The Mex Files

I expect we’ll be hearing some more about the Bush famil y’s 98,000 acre spread in Paraguay in the coming months. Neil Bush (last month) and First Drunk Daughter Jenna (in October 2006) both made mysterious trips to the otherwise forgotten country in recent months.

Down With Tyranny has been one of the few widely read news blogs to follow the story, and actually went to Paraguay to investigate:

…I was hoping to track down the humongous Bush estate in the most remote part of Latin America’s least known country. I never did manage to get anywhere near the Bush estate– it was meant to be remote for a reason and the only way to get there is by private plane and then you need permission to land on their airstrip– but I did take note of a certain backwardness that might make it very alluring not just to Bush but to many of the potential war crimes defendants from his regime. They were actually selling Nazi memorabilia on the streets of Asuncion.

Well, Paraguay is in the news this morning– and not in a way likely to please the Bushes. The fascistic-oriented ruling party was deposed yesterday. Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic Bishop– the “bishop of the poor”– and the leader of a left-of-center coalition of unions, Indians and poor farmers, beat Blanca Ovelar, who headed the very corrupt far right Colorado Party, widely considered to be in Bush’s pocket.

President-Elect Lugo, and his party, are promising to redistribute land in the last country in Latin America (like the United States, most agricultural land is held by corporate interests. Unlike the U.S., most Paraguayans are farmers). The Bush family lands are said to be investments in soya (Paraguay’s largest legal export) though there are rumors the Bush’s were interested in capturing water drilling rights in expectation that neo-liberal policies in the Southern Cone would lead to privatizing water distribution within those countries. However, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay have all elected social democratic leaders who have rejected neo-liberalism, leaving Paraguay as the last hope for making a fortune from these privatized natural resources.

Then again, maybe some of the more sinister suggestions about the Bush compound are true, and water isn’t their main concern. Paraguay was, of course, best known as the refuge of Nazi war criminals and other nasty types. There are those who believe the Bushs are planning for their eventual exile somewhere beyond the jurisdiction of the United States and international courts. If even slightly true, the Bushs may have to start asking “Is it safe?” before they pack their bags.

Fernando Lugo’s election in Paraguay is also more proof, if any is needed, of my own hare-brained theory that the Bush family are working for Castro... think of it. Since Chinese Commie lovin’ George W. Bush was “elected” — with the help of Cubans in Florida (where his brother was conveniently Governor), Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, ,Panama ,Nicaragua, Suriname, Venezuela and Uruguay, have all moved to the left. the fractured Mexican left united — and Bush’s handler, Fidel Castro, having achieved his goal of a leftist Latin America, could finally retire.

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) — Mexico’s economic growth accelerated in the third quarter, spurred by construction projects and U.S. demand for manufactured exports such as automobiles.Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of a country’s output of goods and services, grew 3.7 percent from a year earlier, the fastest pace this year, after expanding 2.8 percent in the second quarter, the government said. Mexico’s growth has quickened for two straight quarters, reversing a slowdown that began last year.“Mexico’s economy is strong,” Omar Borla, a senior Latin America economist with Dresdner Kleinwort in New York, said in an interview. “The third quarter shows a good recovery led by manufacturing and construction.”

Normally, “when the U.S. catches a cold, Mexico gets pneumonia,” but the Mexican economy has been developing an immunity to U.S. downturns over the last few years — becoming less dependent on U.S. trade.

Mexico’s economy is better positioned to withstand a slowing U.S. economy in part because of rising sales to Europe and Latin America, said Gray Newman, senior Latin America economist at Morgan Stanley.

Mexico’s sales to the U.S. as a percentage of total exports peaked at about 90 percent in 2001 and since have fallen to about 80 percent, according to the statistics ministry.

According to a Morgan Stanley report published Oct. 22, the U.S. accounted for 41 percent of Mexico’s total export growth in the first eight months of the year. Europe and Latin America accounted for 43 percent. In 2000, before the U.S. and Mexico went into recession, the U.S. accounted for more than 90 percent of Mexico’s export growth, according to the report.

“There has been a decoupling of sorts if you look at the rate of growth of Mexican exports to non-us destinations, Newman said. “It’s pretty striking.”

Growth in U.S. consumer spending and more domestic infrastructure spending also accounts for the relatively good Mexican economy. Mexican economic growth is still lagging behind other Latin America nations — specifically those that have turned their backs on “neo-liberalism” — Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay — all considered “leftist-populist” governments, with policies similar to the PRD’s.

Neither Calderón, nor Finance Secretary  Augustín Carstens are stupid.  They recognize, like every other Latin American leader, that the present “Free Trade Agreements” aren’t “free trade” and don’t lead to growth.  With a falling U.S. dollar and less sales (outside of Mexican made “American” automobiles) to the U.S., there isn’t much for the Bush administration to sell except rhetoric:

Politicians find it exceedingly difficult to explain free trade’s virtues without drowning the listener in a torrent of common coinage. For a recent example of this, take President Bush’s speech in Miami, designed to shore up flagging congressional support for pending free-trade agreements (FTAs) with Colombia and Panama. Echoing those all-too-familiar Bush bromides, he insisted that approving these FTAs would fortify “freedom,” strengthen “democracy,” and increase “prosperity” in Latin America.

As I’ve said before, PAN sort of won the Presidency, but the left won the election (after all, 2/3rds of Mexican voters chose socialist or social-democratic parties in 2006). With a string on PRI and PRD victories of late in state elections, and more cooperation between the two “revolutionary” parties (on a symbolic issue — secularism — PRI is supporting a PRD initiative, which is something of a change), I expect there will even less reliance on U.S. based policies in the future, and even under Felipe Calderón, an economic policy more in line with the other Latin countries.

This COULD (at the outside) include changes to NAFTA, if Mexico seeks closer ties to Mercosur. Both in the U.S. and in Latin America there is less and less support for the U.S. based “free trade agreements” and development funds… and more support for the regional economic blocs. Even the die-hard neo-liberals know a dollar ain’t a dollar any more.