51吃瓜

Gustavo Petro doesn鈥檛 just want to transform his own country; he wants to change the world. The new leader of Colombia, who took office last August, is targeting what he calls his nation鈥檚 鈥�.鈥� That means pivoting away from oil, natural gas, coal, and narcotics toward more sustainable economic activities. Given that oil and coal make up 鈥� and Colombia is the world鈥檚 鈥� that鈥檚 not going to be easy.

Still, if Colombia were to undertake such a pivot, it would prove to other countries similarly addicted to such powerful substances 鈥� including the United States 鈥� that radical change is possible. With the latest news that the international community will of its carbon reduction target for 2030, Colombia鈥檚 pathbreaking detox effort has become more urgent and significant than ever.

Not surprisingly, Petro and Francia Marquez, his environmentalist vice president, have encountered significant resistance to their plans, even from within their own ranks. Although they immediately declared a moratorium on new oil and gas drilling as part of a bid to phase out the country鈥檚 fossil-fuel industry, their own and ministries, fearing the moratorium鈥檚 effect on the economy, refused to rule out such future contracts. The government also proposed a major new tax on oil exports, only to quickly in the face of widespread industry resistance, including from the state-owned oil company Ecopetrol. 

An even bigger challenge comes from the monstrous debt problem the Petro administration faces. Fully one-third of government revenues Columbia鈥檚 huge foreign debt. Similarly shackled to onerous interest payments, much of the Global South has been forced to extract ever more resources simply to pay the never-ending bills from international banks.

Still, whatever problems he faces, Petro represents something new.  After all, the Latin American left has long favored more mining and drilling to boost exports, trade, and government revenues. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has typically pursued the renationalization of the oil industry to (yes!) boost production. That鈥檚 also been the strategy of Luiz In谩cio Lula da Silva (Lula) in Brazil, while the Peronist government in Argentina has focused on an attempt to significantly offshore oil drilling. Progressivism in Latin America, as in many other parts of the world, has long been inextricably linked to raw material extraction designed to distribute more wealth to the poor, while closing the gap with the richer North.

Sadly, however, despite similar growth strategies pursued by left, right, and center governments, the countries of the region have collectively failed to achieve either of those goals. Latin America remains the on the planet. Instead of beginning to catch up to the North, it has fallen ever further behind. In 1980, per capita gross domestic product (GDP) on that continent was 42% of the G7鈥檚, the world鈥檚 most industrialized countries. By 2022 鈥� notwithstanding all the wealth scratched from the ground and the sea, the promises of the advocates of free trade, and the efforts of progressive politicians who won power 鈥� the region鈥檚 GDP per capita had to 29% of the G7 countries.

Now, Colombia is trying something different. The electoral victory of Petro and Francia has been hailed 鈥� or derided 鈥� as part of a new 鈥減ink wave鈥� in Latin America that鈥檚 brought Gabriel Boric to power in Chile, Xiomara Castro to the top spot in Honduras, and Lula back to the presidency of Brazil.

But given what Petro and Francia are attempting, simply identifying them with that pink wave would be misleading. They are, after all, offering a fundamentally different paradigm of economic development, one that鈥檚 more green than pink.

Perhaps you鈥檙e familiar with the : if you find yourself in one, stop digging. For decades, Latin American countries have tried to dig themselves out of poverty 鈥� drilling for oil, mining for lithium 鈥� only to find themselves in an ever-deeper pit.

Colombia is the first country to declare that it wants to stop digging. Will the world, and particularly the United States, now lend a hand in pulling it out of its economic hole?

The Pink Wave That Isn鈥檛

The left might seem to be on the march in Latin America, but a closer look at recent election results reveals a somewhat different picture.

In Brazil, right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro should have been defeated in a landslide in last year鈥檚 presidential election. After all, the 鈥淭rump of the tropics鈥� had presided over a Covid-19 catastrophe that left Brazil (after the United States) in the number of deaths from that pandemic. He had initially run on an , but his administration was so rife with that it may, in the end, leave . And far from reassuring Brazilians that he was committed to democracy, he repeatedly praised the country鈥檚 long-gone military dictatorship, even of the day the armed forces took over in 1964.

Not only did Bolsonaro almost beat Lula 鈥� the margin of victory was less than 2% 鈥� his Liberal Party expanded its already impressive power base in the country鈥檚 bicameral Congress. And Brazil wasn鈥檛 the only country in the region where the far right came close to victory. Right-wing parties nearly won last year鈥檚 elections in Chile and Colombia, too.

Nor is the rest of the region anything like a pink paradise. In El Salvador, right-wing populist Nayib Bukele has pulled a Putin by expanding his control over all three branches of government. Uruguay, once a leftist enclave, to the right in the 2020 elections, as did Ecuador in 2021. And left populist Pedro Castillo, elected president of Peru in that year, now sits in prison after his ouster following an attempted coup. Meanwhile, according to the latest polls, the most likely politician to replace the current right-wing government in Guatemala, , the daughter of legendary dictator Rios Montt, is even further to the right.

In addition, three supposedly leftist governments 鈥� Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela 鈥� are actually despotic regimes that have imprisoned dissenters, left and right. Other leftist governments are gesturing in that direction as well, with Bolivia鈥檚 Luis Arce recently and Mexico鈥檚 AMLO an electoral oversight body.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, President Alberto Fernandez, who heads a center-left Peronist coalition with former president Cristina Kirchner, has seen his popularity drop precipitously. His party, in fact, in midterm elections in 2021, and 67% of Argentines now have of him in the run-up to the next election in October.

The Argentine case is a reminder that what might look like either a 鈥減ink wave鈥� or a 鈥渃ounter-pink wave鈥� is just rage against incumbents. Latin Americans have 鈥渢hrown the bums out鈥� in . As elsewhere in the world, a significant portion of the electorate holds incumbents across the board responsible for the failure of economic reforms to deliver prosperity. Right-wing populists have also used the politics of hate 鈥� against , the , , the, and 鈥� to speed their ascent, with a big assist from social networks and right-wing media. As in the United States, this White, male, homophobic backlash has begun to merge with the economic resentment felt by all those globalization has .

That鈥檚 what makes the Colombian example so precious: it鈥檚 the exception, not the rule. The only other leader who comes close is Gabriel Boric in Chile. Having appointed a climatologist to be his environmental minister, Boric is committed to reducing carbon emissions and finding for those in the country鈥檚 鈥渟acrifice zones.鈥� But he鈥檚 no less committed to positioning Chile as a leading exporter of lithium, a key component in rechargeable ion batteries, whose extraction nonetheless poses serious . In Latin America, after all, commodities like lithium are king. Between 2000 and 2014, its countries a commodity boom that lifted exports and spurred growth (though not enough to bridge the economic gap with the richer North).

China, which absorbed only 1% of Latin America鈥檚 exports back in 2000, but 15% of them, has been encouraging the region to ramp up extraction. Currently, South America鈥檚 鈥� and number two for Latin America overall 鈥� China wants raw materials like oil, copper, and soybeans to feed both its industries and its people. It has also boosted imports of materials critical for renewable energy products like for batteries and for wind-turbine blades.

The 鈥渙pen veins of Latin America鈥� that Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano so long ago are increasingly being bled by China.

Green Good Neighbor?

Latin America is not simply a supplier of raw materials for the energy transitions of China and the global North. It鈥檚 in the midst of a transition of its own. In fact, it鈥檚 currently building than the European Union and so creating a basic new energy infrastructure that should boost by 70% the amount of electricity solar power will provide to the region. Add in wind power and renewable capacity is set to by 2030.

Most of this capacity is, however, concentrated in a handful of countries led by Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. To date, those three, along with Mexico and Peru, are responsible for 97% of added solar capacity. The sustainable energy transition, in other words, threatens to divide the region into a rising clean bloc and a still all-too-dirty one.

This is where the United States could come in.

In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt鈥檚 administration unveiled a new approach to Latin America: the Good Neighbor Policy. Reversing a century of US meddling, that new policy stressed nonintervention and noninterference in the region, while encouraging more trade and tourism. There was, however, nothing altruistic about it. Roosevelt wanted to open Latin America to US. exports, gain access to critical resources, and later secure its support in World War II.

Today, a different challenge requires the United States to link arms far more strongly with its neighbors to the south. European countries are pulling together to fight climate change with a . Washington needs to attempt to do the same with Latin America.

After all, China is challenging the US for economic predominance in its own backyard, while expanding trade there at an astounding pace. It sent in aid and loans to the region at the height of the Covid pandemic and as much capital as it had in the European Union.

To enlist Latin Americans in a common struggle 鈥� or even just to remain minimally relevant 鈥� Washington needs to offer something different. So far, the Biden administration鈥檚 moves have been frustratingly modest. True, it has requested $2.4 billion in aid for the region in 2023, the . Still, compare that to the $3.3 billion in annual military assistance the US sends to Israel alone or the dispatched to Ukraine last year.

It鈥檚 time for the Biden administration to introduce a Green Good Neighbor Policy aimed at making Colombia the rule, not the exception. Latin America as a whole needs to transition from fossil fuels and the United States could speed that process by supporting a regional Green infrastructure fund. Call it the Green Road Initiative (in contrast to China鈥檚 Belt and Road Initiative).

So far, the administration has made some promises. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last year that the United States would help the region achieve 鈥済rowth with equity.鈥� According to a recent report, a sustainable energy transition in Latin America could more jobs by 2030, turning Blinken鈥檚 words into reality. The administration that future trade agreements won鈥檛 have provisions 鈥� found in most current ones 鈥� that allow corporations to sue governments over regulations that affect their bottom lines. An important region-wide bank, meanwhile, is more Green infrastructure projects.

But all of these are, at best, half-steps. If the Biden administration truly wanted to make a difference, it would create a Green Bank to help fund that Latin American energy transition, while restructuring 鈥� or better yet, canceling 鈥� the debts that have so crippled efforts like Colombia鈥檚 to finance a serious economic transformation. This regional plan could even include illiberal outliers like Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. As with China, green cooperation doesn鈥檛 require agreement on a checklist of issues any more than arms control deals with the Soviet Union required a consensus on human rights during the Cold War.

This is not altruism. As in Roosevelt鈥檚 era, a more prosperous and environmentally sustainable Latin America would be less likely to send waves of immigrants to the United States, while creating more markets for US goods. Oh, and it would also ensure a further reduction of carbon emissions globally so that maybe, just maybe, Florida won鈥檛 disappear into the ocean.

Colombia is a small, scrappy country that faces long odds like the little engine that thinks it can, thinks it can, thinks it can鈥�

But to ensure that it indeed can, that such a monumental transition will ever take place, help is needed and soon. That鈥檚 especially true given the second law of holes: even when you stop digging, you鈥檙e still at the bottom.

A strong push from a green good neighbor could help Columbia 鈥� and the rest of us 鈥� begin to climb out and scale new heights.
[ first published this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.