Bush trip highlights decline of US hemispheric leadership

The silly presentation of George W. Bush’s week-long visit to Latin America at the same time that Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez was visiting or hosting other regional leaders as some sort of political duel had the one saving grace of putting US influence in the region into some rough approximation of perspective. Relatively weak and little countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua are thumbing their noses at American pretences that they are part of the US “back yard,” and the bigger countries of the region may be a bit more polite to the president of the United States but they are certainly not taking any orders. The only places where Bush was warmly embraced by his hosts were Colombia and Guatemala, both of which have governments dominated by far-right politicians with historic links to death squads.

The Iraq War has both distracted US attention and diverted its economic, diplomatic and military resources from this hemisphere and proven most unpopular throughout the Americas. Even in Panama, the one place in the region where Bush gets mostly positive public opinion ratings, people overwhelmingly oppose the Iraq War.

Bush’s economic message of privatizations and cutbacks in public services, one-sided opening of markets to US-based corporations and international economic integration models bereft of democratic features has not been well received. Why should it be? Those policies have been tried and they have failed, causing misery and political instability throughout the region. Even in Panama, where we depend on international trade more than any other Latin American country does, the proposed free trade agreement with the United States splits public opinion right down the middle.

The rise of Latin American leaders elected because of their specific objections to the economic model that Bush was trying to sell is not a reason for politicians in Washington or people in the United States to fear their neighbors to the south. Any felt urgent need to counter a Cuban or Venezuelan plot to take over the Americas is a misperception. The notion that a Democrat winning the White House next year and picking up the threads of Bill Clinton’s policies would solve the problems of US-Latin American relations is also a fantasy.

Both within the United States and around the Americas, Washington policy makers need to expand the circle of those with whom they talk and listen to what people from all social classes and political tendencies all over the region are saying. Fundamental American values like freedom and democracy should never be abandoned, but should also never be hypocritically manipulated as has been the practice in so many State Department reports for so many years. A new and more respectful hemispheric dialogue should be aimed at forming a new consensus, with tolerance for countries that take different economic approaches but a bottom line insistence on common human decency.

Only to the extent that Bush’s Latin America trip was the start of such a process might it be said to have been a success.

HSBC makes a dumb move

One Peter Gordon, a man apparently possessed of a considerable fortune who has made a reputation for himself as something of a troll in Panama’s English-language email groups, was not a happy customer when he banked his money with HSBC. He let people know about it in a series of email messages.

HSBC told the man to take his money elsewhere, and if they were wise that would have been the end of it. But no, the multinational bank decided to sue Gordon for $5 million, allegedly for defamation, and has made some most unusual pre-judgment legal maneuvers to seize his assets.

So far Gordon hasn’t answered questions by The Panama News about the situation, and we will reserve judgment about the legal and factual merits of the underlying case. But he’s right to say that HSBC’s service is awful --- all banking services in Panama are terrible and that consumer-unfriendly reality is frozen into place by a series of anti-competitive practices, some of them enshrined into law.

Do you have to deposit a check drawn on a US bank? At Panama’s banks, they collect interest for 21 business days before releasing the funds. Forget about depositing a Canadian check, or a money order even if it’s purportedly an “international” one. Don’t expect interest paid on your savings to reflect the international market either.

In a world where electronic money transfers take place at the speed of light and in a capital where we have dozens of banks, one might expect better services. But such are not to be had, which is one reason why the great majority of Panamanians do not have bank accounts. Of course some of the foreigners coming here and finding this situation will be moved to complain.

But now HSBC has let everybody know that they will sic their lawyers on those who complain, and their legal action against Gordon is going to drive away more potential customers that Gordon’s online rants ever did. And really, aren’t dumb moves like this the predictable result when an industry acquires the lazy habits that anti-competitive arrangements instill?

Bear in mind…

Beware the pull on your heartstrings --- it's often the purse strings that are actually being reached for.

Barbara Mikkelson

Stupidity has a certain charm --- ignorance does not.

Frank Zappa

Whoever said love is blind is dead wrong. Love is the only thing that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy.

Martha Beck