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sábado, 29 de agosto de 2020
Metropolitan Museum of NY is BACK: happy New Yorkers and visitors
sexta-feira, 28 de agosto de 2020
Trump’s difficult legacy - Jean Pisani Ferry
Trump’s International Economic Legacy
If US President Donald Trump loses November’s election, he will most likely leave an insignificant imprint on some parts of the global economic system. But in several others – especially US-China relations – his term in office may well come to be seen as a major turning point.
Jean Pisani-Ferry
Straits Times, Singapura – 28.8.2020
Straits Times, Singapura – 28.8.2020
Paris - It would be foolish to start celebrating the end of US President Donald Trump’s administration, but it is not too soon to ponder the impact he will have left on the international economic system if his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, wins November’s election. In some areas, a one-term Trump presidency would most likely leave an insignificant mark, which Biden could easily erase. But in several others, the last four years may well come to be seen as a watershed. Moreover, the long shadow of Trump’s international behavior will weigh on his eventual successor.
On climate change, Trump’s dismal legacy would be quickly wiped out.Biden has pledged to rejoin the 2015 Parisclimate agreement “on day one” of his administration, achieve climate neutrality by 2050, and lead a global coalition against the climate threat. If this happens, Trump’s noisy denial of scientific evidence will be remembered as a minor blip.
In a surprisingly large number of domains, Trump has done little or has behaved too erratically to leave an imprint. Global financial regulation has not changed fundamentally during his term, and his administration has flip-flopped regarding the fight against tax havens. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have carried on working more or less smoothly, and Trump’s furious tweeting did not prevent the US Federal Reserve from continuing to act responsibly, including by providing dollar liquidity to key international partners during the COVID-19 crisis. True, Trump has repeatedly spoiled international summits, leaving his fellow leaders flummoxed. But such behavior has been more embarrassing than consequential.
But, Trump will be remembered for his trade initiatives. Although it has always been difficult to determine the real aims of an administration beset by infighting, three key goals now stand out: reshoring of manufacturing, an overhaul of the World Trade Organization, and economic decoupling from China. Each objective is likely to outlast Trump’s tenure, at least in part.
Reshoring looked like a costly fantasy four years ago, and it still is in many respects. As my Peterson Institute colleague Chad Bown has documented, Trump’s chaotic trade war with the world has often hurt US economic interests. But reshoring as a policy objective has gained new life after the pandemic exposed the vulnerability entailed by depending exclusively on global sourcing. Biden has endorsed the idea, and “economic sovereignty” – whatever that means – is now a near-universal new mantra.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer claims that a “reset” of the WTO has been a high priority for the administration. If so, it has made some headway. The other G7 countries now share the long-standing US dissatisfaction with the WTO’s leniency toward China’s government subsidies and weak intellectual-property protection. There is also a recognition that some US grievances against WTO dispute-settlement procedures (and in particular the so-called Appellate Body) are valid. But whether the battle ends with a reset or the deconstruction of the multilateral trading system remains to be seen.
The major watershed is US-China relations. Although bilateral tensions were apparent before Trump’s election in 2016, nobody spoke of a “decoupling” of two countries that had become tightly integrated economically and financially. Four years later, decoupling has begun on several fronts, from technology to trade and investment. Nowadays, US Republicans and Democrats alike view bilateral economic ties through a geopolitical lens.
It is not clear whether Trump merely precipitated a rupture that was already in the making. He is not responsible for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian assertiveness, and he did not devise the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s massive transnational infrastructure and credit program. But it was Trump who ditched his predecessor Barack Obama’s carefully balanced China strategy in favor of a brutally adversarial stance that left no scope for events to take a different course. Whatever the cause of decoupling, there won’t be a return to the status quo.
A Biden administration would also not find it easy to achieve its goal of restoring ties with US allies, like-minded democracies, and partners around the world. Until Trump’s presidency, much of the world had become accustomed to regarding the US as the main architect of the international economic system. As Adam Posen, also of the Peterson Institute, has argued, the US was a sort of chair-for-life of a global club whose rules it had largely conceived, but still had to abide by. The US could collect dues, but was also bound by duties, and had to forge a consensus on amendments to the rules.
Trump’s trademark has been to reject this approach and treat all other countries as competitors, rivals, or enemies, his overriding objective being to maximize the rent that the US can extract from its still-dominant economic position. “America First” epitomizes his explicit promotion of a narrow definition of the national interest.
Even if the US under Biden were willing to make credible international commitments again, its outlook may change lastingly. The former Trump adviser Nadia Schadlow recently argued that Trump’s tenure will be remembered as the moment when the world pivoted away from a unipolar paradigm to one of great-power competition.
It is by no means obvious that if Biden wins, he will be able to restore the trust of America’s international partners. For all its aberrations, Trump’s presidency may indicate a deeper US reaction to the shift in global economic power, and reflect the American public’s rejection of the foreign responsibilities their country assumed for three-quarters of a century. The old belief among US allies and economic partners that Americans will “ultimately do the right thing,” as Winston Churchill reputedly said, may be gone.
In any event, Trump’s peculiar behavior has made it easy for America’s allies to postpone hard choices. That seems particularly true of Europe. A Biden-led US might seem like a familiar partner to most European leaders. But if it asked them to take sides in the confrontation with China, Europe would no longer be able to put off its own moment of decision.
Jean Pisani-Ferry, a senior fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel and a senior non-resident fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, holds the Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa chair at the European University Institute.
quinta-feira, 27 de agosto de 2020
O Brasil é a Argentina amanhã? Assim parece... - Joaquín Morales Solá
El adiós a los moderados
Joaquín Morales Solá
La Nación, Buenos Aires – 27.8.2020
La Nación, Buenos Aires – 27.8.2020
¿Cómo saber cuándo terminó una era? ¿Cómo, cuando otra era comenzó? Tal vez debamos detenernos en el lunes 17 de agosto para fijar una fecha en la que el Presidente les dijo adiós a los moderados. Incluso, a los peronistas moderados que habían confiado en él y que esperaban que prevaleciera sobre el proyecto cristinista. Estos peronistas no son mansos; son pragmáticos. Saben que de la mano de la expresidenta caminan hacia una probable derrota electoral y, otra vez, hacia la eventual pérdida del poder. Nadie sabe por qué, pero Alberto Fernández se aferró a su vicepresidenta, a sus métodos y a sus ideas. Sin embargo, lo hizo para sorpresa de hasta muchos argentinos que votaron por él creyendo que era distinto de su mentora. El Presidente llegó a tener, al principio de la cuarentena, índices de valoración del 80 por ciento. Aunque bajó de tales niveles hace mucho tiempo, lo cierto es que no se llega a esos picos sin haber conquistado hasta muchos que votaron por Mauricio Macri. A ellos también les acaba de decir adiós.
Veamos la cronología a partir de ese lunes de multitudinarias manifestaciones opositoras, que enojaron más de lo que aceptan a casi todo los que mandan. El martes 18, Cristina Kirchner apuró en el Senado la aprobación en comisiones del proyecto de reforma judicial con una cláusula nueva (de la que se hizo cargo Oscar Parrilli, el viejo portavoz de la expresidenta), que obliga a los jueces a denunciar al "poder mediático". La oposición no pudo leer el texto definitivo antes de la aprobación en comisiones. El Presidente consideró ese hecho como "ocioso". Es decir, lo dejó pasar. En la noche del viernes 21, Alberto Fernández firmó un decreto de necesidad y urgencia por el que declaró "servicio público" a la provisión de internet, telefonía celular y televisión por cable. Al mismo tiempo, congeló los precios hasta el 31 de diciembre. El domingo 23, denostó al expresidente Mauricio Macri y reveló supuestos contenidos de conversaciones privadas entre ellos. Fue algo inédito, aun en una política tan disparatada como la argentina. En esa política inverosímil, se acaba de ver a un expresidente, Eduardo Duhalde, ir a un estudio de televisión, sentarse con cierto desparpajo, cruzar las piernas y pronosticar un golpe de Estado como quien anticipa la próxima medición de la inflación. Los golpes de Estado son parte del pasado, no del futuro ni del presente del país. Pero el peronismo habita en el pasado siempre que está en el poder.
La cláusula Parrilli no es ociosa; es vaga. En la vaguedad se esconde el peligro. Según esa modificación de Parrilli al proyecto de reforma judicial, los jueces estarán obligados a denunciar ante el Consejo de la Magistratura la presión de varios actores de la vida pública, incluido el "poder mediático". ¿Qué significa presión del "poder mediático"? ¿Acaso que un diario, un canal, una radio, un medio o un periodista informen sobre los avances de una investigación de corrupción de funcionarios públicos?¿O que un periodista o un medio critiquen la gestión de un juez sobre determinada causa o sobre varias causas? ¿Qué hará el Consejo de la Magistratura luego? ¿Denunciará penalmente al medio o al periodista o a los dos juntos? Posiblemente ninguna causa de esta naturaleza tenga destino, pero ya que un periodista deba presentarse cinco, diez o quince veces en los tribunales es una condena por sí misma. Están buscando la autocensura del periodismo, que es la manera más eficaz de llegar a la censura. La batalla por la libertad parecía terminada en el país, pero aquí ninguna guerra termina nunca.
En ese contexto, apareció de pronto el guillermomorenismo en la economía. El DNU de Alberto Fernández sobre internet, telefonía celular y televisión por cable vuelve a colocar al Estado dentro de las empresas privadas; hurgará en la cadena de costos y establecerá luego las tarifas. Esto es: el Estado será el que repartirá el capital del sector privado. El Presidente argumentó que seis mil niños se quedaron sin clases a distancia durante la cuarentena porque no tenían servicio de internet (o no podían pagarlo) y que eso lo llevó a firmar ese decreto. ¿Seis mil niños es todo el problema? En ese caso, y aunque fueran más los argentinos que no acceden a internet, el único camino posible era analizar con las empresas un subsidio compartido para que esos niños no queden fuera de la modernidad. Pero ¿por qué en nombre de seis mil niños se subsidiará a los usuarios de los barrios elegantes o a los sectores pudientes de la sociedad? El caso semeja a la vieja frase de Guillermo Moreno: "Hay que cuidar la mesa de los argentinos". Con esa premisa, se prohibió la exportación de carne y se le puso precios máximos en el mercado interno. El resultado fue que la Argentina liquidó en poco tiempo su stock ganadero. El ejemplo podría multiplicarse por decenas de casos.
Si bien se mira el mundo TIC (tecnología de la información y la comunicación), que incluye la telefonía móvil, el mercado reúne las condiciones de la competencia. Hay varios prestadores (incluidas pequeñas cooperativas en el interior) y existe la posibilidad de que se sumen nuevos, lo que genera incentivos para la inversión y precios competitivos. Es el mercado más dinámico e inversor del mundo. De hecho, Donald Trump se olvidó de la guerra comercial con China, pero centró su ataque a la potencia asiática en la competencia por la banda 5G. En pocos años, se saltó del 3G al 5G, del cable a la fibra óptica y ahora a la conexión satelital. Si bien se asocia a estas tecnologías con el entretenimiento (y, por cierto, están muy asociadas), lo cierto es que también involucran derechos fundamentales, como la libertad de expresión o la libertad de prensa. Esa tecnología es la herramienta del presente y del futuro para que la sociedad esté informada y pueda expresarse.
¿Qué necesidad había de un decreto para garantizar el acceso a internet o a la telefonía celular? Ninguna. Según datos del Indec, el 84 por ciento de los argentinos tiene teléfonos celulares y el 80 por ciento usa internet. Más de la mitad de los hogares argentinos, en cambio, no tiene acceso a los servicios de agua corriente, cloacas o gas natural. Durante los últimos años mejoraron sustancialmente la velocidad promedio de internet, la cantidad de hogares con ese tipo de conexión, la cantidad de localidades con 4G y la cantidad de kilómetros con fibra óptica. En los últimos diez años (2010-2020) la industria de las TIC invirtió 20.000 millones de dólares. La inversión incluye a los grandes operadores (Telecom, Telefónica y Claro) y a 1500 operadores medianos y pequeños. Segú datos de Telecom, esta empresa invirtió en los últimos años 3500 millones de dólares en internet de banda ancha, telefonía fija y móvil y televisión paga. Telefónica informó que en el trienio 2017-2019 invirtió en la Argentina 38.500 millones de pesos, una cifra mayor que la que había invertido en 2015 y 2016, que alcanzó los 30.000 millones de pesos. El incremento del tráfico de datos entre 2015 y 2019 fue de un 600 por ciento.
En el mundo se están comenzando a licitar y desplegar las redes de quinta generación conocidas como 5G. Chile acaba de anunciar la licitación del 5G. Podría significar, según el gobierno chileno, inversiones en el país trasandino por 3000 millones de dólares. En la Argentina, que es más grande y tiene más habitantes que Chile, se esperaba que la licitación se hiciera para fines de este año. La inversión hubiera sido superior a la de Chile. Ahora los operadores nacionales y extranjeros en la Argentina se han retraído. ¿Cómo invertir en una industria en la que el Estado decidirá cómo será la inversión y cuánto ganará cada empresa? ¿Cómo, en un país donde se sacó la competencia de los precios y se pusieron tarifas reguladas por el Estado? Alberto Fernández ha hundido en el pasado a la industria del futuro. Nada bueno puede resultar de semejante anomalía.
El 17 de agosto cambiaron la era y el Presidente. Ese día de rebeldía callejera (antes, propiedad exclusiva del peronismo) molestó especialmente al jefe del Estado. Menos le gustaron la cobertura que hicieron diarios, radios y canales de noticias de las masivas manifestaciones opositoras. Clarín, pero no solo Clarín, estuvo en el centro de su fastidio. Clarín es un actor importante en el mundo TIC. Tampoco le perdonó a Macri la adhesión de este a esas marchas. Puso en su boca una frase increíble ("que se muera quien tenga que morir") por la pandemia y la cuarentena. Macri aseguró que ese relato es falso. Es fácil creerle no solo por lo que él dice, sino también por la información oficial de ambos lados de esa conversación telefónica entre ellos del 19 de marzo, según la reconstrucción que hizo la nacion. Solo hubo buenas ondas entre los dos. ¿Alberto se hubiera guardado seis meses semejante frase de Macri? Improbable, si no imposible. La difusión de una conversación privada compromete seriamente al Presidente para futuros diálogos con los opositores. ¿Quién hablaría con él en el futuro, en confianza y con claridad, si esa conversación podría ser divulgada luego? El Presidente también dijo que a la Argentina le fue mejor durante la pandemia que con Macri. Mostró estadísticas comparando lo que sucedió en un año con lo que pasó en un trimestre. Chicanas de política barrial. El problema es más grande. La pandemia significó que se terminaron prematuramente muchas vidas, que hay familias que sufren y que muchos de los que se recuperaron deberán soportar una larga y dolorosa recuperación. La vida no es comparable con ninguna estadística, que se puede leer, como toda estadística, del derecho o del revés. La vida no es comparable con simples datos de la economía. Hay 7500 muertos, señor Presidente. Merecen su respeto.
What Putin fears: Russians and Belarusians are tired of backwards-looking autocrats - Editorial Economist
What Putin fears
Russians and Belarusians are tired of backwards-looking autocrats
The old tools of truncheon and syringe may keep them in power. But for how long?
The Economist, Leaders, August 29, 2020
Nothing is as inspiring as seeing people take to the streets to demand their freedoms—and nothing is as terrifying for the dictators they are defying. In Belarus, among scenes that recall the revolts of 1989, people are turning out in their hundreds of thousands after a blatantly rigged election, heedless of the threat of state violence. In the Russian city of Khabarovsk tens of thousands march week after week to protest against the arrest of the local governor and the imposition of Moscow’s rules. Vladimir Putin is rattled. Why else is Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption crusader and Mr Putin’s greatest popular rival for the Russian presidency, lying poisoned in a Berlin hospital bed?
Regimes that rule by fear, live in fear. They fear that one day the people will no longer tolerate their lies, thieving and brutality. They try to hang on with propaganda, persecution and patronage. But it looks increasingly as if Mr Putin is running out of tricks, and as if Alexander Lukashenko, his troublesome ally in Minsk, is running out of road (see article). That is why, despite the Kremlin’s denials, they are falling back on the truncheon and the syringe. And it is why, as the protests roll on, they must be wondering whether state violence can secure their regimes.
Start with the economy. Belarus retains a theme-park version of the old Soviet system. When Mr Lukashenko went to gather support among the workers, he flew off to a state-owned tractor factory like some latter-day Lenin. The country’s exports largely consist of potash and petroleum products refined from Russian oil that used to be discounted. Russia is different from Belarus. Its economy is more open and less monolithic. Yet the commanding heights of industry and finance are in the hands of the oligarchs in the Kremlin’s trusted circle. Mr Putin has thus been unable to unleash competition and dynamism without upsetting the relationships that keep him in power. He has failed to diversify away from hydrocarbons, so the recent double shock of low oil prices and covid-19 has sent the economy reeling. As belts tighten, he has nothing to offer but nationalism and nostalgia.
That cocktail is losing its potency. For two decades Mr Putin has invoked an imaginary past of glory, plenty and certainty in the days of the Soviet and tsarist empires. His regime is a pioneer of disinformation. It invented the troll factory, and has created a media environment where, as one commentator put it, “nothing is true and everything is possible”. Yet Mr Putin’s offering looks tired next to that of Mr Navalny, whose popular YouTube videos are as skilful as the regime’s, but resonate with a growing sense of frustration. They are also grounded in exhaustive research into the regime’s corruption—and thus, in reality.
As well as failing to bring about economic and cultural renewal, both Mr Putin and Mr Lukashenko have failed to renew their regimes. Neither has a plausible successor. Mr Lukashenko has taken to trotting out his 15-year-old son, most recently in combat gear. Mr Putin cannot easily groom a successor lest it upset the factions he must keep sweet. This year he attempted to solve the problem by changing the constitution to allow himself to stay in power until 2036, when he will be 84. But that, too, was a sign of exhaustion. Mr Navalny, by contrast, has been busy organising opposition votes for regional elections to be held on September 13th. He may have been removed from the stage because if Russia had seen a popular movement like that in Belarus, he would have been its most plausible leader.
What can other countries do about all this? The answer begins with defending the principle of human rights. Germany has correctly offered asylum to Mr Navalny. Its doctors can explain what was done to him—and be believed by ordinary Russians. The European Union and America have properly declined to recognise the results of Mr Lukashenko’s stolen election. Their refusal may be spun by propagandists in Minsk and Moscow as evidence that the protests are a covert operation by the West, but the people in the street do not believe it. Outside powers should warn Russia that any use of force in Belarus would be followed by severe sanctions. Mr Putin and Mr Lukashenko will not be restrained by moral, legal or diplomatic norms, but if they spill blood to stay in office there must be consequences.
How long these two dismal regimes will survive is anyone’s guess. Backward-looking autocracies can cling on for years. Mr Putin and Mr Lukashenko are not alone in taking power and promising a return to an imagined era of lost glory. But the pattern is clear. Although this may feel good at first, the people eventually become, in the words of one Belarusian protester, “sick of them”. And that is when dictators should be afraid.■
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "What Putin fears"
Parlamentares trumpistas enlouqueceram : vivem nos tempos da Guerra Fria, mas contra aliados...
Inacreditável como os americanos em geral — generais do Pentágono, acadêmicos outrora esclarecidos, políticos oportunistas, trumpistas em especial — são capazes de não só antagonizar velhos aliados, novos amigos, mas também de destruir completamente a antiga política externa americana, feita mais de diplomacia do que de antagonismo arrogante.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Three Trump Supporters Have a New Target: Germany
The United States needs allies. Punishing Berlin over a Russian gas pipeline is a needless provocation.
The New York Times – 27.8.2020 - Editorial
The New York Times – 27.8.2020 - Editorial
There is something profoundly skewed in America’s foreign relations when senators threaten “crushing legal and economic sanctions” against a port city of a close European ally.
That was what three Trump-supporting Republicans — Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — did in a letter sent this month to a German port largely owned by the Baltic coastal town of Sassnitz and the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. They vowed to economically destroy the port, town and region unless the port ceased support for the construction of a gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
That pipeline, Nord Stream 2, has been controversial from the start. It is intended to double the volume of natural gas piped under the Baltic Sea directly from Russia to Germany and the European network, bypassing Ukraine and Eastern Europe and thus reducing the transit fees they collect.
Many critics in Europe and the United States have argued that the pipeline will make Europe, and Germany in particular, in the words of President Trump, “a captive to Russia,” and would help finance global mischief by President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Mr. Trump has been especially worked up by the notion that the United States is paying a disproportionate share of the cost of protecting Europe from Russia while Germany is cutting gas deals with Moscow.
The Trump administration has also been pushing American exports of liquefied natural gas, which it likes to call “freedom gas.” Texas, Mr. Cruz’s state, would be the biggest beneficiary.
German and European Union supporters of the pipeline argue that Europe is already buying huge amounts of Russian gas, and that only the route is changing to make supplies more secure. To soften the blow to Ukraine from the loss of transit fees, the Germans prevailed on Russia to agree to a five-year extension of shipping gas through Ukraine.
These arguments have gone back and forth for many years, fanned by a perception of Russia as an enemy that must be punished and isolated.The Obama administration, including Joe Biden, also opposed the construction of Nord Stream 2, though it did so diplomatically. Bipartisan opposition in Congress finally led to a threat of sanctions under the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which halted construction on the last stretch of the pipeline and compelled Russia to deploy its own pipe-laying ships. They could complete the project in about a year.
Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo turned up the pressure by lifting an exemption for the pipeline from a 2017 bill known as the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. In effect, anyone helping to construct the pipeline was potentially vulnerable to sanctions. It was this threat that the three senators invoked in their letter: Board members, corporate officers and shareholders of the owners of the port would be barred from the United States, “and any property or interests in property they have within our jurisdiction will be frozen.”
As the owners of the port are mostly Sassnitz and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, that would make many elected officials and civil servants of a close and friendly ally subject to the sort of sanctions applied against rogue nations.
Whether Nord Stream 2 amounts to the “grave threat to European energy security and American national security” that Senators Cruz, Cotton and Johnson invoke is questionable.Russian gas already flows through Ukraine and another undersea pipeline, Nord Stream 1, and more will soon reach Europe through a Turkish pipe.
At the same time, Europe has no shortage of gas, and the European gas market has grown far more capable of getting the gas it needs from sources other than Russia.Countries from Germany to Croatia are building liquefied natural gas terminals to handle imports from around the world — not only from the United States, but countries like Qatar, Nigeria and Australia.
Germans argue that it is Russia that needs the income from Europe more than Europe needs Russia’s gas. Pushing Russia away, they say, would turn Russia more toward the east and strengthen its ties to China.
The shock and fury provoked in Germany by the senators’ letter has been deafening. “Completely outrageous,” “blackmail,” “declaration of economic war” are just a few of the reactions from German and E.U. officials. Even those who oppose Nord Stream 2 have been stunned by the arrogance and audacity of being treated like a lawless colony.
That fury may be where the real threat to American national security lies. By effectively substituting sanctions, bluster and threats for foreign policy the Trump administration and its acolytes in Congress have alienated the very allies the United States needs to shape a viable resistance to Mr. Putin or any other dangerous actor.
More than likely, Nord Stream 2 will be completed soon. Only a 90-odd mile stretch of pipe remains to be laid, and in their anger the Germans may be less likely to back away. But even if the senators’ threat to destroy Sassnitz is not carried out, it’s already done great damage.
A critical American ally has been alienated, widening a trans-Atlantic rift that is one of Mr. Putin’s major pursuits. Interest in American “freedom gas” has no doubt fallen; Russia has been nudged closer to China. That’s not what foreign policy is meant to achieve.
A submissão da diplomacia bolsolavista na prática: a presidência do BID (NYT)
The New York Times – 26.8.2020
Trump Ally’s Quest to Head Latin American Aid Bank Divides Region
Mauricio Claver-Carone wants to become the first American to control Latin America’s chief source of development funding. His nomination has been divisive in the region, which is in economic crisis and sees the bank’s role as crucial to its recovery.
Natalie Kitroeff
Mexico City - An aggressive campaign by a Trump official to run the most important development bank in Latin America has divided the region, pitting nations that welcome the administration’s influence against those fearing he would undermine one of the few institutions that can cushion the blow of a pandemic-driven recession.
Latin America and the Caribbean are facing the full force of a global pandemic, a blow that is expected to send tens of millions into extreme poverty, erase decades of growth and create widespread instability in countries already plagued by corruption and violence.
Amid that crisis, Mauricio Claver-Carone, a top adviser to President Trump on Latin America, has launched an unorthodox bid to become the first U.S. official to lead the Inter-American Development Bank. The position is one of the most influential in the region, involving regular contact with heads of state to dole out about $13 billion every year, and it has always been held by a Latin American.
Known as an uncompromising political operator, Mr. Claver-Carone spent years lobbying against the Cuban government before joining the National Security Council, where he has shaped the administration’s hard-line policies toward Cuba and Venezuela.
Among the more than a dozen countries supporting Mr. Claver-Carone are conservative governments, such as Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia, that are politically aligned with the Trump administration, and nations that believe he is well positioned to infuse the bank with cash.
But critics, which include Argentina and Chile, fear that Mr. Claver-Carone could turn the institution into an arm of the Trump administration’s policy in the region — possibly for years to come. Since its founding in 1959, the bank has only had four presidents. Its current head, Luis Alberto Moreno, from Colombia, was elected in 2005.
After the campaign of Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently came out against Mr. Claver-Carone, many also worry that if Mr. Trump loses in November, he will have trouble winning new funding for the bank.
“In the best case, it leads to paralysis and marginalization, and that’s already sidelining the most important institution at the most critical moment,” Michael Camilleri, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue policy center, said of Mr. Claver-Carone’s candidacy. “In the worst case, the bank becomes a vehicle for a fairly radical right-wing agenda that further divides the hemisphere.”
Over decades, the bank has shepherded development in the region, lending to poor countries that have few alternatives so they can build essential infrastructure like roads, border crossings, ports and electricity grids, and investing in marginalized groups shut out by private banks in the region’s healthiest economies.
The bank has faced criticism for a lack of transparency and a failure to engage with local communities, but has remained a crucial lifeline in times of crisis. It is expected to be a driver of recovery in the Western Hemisphere, especially as other multilateral lenders are stretched thin by the pandemic.
Mr. Claver-Carone has pitched his candidacy as a sign of renewed U.S. interest in the region, and suggested that he can persuade Congress to pour more money into the bank.
Steven Mnuchin, the U.S. Treasury secretary, said in June that nominating Mr. Claver-Carone “demonstrates President Trump’s strong commitment to U.S. leadership in important regional institutions, and to advancing prosperity and security in the Western Hemisphere.”
Mr. Claver-Carone has helped lead the “Growth in the Americas” program, designed to attract U.S. investment to Latin American infrastructure, in part to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
Earlier this month, Mr. Claver-Carone traveled to Colombia with other administration officials to announce a plan to bring $5 billion in private investment to the country. During the visit, Colombia’s president, Iván Duque, made clear his support for Mr. Claver-Carone as head of the bank, telling him: “You have presented a clear agenda to invigorate the recovery of Latin American economies.”
A day after the announcement, Colombia released a statement listing 17 countries that were lining up behind Mr. Claver-Carone’s candidacy.
“They saw this as an opportunity, really, as a commitment from the United States,” Mr. Claver-Carone said in an interview about the regional leaders who support him. “They know I’m always honest with them, I’m effective, some would say I’m tough, but it’s just passionate in that sense.”
Mr. Claver-Carone has also solidified support in the region by promising to give a Brazilian official the bank’s No. 2 job and discussing a top post for a Jamaican official if he wins, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
To win the election in mid-September, Mr. Claver-Carone needs the support of a majority of the bank’s members, which include Canada and several Asian and European nations as well as countries in the region that borrow from it. But opposition to his candidacy has grown in recent weeks.
A top European Union diplomat has urged postponing the planned September vote, citing the pandemic and the nomination “without precedent” of a U.S. candidate to lead the bank, Reuters reported.
Mexico, Chile and Argentina, which has its own candidate for the job, are also calling for a delay, arguing the election merits more vigorous discussion.
“Mauricio Claver-Carone is not being challenged from a technical perspective, he’s being challenged from a political perspective,” said Felipe Solá, Argentina’s foreign minister. “He reflects the most hard-core ideological wing of U.S. policy toward Latin America.”
Opposition in United States has also been vocal. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which approves funding for the bank, said electing Mr. Claver-Carone “would not bode well for United States support for the Bank in the coming years.”
But Mr. Claver-Carone dismissed the opposition in Latin America as “a handful of countries that for whatever reason — because their own candidates haven’t been able to get off the ground — are looking for ways to hijack the election.”
And he has important backers in Congress: Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and Senator Robert Menéndez, Democrat of New Jersey, have both endorsed him.
Noting that he has “not always agreed” with Mr. Claver-Carone, Senator Menéndez commended his “consistent commitment to advancing U.S. national security, our foreign policy interests, and an agenda of shared priorities with our partners in the hemisphere.”
Mr. Claver-Carone decided to seek the job after the current president, Mr. Moreno, rejected his bid to become executive vice president earlier this year, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
The idea to run for the top job, Mr. Claver-Carone said, came from two presidents in the region who had called to ask him if he had considered seeking the top job. (He declined to name the presidents, saying only that one was from South America and the other from Central America.)
“We started calling our partners and allies in the region saying, hey, what do you think, is this feasible?” Mr. Claver-Carone said. There was, he said “a big sense of relief” at the idea that he would helm the institution, partly because it showed the U.S. cared about the bank.
Right before announcing his candidacy, Mr. Claver-Carone called Brazilian officials and asked them not to put forward their own candidate, Rodrigo Xavier, a former Bank of America executive, and to back Mr. Claver-Carone instead, according to three people familiar with the matter. He said he would give a Brazilian the coveted No. 2 job if he won, the people said.
He has also discussed giving top posts to Nigel Clarke, the finance minister of Jamaica, and Richard Martínez, Ecuador’s finance minister. Both countries are backing him.
“I would love to recruit Richard and Nigel," Mr. Claver-Carone said.
After Mr. Claver-Carone helped Luis Almagro win a tough race to be re-elected as secretary general of the Organization of American States this year, Mr. Almagro emerged as a key supporter of his bid to become chief of the bank. When the European Union diplomat urged delaying the vote, Mr. Almagro tweeted: “The region is independent, sovereign and can maturely make its own decisions, decisions that should be made by a majority, not a minority.”
Supporters in the United States are pleased with Mr. Claver-Carone’s vow to push for more U.S. investment in the region, which could steer countries away from doing business with China.
But it is precisely that focus on American interests that could end up hurting hundreds of millions of people who depend on the bank across Latin America, critics said.
“I fear, because of the strength of his views on those subjects, you use the bank to force countries into policies you want as conditions of loans,” said Roberta Jacobson, the ambassador to Mexico under President Obama. “It could pursue that kind of vindictive policymaking on an ideological level.”
Trump’s silence on Navalny’s alleged poisoning - Adam Taylor (WP)
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