet severely harm the US economy, the US government cannot help but see what they have always feared begin to take place: A strong, united, economic, social, and political movement against US interests which could gain momentum as elections draw close in Peru, Nicaragua, and even Mexico.
[Posted By ByAnyMeans]Republished from Yahoo! News
HAVANA – Bolivia’s new left-leaning president signed a pact with Cuba and Venezuela on Saturday rejecting U.S.-backed free trade and promising a socialist version of regional commerce and cooperation.
Cuban authorities did not release copies of the so-called Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas signed by Bolivia’s Evo Morales, so its contents were unclear.
Local media reported that it had the same language as the declaration signed last year by Cuban leader
Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, which contained much leftist rhetoric, and few specifics, but was followed by closer economic ties between the two vehemently anti-U.S. leaders.
The agreement was “a clever mixture of politics and economics, weighted toward the politics,” said Gary Hufbauer, an economist at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank.
Venezuela-Cuba trade is expected to reach more than $3.5 billion this year — about 40 percent higher than in 2005. Among other measures, the deal signed between Chavez and Castro has Venezuela — the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter and a major supplier to the United States — selling 90,000 barrels a day of crude to the communist-run island at international market prices, but in exchange for services and agricultural products instead of cash.
Later Saturday, the three presidents…
Posted by ByAnyMeans
Lost and very much alone in the heart of the empire.
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RE.: The agreement was “a clever mixture of politics and economics, weighted toward the politics,” said Gary Hufbauer, an economist at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank.
Leave it to the Washington think tanks to try and suggest that politics in the US is anywhere but in the pocket of big business. LOL.
The lastest on this scandal is that Peru, as you know, is about to get a leftist president. The Peruvians threw out the most obvious Washington Consensus Canditate in their recent election — leaving a guy by the name of Garcia to run against the Bolivarian Candidate in a run-off in May.
Garcia has already had a go at running the country and his presidency saw hyperinflation and escalated guerrilla activity.
Peru’s current administration thinks it’s going to sign the FTA with DC. Humala thinks not. Garcia thinks he can win by saying A Vote for Me is a Vote for Washington. LOL. So but Hugo called Garcia “a thief and a crook” and said he and Toledo (the current Peruvian president) “crocodiles at the same watering hole”.
Where upon Toledo called his ambassador back from Caracas and Garcia called both Hugo and Evo “spoiled children”.
No way Ecuador is going to stand for an FTA with the Transnationals. Colombia’s going to be some work.
an interesting article:
Macho Men and State Capitalism – Is Another World Possible?
That article brings up excellent points, but the current alternative to state capitalism is savage corporate globalization.
The high classes of Latin America are increasingly dissociated from their People, and increasingly willing to use extreme violence to put a brake on the sabotage and economic disobedience excercised by the social movements.
If the regional power block does not consolidate, libertarian and communitarian, femenine and local alternatives of true freedom will be met with state, and Superpower sanctioned violence. Worse than the 70’s, at least then we had Soviet containment.
So I think the theory of lesser evil applies much more in the Latin American case than in last year’s U.S. “election”. If Lula and Chavez stay, with Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Nicaragua onboard, the tide will be irreversable.
The time for anarchist intransigence and demanding total freedom is still three or four years down the road. Until then, this will only feed career syndicalist leaders (read clienelist traitors) and the right wing Reaction.
Of course, we are growing the new system in the shadows…
It will be interesting to see what happens in Cuba once Fidel passes. That will be quite a shame, especially if capitalism takes over. Does anyone else think Hugo may be planning a Castro-style lifetime presidency since the current Venezuelan constitution limits him to (I believe) 2-3 terms? As long as he still enforces participatory democracy and continues the Bolivarian Revolution it might not be such a bad thing…