Mauricio Cárdenas at Casa América in Madrid in September 2019. Inma Flores
From his home in Bogotá, Mauricio Cárdenas (Bogotá, 1962) responds to the call of EL PAÍS to talk about the moment of opportunity and discontent that Latin America is going through.
The economist and researcher at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, in New York, wrote a widely shared column earlier this year among chats and groups of those who observe the global political economy.
His thesis is simple: Latin America has a lot to offer the world at a time of great political autonomy.
The complications begin with the pressures on governance.
Nationalist discourses that prohibit mining or private investment in energy "give leaders short-term governance but are not solving people's problems," says Cárdenas, who was Colombia's finance minister from 2012 to 2018. , with Juan Manuel Santos.
Offering income, employment and education is more difficult, but it is, in the end, the only long-term strategy.
Ask.
You maintain that Latin America is currently alone in a distracted world.
Does this mean that the region will be irrelevant or that it is a better option for foreign capital seeking relative stability?
Answer.
The world is focused on other problems and is not looking at Latin America, so the region is, in a sense, alone.
It is freer, it has more autonomy than 30 or 40 years ago when we had problems in Central America.
Or even more, when Chile's problems with Allende.
Before, a change in political orientation or ideology generated reactions, especially from the United States.
The thought was 'this can't happen, it's our patio, our back garden' and in the end they ended up overthrowing governments.
This, fortunately, no longer happens and Latin America is making its transitions, its changes, while the US is concerned with Russia, with China.
That is a first point.
A second point answers your question: is this a reflection that Latin America is irrelevant?
No,
because coincidentally the world has moved in a direction where every day it needs more than what Latin America can offer.
It has biodiversity, so it could offer the solution to climate change.
It has the food, it has the strategic minerals that are required to migrate to clean energy and get out of fossil fuels.
It has oil, which has a role in the energy transition and from which Brazil and Guyana can particularly benefit.
These are two facts, two realities.
The world is preoccupied with other things, but that is happening just at a time when Latin America is most relevant.
Q.
Considering the strong social discontent in recent years, do governments have the room to maneuver to meet the economic demands of their citizens and at the same time take advantage of this very particular moment?
R.
It is a good point and it makes me think that this is more of a triad, which combines these three, not two, realities: first, what it has to offer is becoming more relevant every day;
second, that it is more autonomous every day;
and third, that the governments' margin of error is becoming more limited every day because societies are very impatient.
Doing things wrong can be very costly and the rulers have more pressure, which is why they sometimes end up making bad decisions.
Latin American leaders may have more independence from the powers, they may be more relevant players in the world today, but their dissatisfied populations may not let them do the right thing because they exert enormous pressure.
They choose them with high expectations and if it doesn't work, they knock them down.
The example of Peru is perfect.
Q.
What are the best public policies in these conditions?
R.
That triad that we are imagining scratches the field.
It is a court where you have more autonomy and you have resources to contribute to the world.
An impatient population that wants quick fixes conforms to your constraints.
A leader in Latin America is wondering what is the best possible game?
I would say that in order to take advantage of and capitalize on this greater relevance of Latin America, a long-term vision is needed.
These are not things that are going to happen overnight.
It has to protect its biodiversity.
You have to become a great food producer, that requires producing fertilizer.
At the same time, it can produce these required minerals for the world, such as lithium.
The leader has to manage his country with a long-term vision, but he has a short-term expression on the street that he has to attend to.
Latin American leaders have to be very skilled at solving problems for the people, today aggravated by the pandemic, but maintain this long-term vision.
What happens is that many times to solve them, to attend to short-term pressures, they wave flags that give people the feeling that progress is being made, such as energy nationalism, prohibiting extractive industries, or blocking investment. in strategic sectors, stop mining.
This gives them governance in the short term, but it is not solving people's problems.
Neither will the relevance of Latin America increase in the long term.
Governing effectively requires solving people's problems more directly, not with nationalist discourses, nor with anti-market discourses or that the history of our countries has been a failure.
It is necessary to solve the problems of the people by giving them income, giving them employment, giving them education, but they are not doing it because that is difficult.
If so, Latin America would be losing its opportunity.
Q.
I fear seeing the results of today's policies in as soon as three years, considering the speed of the world.
A.
Today, we are not in the patient's seat.
That is to say, we are not in the crisis of the Mexican peso in 1995, nor that of Brazil in 1999. Latin America today can put itself in the position of the one who provides the solutions, the one who helps, the one who has the formulas.
But, if we don't act, in three years we can end up in the patient's seat again.
Q.
You have called the new wave of left-wing presidents in the region a "de facto coalition."
Should we expect them to coordinate for greater economic integration?
R.
Without a doubt, there could be more coordination now, because there is a group that has more affinities, who think alike.
If you look at how they interact with each other, for example, when they support each other on social networks, it is evident that this did not exist until recently. There is a new wave of leaders who want to work more as a team and that can generate a greater capacity for for the region to be coordinated and play a more relevant role on the international stage.
Everyone thinks that Lula can exercise that leadership that is needed, but we will have to see if the political situation in Brazil will allow it, because he is going to have to govern a very complex country, much more difficult than the one that he had to rule 20 years ago.
Q.
My last question is about China, since while it is facing a trade war with the US, the Asian country has been expanding its commercial operations in Mexico and other Latin American countries, to form part of
US
friendshoring .
What are the implications?
R.
This is a very complex and very important chapter, because Latin America is going to be a focal point of the tensions between China and the US. Until now, Latin America has resolved that tension with pragmatism, since at no time has it prevented the arrival of Chinese companies.
So Latin America is saying 'look, I need to develop and welcome Chinese capital'.
The room for maneuver for Latin America is limited because the weight of foreign trade is enormous.
And yes, the US has its concerns but at the moment of truth it does not have effective mechanisms to replace China in Latin America.
The United States is a market economy, no one can force companies to come to Latin America.
The US State does not have a financial arm that allows it to do what the Chinese banks do,
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