Colombia and S America

[mkarpoff]

In case you were engrossed in baseball and bar b q on Sunday, you may have missed the news that once staunchly conservative Colombia elected a marxist as president who was, not too long ago, a narco rebel, and best buddies with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Castro.
Colombia is an exporter of energy. It is their primary source of hard currency. The new president has promised major societal change. You can bet that means nationalizing oil and gas production, likely to have the same results as in Venezuela.
Most of us give little thought to South American politics. Unfortunately, that includes all of our recent presidents. Net result? The following countries all have far-left governments: Argentina (Peronista), Venezuela (Communist), Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and now Colombia. At the moment, Brazil is the only country that has a "conservative" government, and Bolsinaro is so disliked, that the recent socialist ex-president, da Silva, is likely to be re-elected.
The reason that I raise this depressing scenario is because most of these countries are currently net exporters of energy. If their energy industries start going the way of Venezuela's, it will most certainly exacerbate the growing energy shortage in the not too distant future.

[dan_s]

I have often wondered why the U.S. has spent so much time and money on the Middle East when there is more than enough oil reserves in South America to meet our needs.
IMO we should focus on improving relationships with all South American countries and maybe put a tariff on all oil imports from outside of North and South America.

[Fraser921]

That's more bad news on Biden's watch, very very bad