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Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul

Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africa’s moral crusade, nor as explosively booming as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world’s largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape.

This book argues that rather than failing the test, Latin America’s efforts to build fairer and more prosperous societies make it one of the world’s most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries?including Brazil, Chile and Mexico?democratic leaders are laying the foundations for faster economic growth and more inclusive politics, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty, inequality, and social injustice. They face a new challenge from Hugo Chavez’s oil-fuelled populism, and much is at stake. Failure will increase the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe, jeopardize stability in a region rich in oil and other strategic commodities, and threaten some of the world's most majestic natural environments.

Drawing on Michael Reid’s many years of reporting from inside Latin America’s cities, presidential palaces, and shantytowns, the book provides a vivid, immediate, and informed account of a dynamic continent and its struggle to compete in a globalized world.

Washington, DC – March 30, 2011.


This afternoon, Secretary Clinton celebrated the negotiation of agreements between the United States and 100 Open Skies partners at the Benjamin Franklin Room in the State Department, with negotiators, government officials, members of the airline and airport industries, the labor community, and other stakeholders in the 100-strong partnership who came to mark such special occasion. Ms. Clinton greeted Secretary Ray LaHood, who is one of the leaders in many of the Open Skies agreements, the State Department team with Under Secretary Bob Hormats, Assistant Secretary Jose Fernandez, and all the negotiators led by Kris Urs. She acknowledged Congresswoman Granger and former Secretary Maneta and a number of ambassadors who were present. She extended a special compliment to Colombian Ambassador Gabriel Silva, whose country became the 100th partner last November.
Secretary Clinton stressed the benefits of these agreements, which allow for the crossing of great distances, open up markets, create jobs, allow people in far-removed countries to interact, share information, and build business together.
The Department of State and the Department of Transportation negotiated the first Open Skies Agreement with the Netherland, in 1992. Today there are agreements with countries in every region of the planet. And on the Obama’s visit to Latin America, a new agreement with the 101st partner, Brazil, was concluded. An Open Skies agreement has powerful benefits - fewer government restrictions, more competition, more jobs in the air and on the ground; more people trading, exchanging and interacting; cheaper flights, more tourists, new routes to new cities. They deepen relationships between people in very personal ways. Building a continuous airborne corridor of prosperity around the world is one of its main goals.

In Latin America, Operation Blessing programs are bringing critical aid where it is needed most—offering hunger relief, orphan care, medical aid, clean water and community development programs such as life skills training classes.

The political and economic history of Latin America has been marked by great hopes and even greater disappointments. Despite abundant resources—and a history of productivity and wealth—in recent decades the region has fallen further and further behind developed nations, surpassed even by other developing economies in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

In Left Behind, Sebastian Edwards explains why the nations of Latin America have failed to share in the fruits of globalization and forcefully highlights the dangers of the recent turn to economic populism in the region. He begins by detailing the many ways Latin American governments have stifled economic development over the years through excessive regulation, currency manipulation, and thoroughgoing corruption. He then turns to the neoliberal reforms of the early 1990s, which called for the elimination of deficits, lowering of trade barriers, and privatization of inefficient public enterprises—and which, Edwards argues, held the promise of freeing Latin America from the burdens of the past. Flawed implementation, however, meant the promised gains of globalization were never felt by the mass of citizens, and growing frustration with stalled progress has led to a resurgence of populism throughout the region, exemplified by the economic policies of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. But such measures, Edwards warns, are a recipe for disaster; instead, he argues, the way forward for Latin America lies in further market reforms, more honestly pursued and fairly implemented. As an example of the promise of that approach, Edwards points to Latin America's giant, Brazil, which under the successful administration of President Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula) has finally begun to show signs of reaching its true economic potential.

As the global financial crisis has reminded us, the risks posed by failing economies extend far beyond their national borders. Putting Latin America back on a path toward sustained growth is crucial not just for the region but for the world, and Left Behind offers a clear, concise blueprint for the way forward.