The Declining Power of the U.S. in the Americas
This weekend I took part in a K-12 Educators session on Latin America, which the World Affair’s Council organized at Lewis and Clark College. It was an impressive event, which included music and dance exhibitions, as well as breakout sessions on a wide array of topics. I had been asked to present on Brazil. Given that I had an hour, and wanted to leave fifteen minutes for discussion and questions, what could I say to K-12 educators that would be meaningful? What I finally decided to do was to talk first about Brazil’s history for about twenty minutes, and then consider how Brazil’s rapid economic growth is giving its political leadership a chance to address these legacies. As always happens, the best part of the session was the time at the end when I had a chance to talk to the group, which included people from Panama and Peru. And during that conversation I realized that I could have organized the session in another way. I believe that the most important political and economic trend in South America is the waning influence of the United States. And this is a trend not only in the southern hemisphere but also throughout the Americas, as an article about Canada’s trade in today’s Wall Street Journal makes clear. …