Roll Over, Monroe

what i see is that we the US want to take control of lands that are too far out of our reach to maintain, spending extravagant amount of money when we should be reinforcing what we had in terms of relations we our neightbours. shouldn't we strenghten the ties we at least Canada and Mexico? maybe invest more in mexico to bring it up to or close to our standards? That should in turn make the north american block the strongest of all world-wide. it will help us control the immigration from central america as these peoples will immigrate towards Mexico and it will give us the opportunity to import really skilled workers if need to. what are we waiting for? are we just going to sit back and let Asia and Europe take all?

Chavez represents only one factor in the equation, where he is everyday less popular in the international circle. Another factor is the open markets of today, no longer is the US the only plausible market. With globalization, Latin American countries learned that there are markets to be tapped; China for example has changed their economical market views, Russia and the Nordic countries, Asia. Another factor can be the lack of decision from the American Congress; see the case of Colombia where the free trade agreement has stopped to a halt. I will have to say that is not that the Latin American countries are waning away from the US, but vice versa, is the US that has gone to other latitudes of the world and forgot about the Latin American markets. And, what happens when a business partner is no longer interested in doing business with you? You find another partner, that simple.

Chavez represents only one factor in the equation, where he is everyday less popular in the international circle. Another factor is the open markets of today, no longer is the US the only plausible market. With globalization, Latin American countries learned that there are markets to be tapped; China for example has changed their economicall market views, Russia and the nordic countries, Assia. Another factor can be the lack of decision from the American Congress; see the case of Colombia where the free trade agreement has stopped to a halt. I will have to say that is not that the Latin American countries are waning away from the US, but vice versa, is the US that has gone to other latitudes of the world and forgot about the Latin American markets. And, what happens when a business partner is no longer interested in doing business with you? You find another partner, that simple.

If Hugo Chavez represents this so called wave of the future, the US may not have much to worry about. He has rapidly increased his unpopularity in the halls of the United Nations and among his Latin neighbors by irresponsible words and irresolute action. On the larger scene, China is a worrisome factor, though in large part it is taking over where Russia no longer has the ideological or military strength to pursue real influence though China's trade has economic pizazz the USSR could never match. I think though, when it comes to smelling sulphur, Latin Americans like to see the US as big and bad and "twist John Bull's tail" as we in the US used to call Britain in its imperial heyday, but they know who the real totalitarian devils are - Hugo and Mahmoud., and they don't want terror and unrest spread to their backyard