You can bet Latin America isn't a pleasant subject in the White House these days

i've been following the leftward movement in latin america for the last couple of years... it's quite interesting to say the least... while he was only referring to brazil, i share the opinion of the former world bank president, james wolfensohn, that what's going on may be

the "most important experiment in Latin America today."

countries that have already taken the left fork in the road...



Argentina - - - - Brazil - - - - Bolivia



Chile - - - - Uruguay - - - - Venezuela

countries either thinking about it or on the verge...



Colombia - - - - Ecuador - - - - Mexico



Nicaragua - - - - Peru

the nation magazine has a thorough overview and a decent analysis...

Today, roughly 300 million of Latin America's 520 million citizens live under governments that either want to reform the Washington Consensus--a euphemism for the mix of punishing fiscal austerity, privatization and market liberalization that has produced staggering levels of poverty and inequality over the past three decades--or abolish it altogether and create a new, more equitable global economy.

This year, that number is likely to grow. Latin America is in the middle of an election cycle that has already seen Evo Morales win in Bolivia and Michelle Bachelet, a single mother and socialist, win a third term for Chile's center-left Concertación Coalition. On April 9 in Peru, Ollanta Humala, a nationalist former military officer backed by Chávez and Morales, came from behind to force a runoff. In the months ahead, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela will hold presidential elections. And with center-leftist Manuel López Obrador ahead in Mexico, the Sandinistas poised to make a comeback in Nicaragua and Chávez's re-election all but certain, the Bush Administration is nervous. It has responded by trying to drive a wedge between what Rice describes as the "false populism" that is spreading throughout the Andes and the pragmatic reformism of Chile, Uruguay and Brazil--in other words, between the "statesmen" and the "madmen," as Chávez recently put it.

i've always said that if the latin american countries could just get their ducks in a row and stop their incessant feuding, they would be unstoppable... while they're far from best friends (case in point is argentina's ongoing fight with uruguay over the construction of paper pulp mills on the uruguay river), they are making some progress, both individually and with each other...

Buoyed by Argentina's and Uruguay's turn left, and anchored by Brazil's enormous market and advanced agricultural, pharmaceutical, heavy equipment, steel and aeronautical sectors, the countries of South America have taken a number of steps to diversify the hemisphere's economy. They courted non-US trade and investment, particularly from Asia. Fueled by a consuming thirst for Latin America's raw materials--its oil, ore and soybeans--the Chinese government has negotiated more than 400 investment and trade deals with Latin America over the past few years, investing more than $50 billion in the region. China is both Brazil's and Argentina's fourth-largest trading partner, providing $7 billion for port and railroad modernization and signing $20 billion worth of commercial agreements. South American leaders have also sought to deepen regional economic integration, primarily by expanding the Mercosur--South America's most important commercial alliance--and embarking on an ambitious road-building project. These efforts appear to be working. In December Lula claimed that Brazil's trade with the rest of Latin America grew by nearly 90 percent since the previous year, compared with a 20 percent increase with the United States.

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