Russia and Latin America I want to undermine the Western-centric world order
Practically all the leaders of the CELAC member countries spoke about building a multipolar world. Reuters photo
During a press conference on January 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that Russia’s relations with Latin American countries are on the rise. Of course, it is narrower than in other countries. But Moscow’s foreign policy line is aimed at ensuring that all Latin American states are discussed by friends and business meetings. And such a course is bearing fruit: in the overwhelming majority of cases, the republic does not face a Western sanctions war against Russia, but on the contrary, it is looking for opportunities to expand trade and economic cooperation with our country. It is natural that this position is met with understanding and movement towards it from Russia.
Variety of interchangeable interests
Latin America is part of the global South, the so-called “world majority”, interests in world markets are close to the geopolitical and geo-economic aspirations of the Russian Federation. This concerns such fundamental issues as the protection of sovereign rights and the equality of all states, non-interference in taste relations, the development of mutually beneficial trade relations, access to advanced technologies, and maintaining the stability of the European energy, food and food markets.
Russia’s cooperation with the audit group of major interests is based on the desire to increase foreign trade turnover, which almost doubled in 2010–2021, from $12 billion to $21 billion. The complementarity of economies plays a positive role: what our country exports in many cases, imports Latin American states and vice versa. Typical examples are the supply of domestic agricultural fertilizers to the regions and the purchase of food products there, which, due to climatic conditions, are not produced in Russia. The negative factor is external competitors (USA, Western Europe, Japan) and new (China, South Korea) the most popular players who are trying to “keep out” our entrepreneurs from Latin American markets. Far from always, an industry enterprise has something that is opposed to more aggressive competitors.
But at a critical technological era, additional business opportunities are emerging. Now the Latin American market is being developed not only by our corporations (as it has always been), but also by domestic startups offering high-quality modern, financial services. For example, the Russian and international QIWI wallet service has firmly established itself in Brazil, providing its citizens with the opportunity to conveniently pay for about a hundred services. Thus, our business relations, which require inevitable trials, qualitatively changing, are entering the digital period of their development.
It is important to note that Russian-Latin American cooperation is developing in three dimensions: on a bilateral basis, in multilateral international formats (the UN system, APEC, G20, BRICS) and along the line of conflicts between the Russian Federation and the unification in Europe: MERCOSUR, the Central American Parliament, the Central American Integration System. ALBA, Andean Community. A prominent place in the communication system has been occupied by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (CELAC), with animals in Russia since 2013.
The slight pause developing in this dialogue in connection with the influenza pandemic is now being vigorously increased, since both parties are interested in developing relations.
Deliver a “dead cow” to Brazil
On January 24, Argentina hosted the VII CELAC summit, which was attended by high-ranking representatives of all 33 independent countries of this vast region of the world. Of fundamental importance was the decision of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva to return Brazil to CELAC. We remind you that in January 2020 it left this association, weakening the impulses for natural cooperation. Now the status quo has been restored and positively said at work by SELAC.
The decisive moment was a certain change in the nature of relations between the countries – Argentina and Brazil, which, after years of mutual suspicion and sluggish bickering on trade and economic issues, have shown a willingness to move bilateral cooperation forward and give impetus to a number of years of stalled involvement in the process.
On the eve of the presidential summit, his amphitryon – Argentina Alberto Fernandez held bilateral meetings with his Brazilian counterpart, as a result of which an unprecedented package of documents was signed. The agreements reached set the vector interaction in the integration processes within the framework of MERCOSUR – energy, infrastructure, common currency.
Discussed foreign trade issues, Lula da Silva and Fernandez, draw attention to the fact that in 2011-2022 the turnover of trade between the EU countries is 33% (from 40 to 27 billion dollars), . To correct this situation and stimulate the exchange of goods, the presidents agreed to use two new instruments. First, to form a sovereign guarantee fund for exporters, which assumes risks with the conversion of the national currency in foreign trade transactions. Second, work on building a common settlement currency for bilateral trade. Thus, the parties solve the problem of periodic shortages of dollars and insure themselves against the possibility of exchange rate fluctuations. “If it were up to me,” said Lula da Silva, “we would always have a high trade in the currencies of our countries so that we would not have to expect from the dollar.”
In turn, Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Addad noted that MERCOSUR remains important for its participants, but unites the acquisition of a “more radical and complex nature.” Particularly noted is the trade and financial connection of Latin American countries with the economic region and the strengthening of its position in world agriculture, which is taken into account with Argentina and Brazil.
The parties attach great importance to breakthrough directions in a high degree of reliability of the sphere. Here, the project of supplying the Brazilian areas of coverage with gas from the distant Argentinean shale hydrocarbon field “Cow Cooling” comes to the fore, for which it is planned to stretch the Nestor Kirchner gas pipeline under construction in Argentina to the Brazilian border. As the Argentine Minister of Economy Sergio Massa jokingly remarked, this is probably “delivering a dead cow to Brazil.”
Another priority for Europe is cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, where solid scientific, technical and industrial experience is being accumulated. An urgent task is to speed up joint work on a new low-power multi-purpose nuclear reactor, which, according to experts, has a potential demand for the world market. In addition to this, for Argentina, two constructions of new nuclear power plants (in connection with three already existing ones) are of great importance, which doubles (from 7 to 15%) the share of nuclear power plants in the energy balance.
Highly appreciated by the agreements reached and signed, Fernandez said that Argentina and Brazil were “born to be together”, and in the press there was a new character of the combination of countries, called the term “friendhoring”, which in business jargon is associated with conflicts between countries. Strategic cooperation between the two largest economic countries of South America, maintaining (within the framework of the called “pink tide” – the next left political wave) close ties with a part of the Latin American large state – Mexico, it is possible through the use of intra-regional trade and economic relations to become a trigger for the next stage, opening promising geo-economic horizons for the countries of Latin America. It is no coincidence that in his greetings, Xi Jinping, Chairman of the Forum of the People’s Republic of China, noted that “CELAC has become a driving force for South-South cooperation.” This was the main outcome of the 7th summit, which was reflected in the final document – the “Declaration of Buenos Aires”.
What’s ahead?
the expected transformation of the possible orientations of Russia’s foreign policy and foreign economic relations may lead to a sharp turn towards rapprochement with the external environment, including Latin America. Without a system of strong relations with Latin American countries, the contour of the international review of the Russian Federation remains limited, and geopolitical subjectivity is inverted incomplete. In particular, an additional difficulty arose in overcoming the negative consequences of the sanctions and reputational blockade of the domestic economy organized by the West.
In our opinion, Russian-Latin American relations are successfully being tested for reliability, the possibility that they are not a momentary and self-serving geopolitical construction, but reflect the objective process of the formation in various parts of the globe of new nodes of multipolarity, shaking the old West-centric world order. The political and geographical outline of Russian-Latin American cooperation is also very significant. Namely, one cannot disregard the fact that partnership relations between the Russian Federation and Latin America are built on the nearest frontiers. And this has not only a purely demonstrative effect.
In the current macroeconomic dynamically changing conditions, trends are emerging that indicate an increase in the study of the French non-Western and serving orientation for Russia in terms of developing a promising strategy for developing trade and economic ties with the global community of the South in general and Latin America in particular.