Sean Goforth

Sandwiched between OPEC members Ecuador and Venezuela, Colombia has for decades looked like an Andean misfit because it was not a major oil exporter. But when Venezuela's foreign minister visited Bogotá in November, he reportedly asked his counterpart, "When is Colombia going to join OPEC?" Quietly, Colombia has become the fourth-largest oil producer in Latin America, after Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil. more

Europe's unresolved debt crisis has been the major problem facing the global economy of late, leading investors to take refuge in the safe haven of U.S. debt and thereby driving down the value of many currencies that had been bid up at the beginning of 2011. But while the problem of overvalued currencies may have receded, the underlying issue of currency manipulation still threatens the global economy. more

To many observers, Greece's lurch toward default in 2011 begs comparison to Argentina in 2001. Argentina has mounted a strong recovery since defaulting on its international loans, leading some to think it can offer lessons for Greece's turnaround. The comparison is misleading, however, for a variety of reasons. More importantly, prescribing policy based on Argentina's recovery would be disastrous for Greece. more

For years, Colombia, Chile and Peru have been searching for a regional power to spur integration in Latin America. Brazil, after being heavy-handed with its neighbors in the early part of the previous decade, grew indifferent to regional trade once the grandiose BRIC mindset took hold. Now, Mexico is taking the reins and, in the process, recouping some of the regional influence it has ceded to Brazil since 2000.

At long last, Washington looks ready to pass free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama. The trade agreement with Colombia was signed in 2006, while the agreements with Panama and South Korea were inked in 2007. But after Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006, the Bush administration no longer had the legislative support needed. More recently, however, Barack Obama has adopted the free trade agenda with a convert's fervor. more

Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega recently told the Financial Times that the global currency war "was absolutely not over," and cited two countries that, according to him, have not ceased the hostilities: China and the United States.  More and more, Brazil seems to be caught between -- and battling against -- the greenback and the yuan in its efforts to slow the rise in value of its own currency, the real. more

Chinese foreign investment is often considered nonideological: Dictatorship or democracy, model state or pariah -- if a country has natural resources, China is an eager investor. In Latin America the characterization rings true, as China has curried favor with left-leaning governments and right-leaning governments alike. China's relations with Cuba are a case in point, if a counterintuitive one. more

Mexican President Felipe Calderón's "war on drugs" has increasingly pushed Mexico's criminal gangs out of their traditional sources of illicit income. Like the FARC in Colombia, they are now seeking to coopt an otherwise legal trade. Whereas the FARC has moved into illegal gold mining as a new source of revenue, Mexico's criminal gangs have been increasingly linked to thefts of Mexico's key export, oil. more

For more than 40 years, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has waged a war against the Colombian government, financed largely through cocaine trafficking. Over the past decade, as the Colombian government marshaled U.S. military assistance, the FARC has seen its guerilla ranks diminished by about half. To stanch its losses, the FARC has turned to Colombia's most venerated source of riches: gold. more

More than any other single factor, Latin America owes its growth in the new millennium to Asian demand. The increased trade and investment between Asia and Latin America ushered in what many thought to be the first era of South-South trade. But while the term suggests a dynamic encompassing the entire developing world, for Latin America it has been less expansive. more

In 2009, China supplanted the United States to become Brazil's biggest trade partner, allowing Brazil to skirt the global recession by insulating it from the drop in exports suffered by most other Latin American countries. The relationship is not likely to change in the near term. Yet Brazil is reappraising its trade ties with China, over worries that China is trying to pigeonhole Brazil as just another commodity supplier. more

On Dec. 3, 2010, Brazil's then-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva officially recognized the independent state of Palestine, with six other South American governments following suit since then. Brazil's initiative has been explained as part of its effort under Lula to serve as America's alter ego in world affairs. However, an alternative cipher for interpreting Lula's move warrants consideration. more

In his 1996 classic, "The Clash of Civilizations," Samuel Huntington characterized Mexico as a "torn country" -- a condition produced by the Westernizing instincts of its elites pulling against the weight of its cultural heritage. Today, however, Mexico is not torn by internal discord, its drug violence notwithstanding. Rather, it is trapped -- caught between dynamic global trends washing over Latin America on one hand, and the dogged political realities of North America on the other.
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Ecuador recently had its name removed from the Financial Action Task Force's "black list" of countries failing to combat money laundering after it was relegated to the organization's lowest rung of noncompliance in February. The ordeal highlights a broader trend unfolding. The governments of Ecuador and Bolivia have shunned several international conventions and regulatory bodies, claiming that the regimes are biased. more

Last week, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was informally tapped to mediate negotiations between Iran and the West over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly indicated that he had agreed to the idea "in princiiple." But while Lula is perceived as among the world's pre-eminent diplomats, in this case he is not an impartial mediator. more

The quest for energy conservation has increasingly focused attention on lithium, a key resource needed for the manufacture of energy-efficient ion batteries powering hybrid cars. With more than half of the world's recoverable supplies, Bolivia has become known as "the Saudi Arabia of lithium." But  La Paz's natural resource policies and poor infrastructure have caused investment to increasingly favor Chile and Argentina. more

The United States is entering negotiations this week to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a relatively unknown trade agreement that includes Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore. The pact is humble in its origins and the group's share of global GDP is minute. But the TPP has quietly gained momentum over recent years and represents a promising point of entry for the U.S. into Asia's gathering integration. more

Latin America's major economies avoided the brunt of the global financial crisis, except for Mexico, whose 7 percent contraction in 2009 represented the region's worst decline. The drop-off was primarily traceable to America's recession. This year, as the panic subsides, Mexico's economy is expected to return to positive growth of around 3 percent. But Mexico's path to sustainable development remains problematic. more