I am sharing my just published article, making the case for US policymakers to use "democratic governance" as an orienting strategic concept for engagement with Latin America.

The article first appeared on the website of Newsmax.

China says the United States has waged a trade war, while America’s intelligence agency is now terming it as a China-led cold war. Nevertheless, the trade brouhaha continues. Trumponomics ceases to be rhetoric anymore, and Xinomics is candidly reciprocal. In fact, neither countries were striving for autarky, nor is the situation as grim as it was in the 1930s. Yet the present scenario is destined to reach alarming proportions, as its spillover effect has begun to deter the global value chains (GVCs) that perennially define the geo-economic architecture of international business today.

Mexico matters. In addition to being our southern neighbor, Mexico is our third largest trading partner, after China and Canada. It is ranked as the 15th largest economy in the world. On Sunday the country experienced a seismic change in leadership. Fueled by anger at violence and corruption, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the 64-year old populist center left candidate best known as AMLO, was elected by a clear majority in all but one state and a simple majority in both houses. He had promised to Make Mexico Great Again.

Funny thing about money. It is supposed to be a bedrock of stability but it feeds on illusions. So much monetary policy relies on trickery.  The elite know things that the unwashed masses do not. Such as money illusion. The success of devaluation rests on tricking the masses. But tell a central banker he or she is in the business of peddling illusions and risk a smack in the eye.

There was a basic flaw in the Vollgeld “sovereign money” proposal rejected by the Swiss in a referendum last Sunday. An arrangement that gives the state or its agencies exclusive power to create money,  oversee bank accounts and direct lending to the economy  is hostile to capitalism. It cannot produce the assurance needed to allow the process of rational monetary calculation that is the essence of capitalism. This was pointed out by the sociologist Max Weber in 1922. Geoffrey Ingham of Christ’s College Cambridge sums up Weber’s conclusion as follows:

I would like to share with you my just published article on the  unfolding crisis in Nicaragua and its significance for the US and the region, with recommendations for U.S. policymakers. 

This article was originally published by Global Americans.

Having been expelled from Nicaragua in June 2016 by the Sandinista government, the struggle of the Nicaraguan people for dignity, democracy and a decent livelihood against a corrupt authoritarian regime is a theme particularly close to my heart.