The recent formalization of a new regional cooperation bloc that includes every country in the Americas except Canada and the United States has been largely dismissed in the English-language media as little more than a new soap-box from which the region’s more flamboyant leftists, namely Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, will now spew anti-American rhetoric.
To some extent, the potential for such an outcome exists.
But it is also worth noting that the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC by its Spanish acronym, has now been given an official stamp of approval from not just left-leaning heads of state, but from leaders across the Latin American political spectrum.