Is the US Following into the Footsteps of Latin America ?

 One of the unintended consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the exacerbation of the cancel/woke wars taking place in some Anglo-Saxon societies and especially in the United States.

The trend had been obvious for decades. In 2004, for example, Samuel Huntington cautioned his peers - in one of his most widely-read essays - that American elites have turned their backs on their own country and sowed the seeds of mistrust in the American government and institutions.

Since then things have gone from bad to worse. The enemies of America, radicalised activists belonging to the African-American, Chinese or other ethnic minorities have ignited the culture wars that are entering their final phase under our own eyes.

American politicians have responded inadequately to this extremely worrisome development, especially those on the left of the political spectrum. To be sure, the solution to the current predicament experienced by American society does not lie in appointing representatives of African-American or any other member of ethnic minorities  to the highest offices in the land. As the current crisis is truly an existential one, adopting the ostrich approach or trying to appease those bent on destroying the cultural heritage of the West is not only wrong but self-defeating, as well.

Nor are these developments restricted to the American nation. In true Marxist fashion, the representatives of the cancel/woke movement have made huge strides in exporting their anti-white, anti-European policies to all corners of the West, from other English-speaking countries to France and Germany as well.

The ultimate goal of these radical activists is not only the wholesale cancellation of the US' European cultural heritage, but also of the European stock itself, of natives or immigrants individually. In other words, the objective seems to be to replace the white leadership and bureaucrats, Latin-American style, starting with the United States as the model. European descendents of the original settlers and European recent immigrants to America are thus faced with practical consequences of this cancel culture. It has become difficult if not impossible for them to work successfully in academia, state agencies and even in the private sector. In my 40-year experience as an immigrant to Australia, what has shocked me is the utter inability of many Asian immigrants to learn and subsequently to uphold - in a work environment -  Australian traditional values, as well as their propensity to replace these with their own values, which they deem "superior".

The neo-marxist nature of the woke/cancel culture movements, in the US and elsewhere, is unmistakable. Their revolutionary aim is also abundantly clear: Western societies - which are accused of being racist and supremacist- need to be replaced with societies led by hitherto marginal minorities. According to this revolutionary scenario, political leaders have to be selected, like in Latin America after the Bolivarian revolution, from the ranks of mixed race groups. The historical experience of such an endeavour is, unfortunately, nothing short of disastruous. Thus, it is a known fact that the Bolivarian war of independence that took place in Latin America in the 19th century has never brought economic prosperity, peace and stability to the South American continent, quite on the contrary.

We are used to thinking that the world is undergoing a geopolitical shift from the Western alliance to the Eurasian continent, without realising that the bigger danger facing the West is actually the wholesale replacement of its elites and politicians by a consortium of African-American and Asian immigrants. Their racial designs are not hidden anymore, and they are causing enormous damage to the social fabric of the Western societies in which these ethnic minorities have representatives in sufficient numbers. 

The continuation of such policy errors can only bring about the demise of the West from its current leadership position. Furthermore, if the racial designs of African or Asian minorities against white European natives or immigrants are not stopped and reversed soon, America is in danger of losing not only its leadership of world affairs, but control of its own society as well. In this existential fight, no American - or Western politician, for that matter - can afford to be complacent, because for the vanquished there isn't going to be a safe place to hide this time.

Brexit and a Two-Union Europe

Because of the shock of Brexit, one may be forgiven for overlooking the fact that this week could rightfully be called “the week of trade bloc summits”.

In Europe, the 27 remaining leaders of the EU have gathered for two days in Brussels to adopt a common position concerning the upcoming withdrawal of Great Britain from the union.

On the North American continent, President Obama has met with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts in a last-ditch attempt to safeguard NAFTA against the relentless attacks it is facing from the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Last but not least, the leaders of the Pacific Alliance – the newest Latin American trade bloc made up of Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico – have held a two-day summit of their own to further cooperation in the areas of trade and investment.

The most important summit is by far the one which took place in Brussels, where political leaders were trying hard to reach a common position concerning the terms under which would take place the departure of Britain from the bloc. The initial anger generated by Brexit is slowly giving way to the realisation that the very existence of the world’s oldest trade bloc is now under threat.

With the future of the Union in doubt, federalization plans sold to the European public under the guise of an “ever-closer union” were stopped in their tracks by British voters. The project of a “United States of Europe” – as initially conceived by the CIA in the ‘fifties and advanced by stealth by like-minded European politicians over the span of decades – will in all likelihood have to be abandoned for good.

In order for readers to grasp the folly of such a project, let’s assume that the leaders of NAFTA decided to launch a trade bloc conceived only as a stepping stone to full monetary, fiscal and ultimately political union between the US, Mexico and Canada. To push our comparison further, let’s also imagine that the initial nucleus of NAFTA countries started expanding to Central and South America with the aim of eventually becoming a pan-American economic and political bloc dominating the entire Western hemisphere.

The Germans are currently trying to convince British conservative politicians that once outside the EU, the UK should adopt the Norwegian model. In other words, a country like Britain with a population of some 65 million and a 3-trillion dollar GDP is supposed to be treated like the small members of the European Economic Area (EEA), the latter of which comprises, beside Norway, geopolitically insignificant states like Liechtenstein, Andorra or San Marino.

So far, British Brexiters have called for informal negotiations with Brussels before invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. What in fact they should be doing is having informal talks with the leaders of like-minded EU states that are most likely to follow Britain’s lead. Once these negotiations are concluded, the formation of a brand new, competing trade bloc should be announced to the European public.

The obvious candidates for such a trade bloc would first and foremost be the Nordic kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark, with a combined population of 15 million and an aggregate GDP of some 850 billion USD. The second group that could be persuaded to join would be the Visegrad-4, made up of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. The combined population of the latter is about 65 million, with an aggregate GDP of 1.9 trillion USD.

Together with Britain, the new trade bloc would thus have a total population of 145 million and an aggregate GDP of close to 6 trillion USD. It would be sure to have a much better bargaining position than the UK all by itself in negotiating trade agreements with what is going to be left of the European Union. This is in fact exactly what is happening on the Latin American continent, where the 5 year-old Pacific Alliance co-exists side by side with Mercosur, the older trade bloc which comprises the bulk of the countries in the region.

Our continent could certainly accommodate a two-union Europe and two competing trade blocs that could only improve the overall economic performance of both. With political integration now behind them, the remaining members of the EU could themselves start to concentrate their efforts more on improving trade and investment and less on geographic expansion.