Bulletins and News Discussion from May 19th to May 25th, 2025 - The Beginning of the End of the Monroe Doctrine

Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you're a little more pessimistic.

Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.

While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.

Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.

It wouldn't really be correct to say that Latin America is "siding with China over the US" - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump's bizarre economic strongman routine won't make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What's significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.

As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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221 comments

Things aren't looking good in Bolivia:
https://xcancel.com/OllieVargas79/status/1924522679731683623
https://xcancel.com/OllieVargas79/status/1924550201026416930
Bolivia's courts are set to ban the candidacies of both Evo Morales and Andrónico Rodríguez. This would mean there are no indigenous or leftist candidates in this year's presidential elections - in the country with the largest indigenous population in the Americas.
The MAS is still standing, but its candidate is Eduardo del Castillo - a middle-class white man from the Santa Cruz region who does not come from the unions or indigenous groups that originally created the party. One of his slogans is "The Bolivian people demand order."
Now: Andrónico Rodríguez has arrived to register his candidacy for this year’s presidential elections in Bolivia, running under “The People’s Alliance”. A split from both Luis Arce and Evo Morales. I got crushed trying to film as thousands came to accompany him 😅
Andrónico, a union leader from Evo's home region, and Senate President, backed Evo in the faction fight against Arce and was once seen as his natural successor. But Evo’s camp shut down any talk of Andrónico running. Now, Andrónico is going ahead with his own platform.
Earlier today, the courts announced they will move to ban his candidacy on administrative technicalities. With Evo Morales also likely to be banned, there may be no candidate at all from the indigenous left.
- The MAS is still standing, but its candidate is Eduardo del Castillo - a middle-class white man from the Santa Cruz region who does not come from the unions or indigenous groups that originally created the party. One of his slogans is "The Bolivian people demand order."
  
  "order" = being colonized by whitey
- Earlier today, the courts announced they will move to ban his candidacy on administrative technicalities.
  ???