The Americanistas

The Argentine government believes a perfect storm of factors is causing a growing national epidemic of dengue fever with some 15,000 confirmed victims. The culprits? National Health Minister Graciela Ocaño says it’s the combined effects of global warming, deforestation and uncontrolled urbanization.

But Humberto Bravo, president of a medical school in Chaco province, which has been hit hardest by the epidemic with 8,100 documented cases, adds another factor: “Some people say, and everything appears to indicate they’re right, that the map of dengue coincides with the map of soy.”

The theory that all these factors are related to the epidemic goes something like this: Deforestation is caused by farmers trying to make way for vast soy plantations, which along with global warming is causing the “tropicalization” of the local environment in northeast Argentina, according to Bravo. The warming causes the prolongation of summer seasons, extending the life-cycles of mosquitoes, which transmit the disease, and accelerating the disease’s incubation period, causing dengue to spread much faster. Finally, the soy expansion has also led to rapid urbanization in small and intermediary cities as plantations push small-scale farmers to leave the countryside. These farmers swell the shantytowns, where sanitation is poor (open sewers, no potable water, etc.)

Unprecedented dengue epidemics have also broken out in Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay, which are also big soy producers, though dengue is traditionally more common in these countries than it is in Argentina. Still, authorities say they are facing a severe and worsening health crisis. Bolivian health authorities say they are facing the worst outbreak in 22 years, with over 56,000 cases. Brazil reported 114,000 cases in the first 10 weeks of this year alone.

Although a direct link between soy and dengue has yet to be confirmed, to my knowledge, it certainly seems plausible.

  

The logos of regional blocs in the hemisphere, clockwise from top-left: UNASUR, SICA, NAFTA (only economic), CARICOM.

Ahead of this weekend’s hemispheric Summit in Trinidad, President Barack Obama has offered to meet with Latin American and Caribbean leaders on a bloc-by-bloc basis, the AP reports.

Obama called Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who is acting president of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), to arrange a meeting with South American leaders. Bachelet and Obama are scheduled to talk by phone this morning to set the agenda for the talks.

The Obama administration made a similar invitation to the Central American Integration System (SICA), which is currently led by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a harsh U.S. critic. The U.S. President is already scheduled (tentatively) to sit down with leaders from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) tomorrow night after the Summit’s opening plenary. Bilateral U.S. issues with Mexico, it seems, are being dealt with in a pre-Summit meeting between the two presidents.

Breaking up the meetings in this way – though Obama will presumably have at least some bilateral meetings – makes sense: The three regions will have distinct agendas with the U.S. president.

The Caribbean leaders will ask for more economic assistance and for Washington to stop trying to block (on behalf of U.S.-based fruit companies)  the preferential access Caribbean nations have to European markets.

The Central Americans will request more economic assistance and urge Obama to press forward with a thorough immigration reform. They might also ask the President to further beef up military spending to help fight the spillover effects of Mexico’s narco wars. (Central America is also a key transshipment point for U.S.-bound South American cocaine that makes its way through Mexico.) Central American countries generally had very close ties to the Bush administration (with the exception of Ortega’s Nicaragua), so this meeting won’t be so much about reconciliation as it will be about setting a renewed sub-regional agenda.

In South America, the scenario is quite different. The region is home to nearly all of the governments that have swung to the left in recent years, including vocal U.S. critics such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. All three leaders have expelled U.S. officials in recent years, while Bolivia and Venezuela have practically severed diplomatic ties with Washington.

The South America meeting will be Obama’s largest challenge. Besides the economic crisis, new financing initiatives, and lingering trade disputes (e.g. Doha, Colombia’s FTA), leaders will likely bring up the Cuba issue. All South American governments have called on Washington to change its Cuba policy, and those that stand to make the loudest pitch are Bolivia, Venezuela, maybe Ecuador, and possibly Paraguay. The leaders of these four countries are currently meeting in Caracas, under the auspices of Chávez’s Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas initiative, which includes Cuba, to set a common strategy for the Trinidad Summit.

Before making the case for Cuba, however, the region’s more radical left-leaning leaders will first try to feel out Obama’s intentions on improving U.S. relations with their own countries. This will be a delicate dance: In the eyes of these leaders, all of whom felt grossly insulted by the Bush administration, it should be Barack Obama that tries to woo them, not the other way around.

If Obama manages to restore ties with both Bolivia and Venezuela, this will be a big step forward. On that front, the U.S. administration seems to count on the welcome support of Brazil, which is increasingly  positioning itself as a regional interlocutor. No foreign leaders have hit it off so well with Obama as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

If Obama can strike the right notes with South American leaders in Trinidad and if he does more “listening than lecturing,” as he himself once said, U.S.-Latin America relations could enter a promising new stage.