Brazil and Paraguay: Latin America as a threat to USA?
From Brazil, Joe Listo writes: Clyde McMorrow has shown a deep understanding of Brazil and Southern Cone countries. Smuggling between Brazil and Paraguay (Ciudad del Leste and Foz de Iguaçú) amounts to billions each year, with the connivance of customs authorities on both sides of the border. Hundreds of cars manufactured in Brazil are stolen and driven to Paraguay, where new documents are issued to make them legal. A stolen Beamer or Mercedez delivered in Paraguay generate Brazilian thieves a "reward" of between US$3.000-5.000, paid in cash or in exchange for automatic assault weapons for drug-lords in the slums of Rio and Sao Paulo. Little, if nothing, is done to remedy this situation, which caused insurance rates to explode in the last few years.
As regards soybean crops, Brazilians in the industry laugh at the reported output by Paraguay (the 1.4% referred to by Clyde), saying it is soya smuggled out of Brazil into Paraguay by farmers trying to avoid taxation. Hundreds of 18-wheelers full with soya cross the border day and night during crop season. Apparently, either police look the other way or smugglers carry forged albeit convincing documentation on them.
In connection with the potential threat Latin America could pose to the US, I trust the US intelligence agencies are keeping a wide open eye on two flanks: a) customs throughout Latin America are ill-equipped to deal with potentially lethal weapons (chemical or radioactive) that could be smuggled by terrorists from country to country to a point close to US territory. Low wages and growing resentment against America could create an ideal ground for bribery; and b) both Chavez and Lula do not even try to disguise their dislike of America, and they would not mind at all dragging the whole of Latin America into feeling the same. It would be a shame, at least for Brazilians, who have always looked up to America as a model to be followed. Commercial hostilities against the US would appear to be somewhat more unlikely as every corporation in Brazil would elect the US as their preferred importer as opposed to any other country worldwide: the US market offers volume, variety and guaranteed payment, features that exporters can not afford to ignore. However, the sooner Chavez and Lula go, the better.
RH: The relationship of the US with Latin America is complicated, as the recent election of a new secretary general to head the Organization of American States showed. At first the US backed the Mexican candidate, but when he gave up the US switched to the Latin American favorite, José Miguel Insulza of Chile, who won.