Latin American leaders seek to articulate a common foreign policy that strengthens their autonomy in the face of a more fragmented global environment and growing pressure from the United States.
Faced with a volatile and young electorate clamoring for change, the region faces the challenge of determining whether this rightward shift will bring lasting improvements or will simply be another political swing.
The initiative driven from Washington is aimed more at exporting political alignments and excluding key actors than at building effective regional cooperation.
When ideology replaces pragmatism in economic and foreign policy, confrontation takes center stage, and the costs — economic, institutional, and social — are not long in coming.
