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US pressure on Latin America to cut trade with China could lead to economic disaster because the region is so dependent on trade with Beijing, according to the outgoing head of the main political forum grouping 35 nations across the Americas.
Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organisation of American States for the past decade, told the Financial Times in an interview ahead of his departure on May 25 that trade with China was essential.
“China is the biggest or second biggest trading partner of practically every Latin American country. Take that out of the equation . . . and you are going to have a very violent regional economic disaster,” he said.
The Trump administration has been pressing Latin American nations to downgrade relations with Beijing. It has forced Panama’s exit from the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, hinted at trade sanctions on Colombia if it joins Belt and Road, and urged Mexico to reduce Chinese investment in its factories.
But Almagro, a 61-year-old Uruguayan diplomat who is stepping down this month after 10 years leading the Washington-based OAS, said that “the worst thing that can happen to Latin America is to be forced to choose” between the US and China.
“You must have the best trade relations you can with everyone,” he said.
Trump has pushed aggressively in his second term to reassert US control over the American-built Panama Canal, ceded to Panama at the end of the last century under an international treaty.
In his first administration he revived the idea of the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th century concept that Latin America was a zone of exclusive US influence.
“The stronger you are, the more power you have, the more you are obliged to keep to agreements you have signed,” Almagro said of the US and Panama. “That’s a demonstration of your strength and your integrity. For us, that should never be in doubt.”
Almagro gave a bleak assessment of Latin America’s progress over the past decade. Repeated failures of political leadership had compounded long-standing problems of discrimination and inequality, holding back economic progress, he said.
The answer was “better democracies”, with properly functioning institutions, respect for the rule of law, clean elections, freedom of expression, greater social equality and less discrimination.
In his native Uruguay, often held up as an example of successful development, the marginalisation of groups such as single mothers and people of African descent has not changed since independence from Spain in the early 19th century, he said. “Two hundred years later, we have the same social structure.”
In his decade at the OAS, a forum for political co-operation and promoting democracy and human rights across the Americas, Almagro was known for outspoken criticism of Venezuela’s authoritarian socialist government and Cuba’s communist rulers.
His leftwing Frente Amplio party in Uruguay expelled him in 2018 for aligning himself too closely with the first Trump administration’s efforts to force regime change in Caracas through “maximum pressure” sanctions.
Almagro is unrepentant, lashing out at what he called the “very poor” development of ideology in Latin America across the political spectrum. “We are stuck in a personal confrontation between leaders,” he said. “Ideas have disappeared and enmities have remained.”
Neither Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro nor Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel are genuine leftwingers, he says. “Call them fascist dictators and where are you wrong? Nowhere.” But both are likely to remain in power, thanks to a “well-oiled repressive machine”, he said.
Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank in Washington, said Almagro inherited a difficult task at the OAS.
“The cost of his principled stand on Venezuela, which he deserves credit for, was that he alienated other governments,” he said. “In their view, if you are leading a multilateral organisation, you need to consult and seek consensus.”
Almagro’s successor is Albert Ramdin, the former foreign minister of Suriname, a Caribbean nation with 630,000 people.
Ramdin has previously served as OAS assistant secretary-general but Shifter said he faced a tough challenge as he takes up his new post on May 30. “It will be very very difficult, especially with the US,” he said. “He doesn’t inherit a very robust organisation.”
