The year 2023 will be difficult for Latin American economies. Regardless of the ideology of their presidents, their countries will only grow by 1.2% on average. According to this indicator, there are no big differences between left-wing and right-wing governments. In the same period of time, compared to other peripheral regions, its performance is not good. Africa will grow by 3.2%, and the countries of Southeast Asia by 4.6%. The international order is undergoing transformation, and in this dynamic the risk of losing strategic importance is very high.

Unaligned world

One of the needs of contemporary international politics is the diversification of contacts, because the medium-term future is geopolitically confusing. The world order, which is in transition towards a scenario that displaces the architecture created after the Second World War, produces new insecurities. But the search is not easy. If we look, for example, at the association that many see as an emerging alternative, Brics, we will see that there are big differences among its members. The two big Asian powers are doing much better than the world average in terms of growth. India and China are around 5%, while Russia, trapped by war efforts with no foreseeable horizon, remains at 1.2%; but Brazil and South Africa are not growing at even 1%. The Brics are heterogeneous, and the different needs of their economies do not make them a global geopolitical bloc with integrated capabilities. They are currently the expectation, the problem is that they have been for fourteen years.

A new world order by 2030 in an oil-dependent and multipolar society

However, global data show that this is a persistent trend in the modern world. A global economic center is being built in East Asia, to which India has been added. The second half of the 21st century will see many major social and economic events taking place on the shores of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. This does not necessarily mean the dejection of the old historical center of modernity located in the North Atlantic; The new multipolar order does not mean the collapse of Europe and North America, but it does mean that they will not be the only leading economic and political pole of the world.

In this context, Latin America’s opportunities are undergoing a profound reform of its development strategies. A region will not be able to grow or catch up with the rest of the world as long as there are imbalances that cause its labor resources to deteriorate, assets that require much more social investment: the quality of education at all levels, for example. But resources are needed. As long as the fiscal burden, taxes, the most important instrument of fair financing in Latin America (and the world) continues to be reduced and insulted by demagogic approximations, states will have fewer opportunities to build foundations that support the future and growth. , horizons that do not go through the extraction of natural resources, but fundamentally through the development of the productive and creative abilities of the population. (OR)