World Affairs Council Travels to Mar-a-Lago

Our first meeting in 2019 occurred on Tuesday, January 8th. Brian Fonseca, a professor at Florida International University addressed the packed audience at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach about the state of affairs between the United States and Latin America generally, and Mexico and the United States specifically.  We anticipated a discussion on a rather fractious state of affairs between the US and our southern neighbor, but the overall conversation about American relations in the Western Hemisphere were positive, with the notable exceptions of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela. Mr. Fonseca discussed topics ranging from the economic situation between the US and Latin America, trade, transnational security, technology, and cyber security issues.

First, according to Mr. Fonseca, the economic and trade ties between Latin America and the U.S. are extremely strong due mostly to the private sector’s involvement. Specifically, the U.S. total trade with Mexico is around double than that of China and Mexico, although he did warn that growing Chinese influence in the area may prove problematic for the U.S. in the future. He argued that Brazil and Columbia, along with Mexico, are the most important countries for American interests. Also, transnational security threats throughout Latin America were discussed in detail. The institutional weaknesses in many less-developed countries in Latin America leads to a lack of efficacy, lack of resources, to address this problem. Furthermore, Mr. Fonseca made the claim that the idea of a democratic government is losing popularity in main Latin American countries. This is partly the result of the inability of countries to raise people out of poverty, endemic corruption and a growing a general sense of despair.

The social, economic, and security issues in Central America are also driving factors that push migrants to cross the borders into the U.S. The lack of economic opportunity, the lack of educational opportunity, and the lack of healthcare are the main push factors for these migrants. This discussion was right out of AP Human Geography curriculum! Although much of the news today is that of the Mexicans crossing the U.S. border, Mr. Fonseca asserted that many of today's  migrants are coming from Central America and include Cubans and Venezuelans. Mr. Fonseca went on to say that many Latin American governments are not preparing their population for the inevitable automation that will take hold in the 21st century. Cyber security was his last main talking point and it is a pervasive issue that has the ability to do serious damage to many countries in Latin America. Finally, Mr. Fonseca ended his lecture with a short discussion about the growing threat of Russian and Chinese involvement in the Western hemisphere.