Ibero-American ‘Presidents Club’ Meets on Food Crisis, Inflation; Demands ‘More Just International Financial System’
April 10, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—On April 5, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador convened a Zoom meeting of fellow Ibero-American heads of state to “find joint solutions to the pressure that the region faces in terms of prices and shortages” of basic food and nutritional necessities. They denounced the “adverse international context” and the “multidimensional crisis” facing the region, as a result of “extra-regional military conflicts ... the impact of the COVID pandemic, an enormous foreign debt ... and the application of unilateral coercive measures which are contrary to International Law”—i.e., sanctions. They further called for “the need to have a more just international financial system” that would allow them to have “access to the financial resources needed ... to bring about economic recovery in order to guarantee the food and nutritional security of our countries.” They reaffirmed their sovereignty as nations, and said they would take joint action “to eradicate poverty and promote the human right to adequate food.”
Other specific policy proposals in their joint communiqué were positive but limited in scope, by and large focused on trying to improve conditions within the existing system.
The countries represented were Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Venezuela, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines (in its capacity as rotating chair of the CELAC regional grouping), and the heads of state agreed they would meet again in person in Cancún, Mexico, on May 6-7. Most significantly, they issued an “invitation to all the other countries of the region to join this initiative, in order to contribute to the comprehensive welfare of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Lyndon LaRouche frequently referred to what he dubbed the Ibero-American “Presidents Club,” which would informally gather to review their common situation, leaving other differences, ideological and political, aside. That type of process is what is underway today, with the urgent food issue as the immediate center of their attention. Reliable sources in Mexico have told EIR that the agenda for May 6-7 is open-ended, and will certainly go beyond the food and inflation issue as such.
Mexico’s National College of Economists, whose president is Cong. Benjamín Robles, immediately issued a message of congratulations and support to President López Obrador for his initiative, singling out “the need to strengthen regional cooperation on matters of trade and investment in order to reduce our dependence on international markets and to encourage internal development.” The College recalled that they had sent President López Obrador an open letter back on Jan. 1, 2022 to encourage him to adopt a “Short-Term Anti-Inflationary Program” to address the problem of “the dangerous inflation due to speculation,” among other causes.
