Heine Disseminates the Importance of the US Elections in Latin America & the Global South
In a recent interview with Sarwar Kashmeri, Ambassador Jorge Heine, Research Professor at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, dissects the US elections and how Latin America and the Global South countries are strategizing to deal with the new administration.
While there is a debate on the effects of the US elections on the rest of the world, Heine believes that Latin America is concerned about Trump’s stance on massive deportations as half of the undocumented immigrants are from Latin America. Furthermore, they are also concerned by Trump’s vision to increase tariffs by 10 to 20 percent on all goods imported by the US which would have serious effects on Latin America.
According to Heine, in the last two years, there has been a real disruption of the global south into world affairs like never before. Although 2023 was the year of the Global South, people question the notion of it as it’s a diverse group. However, Heine believes that they share the feeling of being left out from the international order. Heine further addresses the negative position that the EU has adopted wherein it has become increasingly anti-immigrant and isolationist. This has led to the further broadening of the cleavage between the Global North and the Global South.
Heine explains active non-alignment in the Global South wherein countries in the developing world are putting their interests front and center and taking their own stance on international politics. For instance, in the Russian-Ukraine war, despite the West’s call for sanctions, countries such as India have rejected it. Further, Heine explains that in the war on Gaza, the West has taken it as a matter of business, whereas the Global South has seen it for what it is. With South Africa’s active non-alignment foreign policy and Vietnam’s Bamboo foreign policy, the Global South is shifting into an era of independence and empowerment.
In a discussion regarding the role and relevance of the United Nations, Heine explains that the Security Council and the United Nations are becoming more irrelevant and inconsequential. He asserts that the absence of all P5 members from important international meetings attests to the increasing irrelevance of these organizations.
Heine believes that this is a time of significant change in world politics that is pointing in the direction of the Global South. China and the US make up 40% of the world’s GDP and thus, Heine hopes that if they put their minds together, they could solve the polycrises of global challenges.
The interview in full can be accessed on POLARIS LIVE here.
Ambassador Jorge Heine is a Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He has served as ambassador of Chile to China (2014-2017), to India (2003-2007), and to South Africa (1994-1999), and as a Cabinet Minister in the Chilean Government. Read more about Ambassador Heine on his faculty profile.