The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part 1)

[Judi Lynn]

The Pink Tide Surges, 2018-2022

by Roger D. Harris / December 1st, 2022

Latin America and the Caribbean have again began to take on a becoming pink complexion, all the more so with June’s historic electoral victory in Colombia over the country’s long-dominant US-backed right-wing and a similar reverse in Brazil in October. These electoral rejections of the right-wing followed left victories last year in Peru, Honduras, and Chile. And those, in turn, came after similar routs in Bolivia in 2020, Argentina in 2019, and Mexico in 2018.

This electoral wave, according to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, speaking at the Climate Summit in November, “open[s] a new geopolitical age to Latin America.” This “Pink Tide” challenges US hemispheric hegemony, whose pedigree dates back to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine.

The tidal surge

The metaphor of the “Pink Tide” aptly describes the ebb and flow of the ongoing class conflict between the minions of imperialism and the region’s popular forces. Back in 1977, the region was dominated by the “rule of the generals.” The infamous US Operation Condor supported explicit military dictatorships in all of South America, except for Colombia and Venezuela, and in much of Central America.

Then the tide began to turn with the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998. By 2008, almost the entire region was in the pink with the notable exceptions of Colombia, Mexico, and a few others. A decade later, a conservative backlash left Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and a lonely handful of other states on the progressive side. But that was to change by mid-year 2018.

More:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/12/the-volatility-of-us-hegemony-in-latin-america-part-1/