Friends of opportunity

The Economist writes this morning, in relation to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's Latin America tour:

To some in the United States, this flurry of outside interest in a region that they considered their “backyard” is threatening. They see it is a sign that under President George Bush America has lost influence in the region. In fact, Latin America’s international ties have long been more diverse than caricature allows, but they are becoming even more so as the world changes. For some South American countries, Europe has always been at least as important as a trade and investment partner as the United States. Trade with Japan and the Middle East grew in the 1970s, while the Soviet Union sold arms to Peru as well as sustaining communist Cuba.

It is Mr Chávez’s search for allies in his rhetorical and political battle against the “empire”, as he likes to call the United States, that pricked the interest of Russia and Iran. For Russia, its Caribbean naval jaunt is a symbolic riposte to America’s plan to place missile batteries in Poland and to its dispatch of naval vessels to distribute aid in Georgia after Russia’s incursion in August. The same goes for its recent revival of ties with Cuba.

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-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City