Trump Won't Be Missed

A recent anti-Trump march in Bogotá portrayed Trump as a fascist. 

Few of the heads of state at this week's Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru are likely to miss Donald Trump. Trump, after all, has done all he could to insult, ignore and offend Latin America.

The White House justified Trump's absence by saying that he needed to focus on events in Syria, where the vicious Assad government recently used poison gas on its own people. That's certainly important. El Tiempo newspaper, however, pointed out that Trump often governs by Twitter, making his excuse less than convincing. Others speculate that Trump wanted to stay in Washington to deal with his mutiple legal troubles stemming from the women who allege they had sexual relationships with him.

The New York Times observes that even before Trump, the U.S. was losing influence in Latin America to China, which is now the largest trading partner of Brazil, Chile and Peru and has made huge infrastructure investments in the region.

Trump had also planned to visit Colombia, one of the few nations which still has lukewarm relations with Washington. But U.S. Vice President Pence, who will replace Trump, will skip Colombia, which he visited last year. Colombia feels stood up, editorializes El Tiempo.

The summit will now lack its two most polemical heads of state, Trump and Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro, who first insisted on participating in the summit and then decided to boycott it after recognizing that he wasn't wanted.

With the two polarizing figures gone, perhaps the rest of the leaders can get something done.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Trump and Tumaco

A bus burns in Tumaco, where police have clashed with
campesinos resisting coca leaf erradication. (Photo: El Pais)

It's not difficult to draw a line from Donald Trump's more aggressive anti-drug policies to the recent violence in Tumaco, on Colombia's Pacific coast.

Colombia's coca leaf and cocaine production have boomed in recent years, to the dismay of anti-drug officials both here and in Washington. But the boom has not brought the violence of the 1980s drug boom. Some say that's because the cartel wars have shifted to Central America and Mexico; others, that it's because the narcos moved their headquarters from the cities to rural areas, where violence is less noticed. Or, is it due to some tacit understanding between authorities and drug producers to live and let live?

But any such truce was shattered in Tumaco Oct. 5, when six campesinos were killed in clashes with police, under confusing circumstances.

It's not clear who started the confrontations. But tensions were escalated by increased pressure from Washington to erradicate coca fields, the crop which puts food on the table for innumerable rural families but also supplies narcotraffickers.

Cocaine produces untold environmental and human damage here and overseas. But decades of drug fighting, billions of dollars and innumerable deaths haven't eliminated it, and aren't likely to.

The Trump administration's mounting pressure on Colombia to reign in drug production won't eliminate cocaine, but will mean more confrontations like Tumaco's. Non-governmental organizations point to ten more municipalities in the region with the same combustible ingredients: booming drug acreage and violent outlaw organizations which profit from and defend the drug trade.

Meanwhile, the crisis is intensified by the U.S.'s refusal to deal with the FARC, even tho they have demobilized, turned in their weapons and transformed themselves from guerrillas to a political party - yet remain on the U.S.'s list of terrorist organizations.

One of the key selling points of the FARC-government peace agreement was that the FARC would help fight narcotrafficking. But that's difficult as long as Washington refuses to talk to them.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Pence (who?) Comes to Colombia?

Yankee go home! Out with Trump/Pence!

United States Vice President Mike Pence visited Bogotá yesterday, causing little polemic - probably because nobody here's heard of him. In contrast to Pence's restraint, U.S. Pres. Trump was meanwhile busy threatening North Korea and Venezuela with military attacks and making news by failing to condemn neo Nazis and white supremecists who staged a violent protest demonstration in the state of Virginia.

Yankee Go Home! (Say the communists)

Pence reportedly talked with Colombian Pres. Santos about the boom in cocaine production and the economic and democratic  in Venezuela, whose violence might spill into Colombia. The U.S. government would like Colombia to resume using aircraft to spray Roundup on coca leaf plantations and to more strongly condemn Venezuela's authoritarian government, which is rewriting its Constitution to its pleasure.

Colombia said that it stopped using the glyphosate herbicide in mid-2015 because of concerns about it causing cancer, although many analysts considered it a conciliatory gesture to the FARC guerrillas, who make a lot of their money off of drug sales. The FARC recently signed a peace deal with the government and are in the process of demobilizing. Whatever the value of aerial spraying, the coca leaf boom was caused by more fundamental factors, such as supply and demand. As for Venezuela, its government is corrupt, incompetent and growing more and more authoritarian. But a military invasion could turn into another Vietnam and would generate tremendous sympathy for the Venezuelan government - and anger toward the U.S. Better to hope that the Maduro government collapses from its own incompetence.

About the only ones criticizing Pence's visit seem to be the communists, who plastered downtown poles with 'Yankee go home!' posters. But the communists are awkward defenders of democracy.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Climate Contradictions

Congested cars on Calle 26 pump carbon dioxide into the air. Colombians buy more than 20,000 new cars per month.

Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to international cooperation, to the United States' image and to the planet's future by withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.

However, judging by the climate policies of the rest of the world, including Colombia, which is supposedly sticking with the accord, the agreement is headed for failure, anyway.

Colombia seems like a good example of this:

The country signed the Paris agreement, but has proceeded to enthusiastically dig as many fossil fuels

Colombian oil production, in red, and consumption, in black.
(Chart: Wikipedia.)

out of the ground as possible. Colombia's production of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is still growing fast, and oil production may level off only because they can't find more of it.

Ecopetrol's Reficar Cartagena refinery complex,
recently expanded.

The country also made a major long-term investment in the fossil fuels industry by modernizing Ecopetrol's Reficar refinery in Cartagena, a project which went $6 billion over budget, spurring corruption investigations.

Meanwhile, Colombian car ownership is booming, and deforestation rages on.

Still, Colombia is doing well compared to many other oil producers, particularly its neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela, both of which subsidize the price of gasoline and other energy forms, essentially paying people to waste energy. Venezuelan car owners pay only about one U.S. penny per liter to fill their tanks, but that hasn't stopped Caracas from signing the Paris agreement or lecturing developed countries about their environmental policies. Nor do other oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran, see any contradiction between signing the Paris agreement and producing oil and subsidizing its consumption.

Colombia also subsidizes its gasoline, though much less than does Venezuela.

Colombia is also said to be one of the world's most vulnerable nations to climate change.

World car sales are rising, and almost all of them burn fossil fuels.
(Chart: Andemos)

Needless to say, the world would be better off in many ways, besides in climate change terms, if it cut back on fossil fuel consumption: the air would be cleaner, cities would be quieter and more liveable, and people would likely get more exercise, from walking and bicycling. And fewer forests would be cleared.

Trump has squandered the U.S.'s leadership and moral standing as well as the planet's environmental future in return for a few votes and donations from fossil fuel producers. But at least give him credit for honesty. Trump withdrew from the climate agreement, instead of leaving the U.S. on the list while pursuing environmentally poisonous policies.

However, the danger now is that the rest of the world will use Trump as a convenient whipping boy, and an excuse not to act themselves.

Higher and higher: Colombian coal production. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel,
and Colobmia is producing more and more of it.
(Chart: Wikipedia)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

DJLU Does Donald Trump

Colombia had better watch out. If Donald Trump, who is now (gag) president-elect of the United States, decides to make a Latin American nation his scapegoat, Colombia may be it: We've got terrorists here, and lots of illegal drugs headed toward the U.S. border, and even Latinos.

DJLU, one Bogotá's best-known street artists, stencils pithy messages on city walls. A lot of them seem to critique Trumpian values:

Trump may stumble the world into war - or barge into it.

In the Trumpian world, the super-rich like himself certainly outweigh the common people. And those hard-working common people, who've heavily supported Trump, will be left worse off when Trump starts slashing millionares' taxes.

A bullet-headed sperm. Sex and violence and Donald Trump. What more is there to say?

In the U.S., white evangelicals, who also happen to generally be enthusiastic supporters of easy access to guns, strongly supported Trump - despite Trump's multiple marriages, affairs and predilection for sexually assaulting women. Doesn't the Bible say 'Thou shalt not kill.'?

Trump means to loosen even more gun restrictions. The U.S. has the highest homicide rate in the developed world, and a U.S. free market in firearms already supplies guns to drug cartels in Latin America. Some of those weapons have appeared in Colmbia. Under Trump, firearm proliferation will boom, and some of those weapons rain down on Colombia, where they'll facilitate killings by drug cartels.

Land mines, sewn by guerrillas, are one of the most cruel and preverse weapons used in Colombia's civil war. Trump will almost certainly retreat from involvement across the continent, and reduce support for Colombia's peace agreement.

Internet spying, by Russia in particular, hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign. Leaks can help transparency, but in this case they produced Donald Trump, who is the least transparent politician seen in a long, long time.

Expect Trump to weaken environmental safeguards and abandon efforts to slow global warming, which he's said is a 'Chinese conspiracy.' The Trumpian planet Earth is a time bomb.

My impression of many Trump voters, who got manipulated by propaganda, stereotypes and organizations such as the NRA. Many of Trump's supporters are lower-income whites. Here, they've elected a man who will work to benefit the rich, and hurt working people's interests.

As an addendum, here's an anguished message I received today from a mixed-race woman from Colombia who lives (legally, as a U.S. citizen) in a midwestern U.S. state which voted for Trump, where she has a small business.

 I am very sad.  I have cried every day.  The situation is going to be very difficult for me as I represent what Trump followers hate.  Hopefully I will be safe. I hope God protects me from those crazies. 

The world is now in danger. 

Bye,

A final question: Brexit, the plebiscite's 'No' vote and now Trump: What's happening to the world?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

On Clinton vs. Trump, it's No Contest

Clinton for president of the U.S.

Tuesday's U.S. presidential vote will be a monumental event for both the U.S. and for the world. El Tiempo's editorial section today is full of column's about the election - all warning about the dire consequences of a Trump victory. And anybody who's followed this blog has no doubt where I fall, for the interests of Colombia, the U.S. and the globe.

El Tiempo's editorialists point out the likeliest immediate consequences for Colombia of a Donald Trump victory: a reduction in aid and more barriers to trade and immigration. Trump's discourse is erratict and his policies unclear, but he speaks like an isolationist. That suggests that he'd cut back on the post-Plan Colombia aid programs and reduce support for any peace processes here. Trump might also kill free trade agreements with Colombia, as he's denounced such agreements with Mexico.

Trump's evident hostility to and even racism against Hispanics would not help relations, either.

El Tiempo's editorialists also point out that most economists predict a recession if Trump wins and

The dangers are endless.

imposes protectionist trade policies and slashes taxes for rich people like himself, which would balloon the U.S.'s budget deficit.

Trump's authoritarianess, as eloquently described by the Washington Post's libertarian Volokh Conspiracy blog  could not only endanger the U.S.'s constitutional system, but also set a terrible example for weak democracies in Latin America.

Trump "is thrilled by the kind of authoritarian government that the Colonists fought a revolution to end." writes Volokh. "His world is a world of conspiracy theories, not reason and evidence. It is a world of putting your opponent in a jail cell after the election, not peaceful transitions of power. It is a world of mob violence, not law. It is a world of crushing political dissent, not limited government."  

The Volokh writers compare the U.S.'s possible future under Trump to Venezuela, where democratically-elected presidents have trampled institutions, converted the oil-rich nation into a near-dictatorship and, along the way, also devastated its economy. 

Trump's ignorance and denial of reality on environmental issues, particularly climate change, is yet another disqualifier. Climate change is already affecting Colombia and would undoubtedly accelerate under Trump policies.

I could go on about Trump's misogyny and sexual predation, his lack of political experience, his rotten business ethics, his instability, his evident affection for violence and for authoritarian leaders such as Russia's Vladimir Putin, and perhaps most of all the danger of a man like him controlling nuclear weapons - but you get the picture.

Hillary Clinton certainly also has her ethics challenges. But, as an experienced politician she's performed competently and has generally respected constitutional norms, as Volokh, normally no friend of liberals, points out. And Clinton would undoubtedly continue the Obama administration's policies of engagement with the world and Latin America. And her economic policies would likely continue those Obama, who has shepherded the U.S. out of a deep recession into a slow but sustained recovery. Even with the rise of China, Latin America's economy still depends heavily on that of the U.S.

For Colombia, for the U.S., for the planet and for decency, support Clinton.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Trumping Latin Democracies

Donald Trump, would-be strongman.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro may
seem like polar opposites. One is a wealthy conservative, the other a leftist who started out as a bus driver.

The two, however, do have at least one characteristic in common: Authoritarianism.

At the last U.S. presidential debate, Trump told Democrat Hillary Clinton that if he were president, she'd "be in jail," because of her mishandling of government e-mails. Evidently, Trump had forgotten that imprisoning people is the job of judges and prosecutors, not of presidents - at least in a democracy.

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's
authoritarian president.

But Trump might find a model in Maduro, whose government has imprisoned numerous opponents, most prominently Leopoldo Lopez, an ex-mayor and potential presidential candidate, whose trial was called a farce by many human rights organizations. Lopez is serving a 14 year prison term for supposedly inciting protests using subliminal signals.

Not satisfied with jailing opponents, the deeply unpopular Maduro has also used his puppet Supreme Court to declare Parliament, where the opposition has a majority, 'unconstitutional' and unable to issue legislation. Maduro also announced that he will instruct the Supreme Court to approve the national budget, even tho the Constitution explicits gives this job to Parliament.

Among Maduro's long list of authoritan, anti-constitutional actions is also using his puppet Electoral Council to put obstacle after obstacle in the way of a recall referendum the opposition wants to organize against him - another right provided in Venezuela's Constitution. And Maduro's government recently said that it won't hold governor and regional legislative elections this year because it can't afford to - this in an oil-soaked nation which throws billions of dollars away each year on corruption and giving away gasoline.

"The priority isn't to hold elections," Maduro said. "What is the country's priority? Fulfill the whim of the oligarchy or recover the economy?"

Leopold Lopez,
Maduro's political prisoner.

Under Maduro's incompetent mishandling, Venezuela's economy is sinking, it has the world's highest inflation rate and shortages of basic goods like sugar, flour, toilet paper and medicines. It also has one of the world's highest homicide rates.

What Venezuela needs most are elections, to throw out Maduro and his allies and restore sanity. understandably, Maduro doesn't want to permit votes he knows he'd lose.

Sadly, the story is not so different in nations like Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, where leftist leaders have entrenched themselves and are trying to become presidents-for-life.

In that sense, Brazil and Guatemala, both embroiled in corruption scandals, should be admired. There, at least, the democratic institutions have had the resiliency to remove flawed presidents and investigate their alleged misdeeds.

Would the U.S.'s own institutions be strong enough to withstand a President Trump?

Hopefully, we'll never have to find out.

Check out the excellent NY Times story about this.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours