A few days ago, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, delivered a speech marking the anniversary of the birth of Simon Bolivar. In it he argued that the time has come for “a new coexistence among all the countries of the Americas” as “the model imposed more than two centuries ago is exhausted”. “It has no future or way out, it no longer benefits anyone”, he said.
Speaking in Mexico City, he called for an alternative, new economic and political vision of Latin America and the Caribbean, able to withstand the competing pressures of both the US and China, economically and commercially unified, globally powerful, and able to compete with any country or region in the world.
He spoke forcefully about the dominant role of the US, China’s growing economic weight in the hemisphere, Washington’s desire to exercise control through the OAS, and in a carefully chosen choice of words, the importance to the hemisphere of Cuba’s defence of its sovereignty.