A 'fevered hallucination': Latin America meets Vivek Ramaswamy

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Source: Politico

A ‘fevered hallucination’: Latin America meets Vivek Ramaswamy

The Republican candidate wants to prioritize the Western Hemisphere, but in ways that worry its leaders.

By NAHAL TOOSI
09/03/2023 07:00 AM EDT

It’s not often a presidential candidate invokes the 19th century Monroe Doctrine to entice voters.

But Vivek Ramaswamy has strong views on U.S. relations with Latin America — and while some officials there are intrigued that he’s paying attention at all, many don’t like what they hear.

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Ramaswamy calls the region America’s “near-abroad,” a term Russia has used to describe other former Soviet states. He also says he wants to revive the Monroe Doctrine, a nearly 200-year-old idea that began as an American warning to Europe not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere but which many in Latin America have grown to resent as a justification for U.S. domination. In Ramaswamy’s version of the doctrine, China and Russia are the outside powers that should stay away.

This is not going over well with current and former Latin American officials, many of whom are just now starting to study up on Ramaswamy.

“It’s a sort of fevered hallucination,” said one Latin American official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s a simplistic vision, based on a misreading of history that elides the highly diverse perspectives, challenges and aspirations of the countries he is hoping to corral into a monolithic support of his vision of the U.S. nationalist interest.”

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Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/03/latin-america-vivek-ramaswamy-00113723