The Latin America thread (VE, BR, AR, CU, MX...)

I imagine it's being held together with spit and willpower. And possibly dreams of tarring and feathering Maduro.

The latter is probably a significant factor, yes.

A country can stay sunken into the filth of their own misery for decades. Just ask Haiti, or pretty much all African countries.

something that should be avoided unless other diplomatic efforts have been exhausted

Goddammit, sometimes I wonder if foreign diplomatics are just that dense or they take us for such complete idiots. All diplomatic efforts were exhausted long ago, these people have been starving us and stomping over the opposition for over a decade now, get it already, damn you, stop playing their patsies while they keep flicking their noses at you. The only thing they'll ever understand is radical pressure from ALL SIDES.

Protesters in Paraguay set fire to Congress after secret vote that would allow president Cartes to run for another term

Why doesn't South America have more Paraguayans?... Oh... I guess we fucked up. Again.

[La Nación (Arg)]: Reunión Mercosur-Alianza del Pacífico: "Estamos en sintonía para avanzar en la integración regional" (Translation: Mercosur-Pacific Alliance meeting: "We're in tune to advance in regional integration"). El resto se desarma y nosotros nos acercamos cada vez mas.

Context: Mercosur is a trade/political bloc between Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and (currently suspended) Venezuela (and Bolivia is currently attempting to join), while the Pacific Alliance is a trade bloc between Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. There was recently a meeting about integration between the two blocks, article (in Spanish, if it's not been made clear to anyone by this point) is about what happened in that meeting.

Latin-American Union when?

Never.

Soon™.

edited 7th Apr '17 5:24:14 PM by IFwanderer

Yeah, never. Don't want anything to do with the rest of the cootie-ridden countries.

Amateur question but how close (or not) are the states there?
Vague common destiny thing (a la Europe)? Everyone vs Brazil? Just occasional shifting friendships?

I can't say for the Spanish speaking ones but outside formal relationships and trades, not that close.

I mean Brazilian border cities have a more synergistic relationship with other South American states but the rest of the country, specially the sea side ones don't have much of an interaction.

Hugo Chavez wanted to create a unified Bolivar inspired socialist federation/whatever but that pipe dream died with him.

Ok I made a big post and it was lost for some reason and I hate life.

Long story short: When countries in America were Spanish colonies, the king dispensed territories as prizes; prizes that no one was wanting to relent for the sake of unity. Post independence the sentiment remained, plus rulers were oligarchs who would see their power lessened if they started international cooperation, they were content being small.

Anything after that was doomed to fail: Bolivar. The Federation. The Empire. They all failed beyond miserably. Where greater men had failed horribly, Hugo Chavez trying to unite America is the equivalent of thinking yourself Simo Häyhä after getting your first headshot on an AFK target in Team Fortress 2, and immediately listing yourself in the army.

And no one ever likes Brazil. Go away, Brazil!

edited 7th Apr '17 7:06:33 PM by Aszur

Brazil and Argentina famously have a Britain-France (respectively) historical rivalry-turned-pseudo-alliance-with-cultural-rivalry. Other than that, amicable but not close, as Angelus noted.

Well, a revival of the federal republic of Central America might be nice then.

How's Mexico treating the rest of Latin America? Is it close to any particular Latin American nations?

Mexican-American here and I haven't kept up with the motherland enough.

Mexico would probably have to get out of NAFTA first. Or somehow convince the rest of Latin America to join it and to get Canada and the USA to agree to that.

edited 7th Apr '17 9:07:51 PM by M84

Mexico's relationship with the rest of the continent is... odd.

We try to have good diplomatic relations with everyone and their grandmother (we remained friendly to Cuba when no one else wanted to touch it, for example), and we like to trade with everyone and anyone.

However,despite its contant calls for cooperation and peace and trade among all nations, Mexico's government focuses mainly on the powerful countries/groups before its smaller, less important neighbours. So, most of our foreign policy is all about staying on the good side of the USA, expanding trade with the EU, trying to stop China from "stealing" our biggest market with their cheap goods (>.>), erasing our country from all Russian maps just in case, and trying, in vain, to win a football match against Argentina and Brazil, may their national teams burn in hell for the rest of eternity.

This approach to our foreign policy is most evident in our immigration policies: while we were a country that accepted countless refugees and asylum seekers for most of the 20th century, we suddenly "closed" our borders when the US told us to. This has caused a lot of friction between Mexico and its southern neighbouyrs, especially countries that have been affected by our own War on Drugs like Guatemala.

It's the same whenever someone mentions something like Mexico joining Mercosur. Our government thinks it'd be good, but they're afraid it could cause trouble with more powerful nations like the US or even the UK and the EU ^note some people are afraid that if the Falklands 2: Electric Boogaloo ever happened we'd end up being hated by one or the other, depending on who was our president at the time (right wing = loves the UK; left wing = tolerates Argentina just enough to not antagonize it.

Then, there's the fact that Mexico takes its "neutrality" seriously. Extremely so, perhaps. It's tradition for Mexico to remain as neutral as possible, neither criticizing nor trying to intervene in the political affairs of other countries. A "united" Latin America with Mexico as a member would go against this doctrine. And while some of our presidents have broken this unspoken rule in the past (like Fox), most of our elected officials do try to keep their comments about other governments to a minimum. Unless they critisize us first. Then we go all out.

Finally, there's the current situation in the USA. Trump has proven that Mexico is like a helpless child if suddenly the US doesn't like something we do. And let's be honest, who would want to create a Latin American union with a country that is so dependent on the people who would oppose such a union?

So basically Mexico is too much of an American sockpuppet.

Ouch.

Welp, maybe with the new American administration in place, Mexico might decide to go for closer ties with its brothers and sisters to the south rather than letting Uncle Sam continue to bully them.

Any ideas if Lopez Obrador is more Latin-American friendly?

I'm hearing he'll probably be the next president of Mexico.

Within South America itself I've never gotten the impression we have a super great cultural unity that would make something like a federation possible. There are only a few times where we come together as latin-americans to bond over mutual experiences, like the fact the continent got royally fucked by the US with the military dictatorships in the latter half of the 20th century.

NVM

edited 7th Apr '17 11:36:29 PM by M84

As far as I know, Lopez Obrador is more of an isolationist and protectionist, and while he agrees with other Latin-American governments (as long as they're "left-wing"), he believes that Free Trade Agreements hurt the Mexicans' economy and that they should be avoided unless they're more favourable to Mexicans.

Apparently Lopez Obrador was happy when Trump said he wanted to kick us out of NAFTA because he believes such treaty has hurt the Mexicans' economy.

Do note the difference between Mexico and Mexicans. He believes that things that benefit Mexico aren't always in the best interests of her people.

For example, Wal-mart benefits Mexico because it provides a lot of jobs, it provides goods at a low price (amazing for the poor in the country), and they pay their taxes, but it's bad for Mexicans because it's not a Mexican company. He would prefer to kick the Waltons out of the country and replace them with small/medium sized Mexican businesses.

edited 8th Apr '17 8:37:05 AM by Cid

You guys might want to get out of NAFTA asap, since Trump might try to add the Internet copyright crap that was in TPP to NAFTA.

If only the people here were more educated and our government less corrupt. As it is, few people here actually care about the Internet Privacy clauses in the TPP. Q_Q

For the record, our government was in favour of the TPP and since it was "killed" they've been looking for other countries (*cough*China*cough*) to replace it.

edited 8th Apr '17 9:10:08 AM by Cid

If you guys get into a Free Trade Agreement with China, expect to kiss any rights to your waters goodbye. China apparently wants the whole goddamn Pacific to themselves.

I don't think China will want Mexico's water...

Not for drinking but for fishing territory. And for trade routes.