Latin America regrets lost time
You could say that the coronavirus took longer to cross the Atlantic than the Urals. While in Europe we were beginning to notice the frightening little bug that has caused us all to panic, in the New Continent some conspicuous rulers were laughing their heads off in disturbing ways. The first was Donald Trump, the emperor of the North who currently witnesses 2,000 compatriots dying every day and takes revenge on everyone else by failing to pay contributions to the World Health Organization (WHO) which he considers to be useless.
Meanwhile, in the South, the two most powerful rulers were likewise not far behind. Both the Mexican leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and his Brazilian colleague, the ultra-right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, perhaps to show that there are no political differences in the face of the foolish enlightenment, were leaning out on their balconies mocking the isolation and distancing measures recommended and tested by scientists and already initiated by sensible citizens; they were practising demagogy by recommending hugging!
Both are already suffering from the effects of the pandemic of which not a single country in the southern hemisphere is spared. The numbers of those infected and killed are constantly increasing. Only country-by-country data are being released, interspersed with news about its effects on the economy, social life and politics. In an initial calculation, ILO already foresees the elimination of 14 million jobs, which will increase the already high levels of unemployment.
Latin American economies are fragile, and neither states nor companies have the capacity to resist as much as American or European ones, not to mention that they do not have a strong single currency, a Eurogroup or a supranational organisation as powerful as the European Union. All countries are in debt and their exports are falling. Nor do they have the health resources to deal with a pandemic of this scale.
Oil itself, which is crucial to the GDP of Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil, has fallen on the international markets from fifty dollars a barrel to less than thirty, in addition to a very significant reduction in consumption and exports. The same is true of other export products. The quarantines and confinements to which a large part of the world's population is subjected have paralysed activity in many sectors.
The Caribbean countries, which have the least means to cope with the disease, are also seeing their income eroded by the present and foreseeable future paralysis of tourism for some, such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba or Costa Rica, their main source of income and labour. The situation is particularly distressing in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, which also have a government that is lost in its absolute drift.
Politically, the epidemic has complicated the situation in several countries, such as Colombia, Ecuador or Peru, but, on the contrary, it has numbed the conflicts and tensions that threatened others. This is the case in Chile, where the autumn anticipated new riots that have been contained for the time being. The fictitious calm has allowed President Piñera to regain 25% support in the polls, while in Bolivia the COVID-19 has put the provisional government of the opportunist Jeanine Añez to sleep, and in Argentina supporters of President Guillermo Fernández and former President Macri seem to have entered a truce.