http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4861320.stm I was reading above article and it struck me as quite a major new movement in recent history. The US has been trying to control latin america for a long time and now it is slipping away. Personally I think it is a good development. How much misery hasn't the US caused by its intervening in sovereign nations? Maybe things won't go optimal for the US but at least people now have a chance to do their own thing, no matter how bad it might turn out. How did Latin america slip away? Is the middle east that much more important? Hasn't it been given enough airtime on the news? Has the simply up?
Enjoy the ride man the attention is on Mid East so latin America can free itself and dont worry between N Korea and Iran they will up the anti in an orchestrated way so the USA is always Offballanced.They are stuck in Iraq and have very limited options available to them.
Latin America is not that important , this region unfortunately is mired in debt and poverty and relies almost entirely on outside investment . At the moment the US draws into its economy some $1Trillion each year from the profits of oil distribution this makes the mideast extremely important to the US . The next important region is the Asia Pacific area , but there is another telling sign of this region slipping away . The ports deal that Dubai got over Singapore shows very clearly where the global shift has ocuurred . Its shifted to the Euro zone and the mideast is returning to its European backyard status it was from the time of Rome through the crusades and up and until WW2 . America is fighting to retain its lucrative control of mideast rich's against the encroaching EU power . America is losing , and backwaters such as South America are the least of Americas worries . And EU trade with South America is less than the EU trade with Hungary a good example of South American meaningless .
But latin america is still in US' backyard. Do they suddenly want a communist Latin America? Previously it was the worst scenario imaginable. If latin america goes down the drain can the US expect a wave on immigrants?
A few words about Brazil and your time scale: Much of what you say is correct, in the near term, but changing. For example Brazil has fully paid all debts to the would bank, but still has a lot of internal debt and an unstable "social security" system that is increasing the internal debt annually. Corruption is still a problem in Brazil, but getting less so. One day the oil of middle East will not be so important. Perhaps Brazil's vast acreage of sugar cane for alcohol will be more important as it is renewable liquid form of solar energy. Brazil has also abundant water and less than 10% of the population of China or India, two of the other BRICKs. They both are hard pressed to feed them selves, and importing more food from Brazil every year's grown on 62 million hectares now cultivated. There are 200 million hectars now in pasture, at least 90 could be easily converted to crops, and vast expanses of Amazon that are being cleared for their timber, but generally the soil there is poor and would require fertilizer. Although Brazil is mainly an exporter of low value added products (sugar,coffee,paper pulp,iron ore,soybeans,some alcohol, etc) it also exports, cars and airplanes (world's fourth largest produce, perhaps soon to be #3 as it makes more economical version of the 50-150 passenger class than Canadian #3) Trade surplus was about 10 billion dollars last year and Brazil is energy self sufficient now, a net exporter of oil, etc. Brazil is now 14th largest economy in world. PriceWaterHouseCooper predicts it will be #4 in 2050 and much of the world will be dependent on Brazil for food and energy, then. Ok to ignore now, if you do not care about 2050.
