Oh my Americas, the forgotten land

The past few weeks have been illuminating if, like me, you despair at how the wider world looks at, or so often ignores, Latin America. Amid the desperate tragedy of wars in the Middle East and Europe, with horrifying images by the day from Gaza and Ukraine, let alone the battle for power in the world’s number one superpower, there has been a serious degree of attention in Washington, London, Beijing and Moscow to the ongoing drama of that election in Venezuela, which was so blatantly not free and fair. Even if China and Russia, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin no less, instantly congratulated their friend and business partner, the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

We could have expected The Guardian newspaper in Britain, for so long the tribune of the old European Left and these days a widely-read, online global leader of progressives, to rail about the way that Maduro, that sleazy heir of Hugo Chávez, stole the vote by holding up results for hours, then declaring himself the winner. “A climate of terror,” the UK daily reported, had Maduro and his secret police-cum-army “pulverising” the opposition by rounding up opponents who took to the streets. At the same time they captured the tragedy of the millions of Venezuelans who have fled their country, with a photo essay showing thousands on the border with Colombia fearing for their families and preparing to join the exodus.

More striking, however, has been the patience and perseverance of the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, in the midst of a presidential election campaign that is proving as extraordinary as it is fascinating, given the man-child Donald Trump and the “good vibes” accompanying the largely untested Kamala Harris. “Venezuela shows democracies must rethink how to fight global autocracy,” opined The Post a good couple of weeks after the grand larceny, detailing at length how the Biden Administration had reopened ties with Venezuela and insisted on open elections, with an unfettered opposition, only to see Maduro break all promises. “The free world needs more than just summits, news releases and sanctions,” The Post concluded.”There is a crying need for fresh thinking about how to fight dictatorship in all the ways it is metastasising.” Way to go, I thought, having reported such summits, and such statements of spin, over decades as a journalist and then as a UN diplomat. Basta! with business as usual.

Likewise, The New York Times has stuck with the Venezuela narrative in a way that is surprising when you consider how little space is devoted to Latin America compared, for example, to the Middle East, or Asia, even Africa. “Venezuela’s election was deeply flawed. Here’s How,” headlined The Times early on. “An autocrat’s tool backfired in Venezuela,” that was the following day’s lead. The paper even dared to ask: “How do you topple a Strongman?” prefacing a piece that wondered aloud if Venezuela’s Armed Forces would turn against Maduro.

That led me to then cast an eye at the archive at the The Times on the Americas. To discover that yes, Venezuela had received extensive coverage, but high on the table of late alongside Maduro’s kleptocracy sat incessant stories about Mexican drug-lords extradited to the United States, or Mexican journalists gunned down in broad daylight. And wait for it, “Trump of the Tropics,” a recent, lengthy article explaining how supporters of erstwhile, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil were building on their dream of a return to power for the far-right leader, thanks to the learning of lessons from Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. Of course, as if we could forget, Latin America, still the terrain of the semi-crazy stereotype.

It was then sobering to delve a little, and to discover that it’s been a full five months, back in March, since The Times last wrote in-depth about Javier Milei’s attempt to rebuild Argentina. And once again, the stereotype abounded. “The extreme libertarian programme that Mr. Milei says will make Argentina great again, along with his unruly hair and tongue, has accounted for countless comparisons to Trump,” remarked an opinion piece. “So far, he’s failed to deliver.” Just when you hoped the First World might take the Americas seriously, you walk into more of the same old, same old, it seems.

So here’s a thought. The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, or not just with the editors in London and New York, but in ourselves. Because yes, Latin America has been divided over what to say, and do, and seek in Venezuela, with the likes of Milei outspoken against Maduro and the leaders of Brazil and Colombia sitting on the fence. And in Milei’s case he has surely not helped himself by picking fights with the leaderships in Madrid, Bogotá, Brasília, thereby alienating potential allies and helping create a narrative of rampant disunity in the Americas. But all of that pales in comparison with the major reason for the disregard shown for our hemisphere by the wider world. Namely, the failure of Latin America to sell its enormous potential, relevance, and yes, I use the word cautiously, importance, in a period of such tumult elsewhere. Those wars, in the Middle East and Europe, have re-cast the future not just in terms of superpower politics, but in the fundamental realm of energy, metals, and food.

Consider Ukraine’s vital role in the export of grain, Russia’s gas supply lines to Europe, or the threat to oil production and price coming out of the Middle East conflict. If there is one region of the world in position to reap reward, benefit and growth, it is Latin America. Think of just Argentina, with Vaca Muerta, the world’s second-largest deposit of shale oil and gas. Think of Argentina again, capable of producing food for a billion people, one-eighth of humanity. Whether it’s energy, or minerals, lithium and copper, certainly food (think soy and wheat), Latin America should be the go-to arena for the wider world, not some afterthought condemned to the margins by the narrative of Venezuelan dictators and Mexican drug-lords. But does the region sell that, market that, with its human capital, as effectively? The answer has to be no.

On a recent conference call with a group of Mendocino thinkers, generally drawn from the world of business and politics, I was asked by one of Argentina’s finest winemakers if Trump or Harris might do better in this part of the world. After years in Washington DC, as a White House correspondent, I doubted that, given the way I saw Latin America relegated in the corridors of the National Security Council and State Department. I found myself going back to The New York Times archive, to look for a piece on the Kamala global agenda. “What to know about Kamala Harris’s foreign policy positions,” that was the headline – and the conclusion spoke for itself. The candidate, now on the up in the United States, has a long track record of views-cum-positions on Europe, the Middle East, on Africa, on the Indo-Pacific. But none to speak of when it comes to Latin America.