Latin America Finds Its Footing

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



Latin America Finds Its Footing
December 16, 2013

Exclusive: While the U.S. and Spain have wallowed in the Great Recession swamp, Latin America has begun breaking free of the old order that bogged down progress. Now, the region is restructuring relations with its old international masters, as Andrés Cala explains.

By Andrés Cala


For centuries, Spain and the United States have dominated South and Central America, first through Spain’s colonization and later via these two countries’ economic clout, and – in the U.S. case – through political and military interventions. But the paradigm is shifting as these once-weak Latin American nations build their economies and assert their political independence.

A clear illustration of this shift – at least in Spain’s relations with its former colonies – came last month when Mexico brokered a deal between Spain and Argentina to resolve the stalemate over Argentina’s nationalization of YPF, the Buenos Aires-based energy company that was originally formed in 1922 as an Argentine state enterprise but was privatized in 1993 and sold to Madrid-based Repsol in 1999.

In the Repsol-YPF deal, Spain accepted terms along the lines of what Argentina had proposed, about $5 billion for its expropriated 51 percent interest in YPF, to be paid through 10-year Argentine government bonds. That was about half of what Repsol had been demanding. But the settlement is expected to benefit Spain’s broader economic interests throughout Latin America and inside Spain.

The deal, especially how it was negotiated, demonstrates the rebalancing of power between economically weakened Spain and increasingly assertive Latin American countries willing to use their economic and diplomatic muscle to defend their interests by forming multinational alliances if necessary. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/16/latin-america-finds-its-footing/