By Tom Long
In many depictions, South America’s relations with the United States have been structured around Hugo Chávez for much of the last decade. So it is natural for the region to wonder where U.S. policy will head now that he is gone. In the Bush Administration’s framework – which the Obama Administration has largely continued – Chávez and his closest allies in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina were an emerging anti-American axis. Colombia and Chile were considered Washington’s last bastions of support, and Brazil under Presidents Lula and Dilma variously positioned itself as a quiet moderator or, on occasion, private fan of the estrangement between the unruly ALBA countries and the United States. With Chávez’s passing, the narrative will change.
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(read full article on the AULA Blog)
Tom Long, PhD 