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Africa, Europe, North America, South America
The Return of the Atlantic
4 May 2016 Joseph ShupacArgentina, brazil, britain, Canada, Economics, france, geopolitics, germany, mexico, nigeria, south africa, travel, United States 1 Comment
This article was written for an essay contest, so the style is a little bit different from others on this site. It was first written three years ago, when most people had not yet become bearish on the Chinese economy and politicians in the US were still talking a lot about America's "pivot to Asia". The essay discusses the possibility that the Atlantic regions – North America, South America, Europe, and much of Africa – will remain at the heart of the international system in the years and decades to come, for better or for worse.
For nearly 500 years, the Atlantic Ocean was the unrivalled centre of the international system, connecting Europe to its expansive economic and imperial networks in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Transatlantic trade continued to exceed transpacific trade as recently as the late 1980s, while at the same time the transatlantic alliance against the Soviet Union remained the world's most important geopolitical partnership. Indeed it seems incredible to recall now, but China, India, Indonesia, Korea, and Australia combined had a smaller economic output than West Germany in 1990.
Today, in contrast, the European Union and United States both import more goods from China alone than they do from one another, and the Cold War has been over for a quarter of a century. The Pacific has in many ways become the new centre of the world: it is home to the three largest economies of America, China, and Japan, is the highway for East Asian imports of commodities and exports of manufactured goods, and acts as a base for nearly 75 percent of US soldiers stationed outside of North America or Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, a majority of economists, politicians, and journalists believe that the continued economic growth of populous Asian countries like China, India, and Indonesia means that the centrality of the Pacific has only just begun.
In this essay we will argue that, even as it remains popular to herald the arrival of a "Pacific Century" (to quote a famous Hillary Clinton op-ed in Foreign Policy magazine), it will actually be the Atlantic that will become once again the centre of the international system, serving as the corridor of an expanding economic network that will incorporate Europe, the Americas, much of Africa, and to a lesser extent even parts of southern Asia. Transatlantic commerce is likely to once again exceed the value of transpacific commerce and, partly by doing so, it will help to serve as an organizing force in global geopolitics. We hope it will serve as a force for good in the world as well.
To be sure, while we view this Atlantic phenomenon as likely to be brought about by economic, cultural, and linguistic circumstances that are already actively or latently in place, we will also argue that, from a policy perspective, the political effectiveness and ethical utility of such a reinvigorated transatlantic relationship will depend on the extent to which efforts are made to reduce carbon emissions in developed economies, as well as on the extent to which efforts are made to provide honest and constructive assistance to struggling countries within the developing world.
The Pacific Moment
The rise of transpacific trade during the latter half of the 20th century occurred as a result of a unique set of circumstances. These were, specifically, the reconstruction of the Japanese economy following its destruction in the Second World War, the emergence of South Korea and Taiwan following their adoption by the United States as strategically-located allies in 1950, and the rapid growth of coastal Chinese states following their devastation during the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and isolationist era under Mao, which occurred in an overlapping succession from 1927 until 1979. These four countries have caused transpacific commerce to soar in recent decades, with help from Southeast Asian success stories like Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.
While this rising transpacific trade has certainly deserved the widespread public attention it has received, it has nevertheless served to overshadow a number of other key characteristics of the global economy, which instead highlight the enduring significance of the Atlantic Ocean. These include the fact that roughly 65 percent of both the world's nominal economic output and private consumer spending are located in the Atlantic basin rather than in the Pacific basin; that more than 70 percent of the populations of North America, South America, and Sub-Saharan Africa live within the Atlantic basin rather than the Pacific basin; that the Pacific generally takes 2-4 times longer to cross widthwise by ship than the Atlantic does; that the quantity of transatlantic investment is estimated to be 5-10 times greater than transpacific investment; and that Indian and Pakistani trade and labour crosses the Atlantic, Mediterranean, or Arabian Sea far more often they do the Pacific.
The reemergence of transatlantic interactivity as a defining feature of the international system will simply reflect these enduring realities. In addition, it will be driven by a set of economic evolutions that are beginning to revive transatlantic trade relative to transpacific trade, as well as by the continued spread of modern communications and the emergence of African and Latin American economies, which are helping to increase the political and economic significance of the cultural, social, and linguistic affiliations that bind together the four continents of the Atlantic world.
Transatlantic Connections
Atlantic regions share a number of important connections with one another. The first is cultural: unlike in Asia, the overwhelming majority of people in the Americas are of European or African heritage. Most have ancestors that arrived within just the past century or two. This could have increasingly powerful political and economic consequences in the future, particularly as the economies of Africa develop and as African populations in the Americas become wealthier and more empowered (most notably the 40 million US African-Americans, 28 million Afro- Caribbeans, 15 million Afro-Brazilians, and 80 million Brazilians who identify as being of mixed ancestry), such that it will no longer just be white Americans and Europeans engaged in the most significant transatlantic partnerships.
The second transatlantic connection is a social one, the result of technology increasingly allowing first-, second-, and even third-generation immigrants in the developed world to maintain relationships with family members, friends, and acquaintances back in their countries of origin. Crucially, immigrants in North America and Europe come overwhelmingly from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, or the Mediterranean basin. More than half of the foreign-born population in the United States arrived from Latin America alone, and there are about four times as many first-generation immigrants in the European Union from Africa or the Americas as there are from East Asia.
There are, in fact, already 2-3 million Latino-Americans living in Spain, and more than 50 million living in the United States. Africa's emigration rate to both Europe and North America, meanwhile, has risen at a faster pace than that of any other region since 1980, and is likely to continue to do so as a result of the fact that the average birth rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is nearly twice as high, and the per capita income nearly twice as low, as that of any other part of the world.
Finally, and in our opinion most importantly, there are the transatlantic linguistic connections. Over 80 percent of the world's nearly 1.5 billion native speakers of Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, or Arabic live within the Atlantic or Mediterranean basins; each of these languages is fairly prominent within at least three separate continents. English, moreover, is far more widespread in mainland Europe than it is in any other continent apart from North America (or Australia). Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Belgium are particularly proficient; according to some estimates, 60-90 percent of their populations are able to speak English In France, Italy, and Poland, meanwhile, the share of English speakers is estimated at 30-40 percent, which is still far ahead of countries like China, Japan, Indonesia, and even India.
In Africa, European languages are also spoken more widely than in most other areas of the world. This is partially the result of to the continent's colonial histories, many of which ended as recently as the 1960's or 1970's. It is, however, also the result of Sub-Saharan countries tending to be linguistically diverse, such that their use of European languages as lingua franca remains common practice. Indeed, despite having the world's lowest density of accessible schools, televisions, computers, and satellite dishes, English is already spoken by a greater number of people in Africa than in more populous India, both as a native language and as a secondary one.
French, meanwhile, is used by an estimated 90 million Africans, Portuguese by an estimated 20 million Africans, and Arabic as far south as the Sahel.24 In South Africa approximately 20 million people understand Afrikaans, a language that is for the most part mutually intelligible with Dutch. Over 85 percent of Africa's English-speaking population and nearly all of Africa's French-, Portuguese-, Arabic-, and Afrikaans-speaking populations live within the Atlantic or Mediterranean basins.
Also important is that over 40 percent of Africa's population is under the age of fifteen. This makes it the world's youngest region by a considerable margin: by comparison, only 15 percent of China's population and 29 percent of India's population are younger than fifteen. Children possess the ability to learn languages many times more easily than adults can, particularly if they have access to schooling, books, media, and modern communications.
Africa's current generation of children might become the first to grow up with widespread access to such tools, which might therefore help African economies to develop and integrate with the other continents of the Atlantic world. This is also one reason why it would be wise from a policy standpoint for Europe and North America to immediately support economic development in Africa, since doing so would help African populations gain access to more education and information now while they are still young.
Shifting Trade Patterns
In 2013, Chinese coastal cities had an average nominal per capita income of roughly $20,000, nearly as high as those of South Korea and Taiwan. The median age in China is 37, about the same as in the US; in South Korea and Taiwan the median age is 40. These are no longer really "emerging markets", in other words. Rather than experience another lengthy period of rapid economic growth that would continue to drive up transpacific trade, they will instead be undergoing various structural evolutions, as all maturing economies tend to do over time.
In the coastal areas of China, this evolution is likely to be from an economy oriented around exports of lower-end manufactured goods to an economy that exports value-added goods and services and is more reliant on the private consumption of its own population. Such shifts are natural for a middle-income economy like China to experience, but they may also reduce the quantity of China's transpacific imports of industrial commodities and transpacific exports of manufactured goods.
Economic growth in the poorer interior provinces of China, meanwhile, or in the even poorer Indian subcontinent, is not certain to bring about the continued rise of transpacific commerce either. The emerging provinces of the populous Chinese interior are likely to trade mainly with coastal Chinese provinces and other countries in Asia, rather than with economies overseas. Today, for instance, in Sichuan and Henan, the two largest inland Chinese provinces, exports account for around just 4 percent of provincial economic output, almost nothing compared to the 47 percent of economic output that exports account for in coastal China's two largest provinces, Guangdong and Jiangsu.
In addition, given the crowdedness of China's coastal cities and ports, the interior provinces of China may also increasingly avoid using the Pacific in favour of the more direct "Silk Road" routes to Europe, or in favour of using Myanmar's commercially navigable Irrawaddy River to directly access the Indian Ocean.The economic emergence of the Indian subcontinent, meanwhile, could perhaps lead transatlantic commerce to rise faster than transpacific trade, as India and its neighbours may partially succeed China in supplying cheap goods or services to consumers in the Atlantic world.
As they emerge, the Indian subcontinent and the Chinese interior will also be importing rapidly growing quantities of oil and gas from the the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and Russia. Indeed, India and Pakistan already receive roughly 75 percent of their oil and gas imports and an astonishing 30 percent of their imports of goods in general from the Persian Gulf. China's interior provinces, meanwhile, get around 75 percent of their gas imports from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and 30 percent of their oil imports from Russia and Kazakhstan. These imports are likely to increase, not only because of India's and China's continued growth, but also because of their shared desire to consume less coal, on which they rely for an average of about 65 percent of their energy consumption.
This need to import large quantities of energy could lead to competition, rather than cooperation, between regional powers like China, India, and Japan, potentially undermining Asia's ability to cooperate as a more coherent political unit. (In contrast, the Atlantic world consists mainly of synergistic relationships where energy is concerned: Europe is a net energy importer, South America and Africa are net energy exporters, and North America is not too far from reaching the "energy independence" it has long dreamed about). Moreover, because the European Union itself currently receives around 60 percent of its oil and gas imports from Russia, the Persian Gulf, or Central Asia, the increasing energy consumption of Asia may force Europe to begin importing much more energy from the Americas or western Africa instead, further boosting transatlantic trade.
Conclusion: Policy Framework
While the renewed significance of the Atlantic is likely to occur mainly as a result of the commercial, cultural, social, and linguistic factors discussed above, we believe that specific policy goals are nevertheless required to ensure that such a renewal occurs in a manner that is both ethical and politically effective on a global level. Two policies in particular may be advisable in this regard:
One is the implementation of per capita carbon emissions taxes. Such taxes would likely facilitate transatlantic commerce through the export of European energy-saving and clean energy production technologies to the emissions-intensive markets of North America, whilst simultaneously providing both Europe and America with a more responsible and defensible platform in climate treaty negotiations with industrialized Asian economies that have much lower per capita and historical emissions levels.
The other is increasing political outreach and economic assistance to struggling countries, particularly those within Africa. Africa contains many of the world's greatest challenges if it is not constructively engaged with, and it also has a youthful and diverse population of more than a billion people, vast reserves of natural resources, and linguistic and social connections with Europe and the Americas. All of these qualities make it a necessary component of any revitalized transatlantic project.
Of course, each of these policies deserves much more focus than we have left to spare in this essay. Yet still we feel confident in saying that, if these two policies are diligently and honestly pursued, then the unexpected return of the Atlantic as the central corridor of the international system would not only become more likely to occur, but will also be much more welcome when it does.
Seniors Discount? Oil Prices and Old Rulers
16 Mar 2016 Joseph Shupacalgeria, brazil, Economics, egypt, Energy, geopolitics, Iran, Iraq, kuwait, libya, oil, oil and gas, oil prices, oman, politics, Russia, Saudi Arabia, travel, United States Leave a comment
Today's low oil prices are probably not the result, even in part, of elderly men ruling over the world's major energy-exporting nations. Still, it may be worth noting that the sons of Saudi Arabia's modern founder, Abdulaziz bin Saud, are finally nearing the end of their long royal lifespans, while the leaders of energy-endowed countries like Iran, Algeria, Angola, Oman, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan have now reached old age too, after multiple decades in office. Even Vladimir Putin is 63 years old, long past his judo prime. He was just 47 when he first came to power.
As Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Moammar Gaddafi arguably showed in 2011, longtime aging rulers can sometimes give way to political upheaval that causes domestic oil and gas production to fall. Uncertainty over the vigour of some of the following leaders might indeed cause global energy exports to fall, and thus, perhaps, prices to rise:
Kuwait – Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah – 86 years old – In power since 2006
Sabah's presumed successor, Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, is 78 years old. As recently as 2012 Kuwait was the world's largest oil exporter outside of Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia – Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Saud – 80 years old – In power since 2015
Salman will probably be the last king to be chosen from among the 45 or so sons of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz bin Saud. Salman's youngest living sibling, his half-brother Muqrin, is turning 71 this year and, as of last year, is no longer the designated Crown Prince. The Saudi Crown Prince has since become Muhammad bin Nayef, Salman's nephew, while the Deputy Crown Prince has become Salman's own son Mohammad bin Salman
Algeria – Abdulaziz Bouteflika – 79 years old – In power since 1999
Bouteflika came to power during and after the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s. Today his health is in question. Algeria is estimated to be the world's 16th largest energy producer and its fourth largest natural gas exporter.
Uzbekistan – Islam Karimov – 77 years old – In power since 1991
Karimov first came to power at the end of 1980s, when he became President of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
Iran – Ali Khameni – 76 years old – In power since 1989
Kazakhstan – Nursultan Nazerbayev – 75 years old – In power since 1991
Oman – Qaboos bin Said al Said – 74 years old – In power since 1970
Qaboos first became ruler after overthrowing his father in a palace coup in 1970. He has no children or clear successor
South Africa – Jacob Zuma – 74 years old – In power since 2009
Zuma was Deputy President of South Africa from 1999-2005. South Africa is a major producer of energy, and a net exporter of energy, because of its coal reserves, though it is a net importer of oil
Nigeria – Mohammadu Buhari – 73 years old – In power since 2015
Buhari was previously Nigeria's head of state during the 1980s
Angola – Jose Eduardo dos Santos – 73 years old – In power since 1979
Angola, one of the fastest-growing economies of the past decade, is now the world's third or fourth largest oil exporter outside of the Middle East
Equatorial Guinea – Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo – 73 years old – In power since 1979
Equatorial Guinea is the 30th-40th largest oil producing country, but may have the world's third highest per capita oil production, the highest outside the Middle East. Both the age of its leader and the number of years he has been in power are exactly the same as in Equatorial Guinea's relatively nearby neighbour Angola
Sudan – Omar al Bashir – 72 years old – In power since 1993
Brunei – Hassanal Bolkiah Muiz'zaddin Wad'daulah — 69 years old – In power since 1967
Brunei is the world's 40th-50th largest oil producing country, but may have the 6th highest per capita oil production
Brazil – Dilma Roussef – 68 years old – In power since 2010
Her predecessor, Louis Inacio Lula da Silva, who literally as of today was selected to become Roussef's new chief of staff, was 65 years old when he left office in 2011 at the end of an eight-year term. Roussef has been facing an impeachment attempt, while Lula has been under investigation in a corruption scandal.
United Arab Emirates – Khalifa Al Nayhan — 68 years old – In power since 2004
The Emir of Dubai is 66 years old, meanwhile
Colombia – Juan Manuel Santos – 64 years old – In power since 2010
South Sudan – Salva Kiir Mayardit – 64 years old – In power since 2011
Iraq – Haider al Abadi – 63 years old – In power since 2014
Masoud Barzani, meanwhile, who has been president of oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan since 2005 and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party since 1979, is 69 years old. Foud Massoum, a Kurdish politician who is Iraq's president (a more ceremonial role than prime minister), is 78 years old and has been in office since 2014. Nouri al Maliki, who was Iraq's prime minister from 2006-2014 and is now Iraq's vice president, will turn 66 this June. Saddam Hussein was 42 years old during his purge of 1979 and 66 years old when the US invaded in 2003.
Russia – Vladimir Putin – 63 years old – In power since 1999
Malaysia – Najib Razak — 62 years old – In power since 2009
Mahatir Mohammad, meanwhile, is 90 years old. Malaysia is thought to be the world's 25th largest oil producing country
Turkey – Recep Tayyip Erdogan – 62 years old – In power since 2003
While Turkey is a significant net importer rather than exporter of energy, it is nevertheless capable of impacting the rest of the Middle East, and it has hopes to become a major energy nexus at the centre of the Middle East, North Africa, and Caspian Sea region. (Similarly, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been prime minister since 2009 and was previously prime minister from 1996-1999, is 66 years old)
Australia – Malcolm Turnbull – 61 years old – In power since 2015
Egypt – Abdel Fathah al-Sisi — 60 years old – In power since 2014
Sisi was also highly influential for at least a few years before 2014, following Hosni Mubarak's departure from office in 2011
The following graph shows how old these countries' rulers were in any given year between 1970 and 2015, and how old they will be in 2020 if today's rulers remain in power for the remainder of the decade:
In the graphs below, the y-axis indicates the age of today's rulers, the x-axis indicates the number of years they have been in power, and the size of the circles indicates the relative amount of energy that is produced by their country.
Capital Idea — Image of the Day
7 Mar 2016 Joseph Shupacbrazil, britain, China, Economics, france, geopolitics, germany, india, Iran, nigeria, Russia, travel, United States 6 Comments
Countries have different way of ordering their own provinces and capital cities, and how they choose to do so may sometimes say a lot about what sort of politics they have. Where countries' capital cities are concerned, there is usually something akin to one of the following four set-ups:
The Argentine model: the country's capital city serves as its own unique administrative district and is surrounded on all sides by a single province that it influences to a large degree.
The American model: the capital city serves as its own unique administrative district but is not surrounded by a single province (or state, etc.), but rather by two or more provinces.
The Saudi model: the capital city is not its own unique administrative district, but is part of an important province that is named after itself.
The Canadian model: the capital city is sometimes annoyingly full of bureaucrats, but is otherwise more or less a normal place. It is not its own administrative district.
The Argentine Model
Examples of the Argentine model include, of course, Buenos Aires, which is surrounded by the province of Buenos Aires (Argentina's recent presidential election, in fact, was between the mayor of Buenos Aires and the governor of Buenos Aires province); Berlin, which is surrounded by Brandenburg (see map below); Moscow, which is surrounded by the Moscow oblast; the Australian Capital Area, which is surrounded by New South Wales (see map below), Vienna, which is surrounded by Lower Austria; Brussels, which is surrounded by Brabant (though Brussels does not directly border Walloon Brabant, which is several km to the south of Brussels); Prague, which is surrounded by the Central Bohemian Region; and Addis Ababba, which is surrounded by Oromia.
Beijing probably also belongs in this category: it is surrounded mostly by the province of Hebei but in two spots also by the city of Tianjin, which like Beijing is one of China's four "direct-controlled municipalities" (the other two are Shanghai and Chongqing). Tianjin was temporarily made part of Hebei province in the 1960s, and in recent years there has been much talk of increasing integration and cooperation between Beijing, Hebei, and Tianjin in order to form a sort of capital city macro-region, which is often referred to by the acronym Jingjinji.
Seoul in South Korea has a similar set-up to Beijing. It is surrounded almost entirely by the province of Gyeonggi, but also touches the coastal city-province of Incheon, in the same way that Beijing does the city-province of Tianjin:
Note by the way that South Korea has a number of city-provinces. Of these, only Gwangju, in the southwest, conforms fully to the "Argentine model".
Paris too may be included in this list; Paris is not itself a province, but it is surrounded on all sides by Ile de France, one of France's 13 regions. (Prior to the beginning of this year Ile de France was one of France's 22 regions, but these have since been reordered and reduced).
The American Model
Capitals which are their own unique administrative districts but lack their own single encircling province include Washington D.C. (which is surrounded by both Virginia and Maryland), Tokyo, London, Delhi; Mexico City, Bangkok, Tehran; Hanoi, Abuja (though Nigeria's largest city by far, Lagos, which was the capital until 1991, is an example of the Argentine model), Baghdad (which is surrounded by four other provinces), Manila, Jakarta, Madrid, Islamabad, Brasilia (though just barely …and the capital of Brazil prior to 1960 was Rio de Janeiro), Kinshasa, and Bogota (though in a relatively weird way; see map below, Bogota is the sliver between the departments of Cundinamarca – which Bogota is also the capital of – and Meta).
One feature that a number of these have in common is that, while the capital city's administrative district often borders two other provinces, it is usually surrounded much more by the less populous of the two other provinces. Notable examples of this include Washington D.C., which is surrounded much more by Maryland (population 5.9 million) than by Virginia (population 8.3 million); Delhi, which is surrounded much more by Haryana (25 million) than by Uttar Pradesh (205 million); and Brasilia, which is surrounded much more by Goias (6.5 million) than by Minas Gerais 21 million.
Capitals which do not fit this pattern, however, are Mexico City, where the federal capital district is surrounded much more by the state of Mexico (population 16 million) than by the state of Morelos (population 1.9 million); and Islamabad, which is surrounded much more by Punjab (population 91 million) than by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (population 27 million).
A number of non-capital cities, meanwhile, such as Hamburg, which is the most populous city in Germany apart from Berlin, fit into this category as well.
The Saudi Model
A capital city which is not its own unique province, but rather is part of an important province named after itself. Examples may include Riyadh, Stockholm, Dhaka, Santiago, and Ankara. Bern also could probably be on this list, but Bern is only the de facto capital of Switzerland; Switzerland has no de jure capital city.
The Canadian Model
Examples of countries in which the capital city is not its own unique independent unit may include Ottawa, Amsterdam, Rome, and Warsaw.
According to Wikipedia "two national capitals in federal countries are neither federal units [like provinces, states, etc.], special capital districts, nor capitals of federal units: Ottawa, the capital of Canada [because Toronto is the capital of Ontario, the province in which Ottawa is located], and Palikir, the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia". Ottawa is situated entirely within the province of Ontario, but also directly borders French-speaking Quebec.
Palikir
Please let me know if I've made a mistake on any of these; administrative divisions can be a bit complicated – and I can be a bit lazy.
North America, South America
The Coming US-Argentine Tango
14 Jan 2015 Joseph ShupacArgentina, brazil, Economy, geopolitics, international relations, latin america, lionel messi, messi, United States 1 Comment
Argentina has the world's 20th largest economy, 8th largest territory, and 30th largest population, according to the World Bank. Yet Americans have historically had little to do with the place. The United States and Argentina have never been close allies, nor have they been hated rivals. Today the two countries trade just $15 billion or so with one another: Argentina is just the seventh biggest trade partner of the US in Latin America, and the US is only the third biggest trade partner of Argentina. Most Americans cannot name a single Argentinian person, past or present. No, not even Lionel Messi!
There are a number of fairly straightforward reasons why the US and Argentina have not become too close to one another in the past. Interestingly, however, there are also a number of reasons why the US and Argentina might become quite close in the future. Given the size of both countries, any such move towards one another could represent a significant evolution in world affairs. Let's try to lay out the case for why this might happen, then, beginning by looking at some of the reasons why Argentina and the US have never been close in the past, and then moving on to why they might finally become so in the years or decades ahead:
Even in the modern world, there remains a strong correlation between physical distance and international trade. This correlation matters for trade between the US and Argentina, since the two countries are located on extreme opposite ends of the Western Hemisphere. The flight from New York City to Buenos Aires takes about 11 hours, for example; it is longer even than the flight from New York to Moscow, or from Buenos Aires to Johannasburg. Flying from Las Angeles or Chicago to Buenos Aires is longer still.
By ship, Argentina and the US are even further apart than they are by air, since the detour around Brazil (which juts far out into the Atlantic Ocean) adds an additional 2500 km or so to the trip from New York to Buenos Aires. That makes it about 30 percent further by ship than by plane. In addition to this detour around Brazil, the journey through the Panama Canal adds a significant amount of time, canal fees, and size limitations to container ships travelling from the US West Coast to Argentina. And taking an overland shortcut through Chile can still be very difficult for transporting bulk goods, as there are no railways or all-season roads which fully cross the Andes Mountains.
Argentina's trade is not only impacted by its physical isolation from the US, but also by its physical isolation from Europe and East Asia. Sailing from Buenos Aires to Shanghai, for instance, whether by going westward across the Pacific Ocean or eastward across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, is roughly two and half times further than sailing between Las Angeles and Shanghai. Sailing from Buenos Aires to Paris is around two times further than from New York to Paris. Partly as a result of this phsyical isolation, Argentina is not well-integrated into global trade networks.
In fact, Argentina's overall international imports and exports of goods are equal to just around 25 percent of its GDP, according to the World Bank. This is the second lowest share in the entire world among developing countries (see graph below). Plus, nearly a quarter of Argentina's trade is with Brazil, which is even less trade-oriented than Argentina is. Thus, in addition to not trading much with the US directly, Argentina also does not have much to do with the global commercial system as whole, and therefore also has few indirect commercial connections with the US.
[Note, by the way, that Argentina is an exception to two different trends displayed by this graph. The least trade dependent economies tend to be extremely large — like Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, and to a lesser extent Turkey and Mexico — and/or tend to have relatively low per capita incomes, like Nigeria, India, Indonesia, Colombia, Iran, and to a lesser extent China and Venezuela. These trends exist not only among the countries shown in this graph, but also throughout the world as a whole: the least trade dependent economies tend to be either giants like the US, Japan, and Brazil, or else are some of the most impoverished states in the world, like the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the Central African Republic. Argentina is neither extremely large nor relatively poor (it has a per capita nominal income of around $15,000, which is higher than the Latin American average and more than double that of China), yet it is still second from the bottom in terms of its dependence on trade — not only on the graph above, but also among all of the countries in the world, according to the World Bank].
2. Economics
Argentina's economy is driven to a decent extent by its farm output. According to the World Bank, Argentina has more arable land per capita than any country in the world apart from Australia, Canada, or Kazakhstan. Agricultural goods like corn, wheat, and especially soybeans account for well over a third of Argentina's net export revenues. It also produces the most beef of any country apart from the US, Brazil, China, or India.
This has historically put Argentina in direct competition with the United States, which in the past was an agriculturally-oriented society, and even today remains the world's largest producer of both soybeans and corn, and the world's largest exporter of grains in general. Though at present agricultural goods account for perhaps no more than 5 percent of US exports, they continue to play an outsized role in American politics, because their production is spread out across many different states, municipalities, congressional districts, etc. Thus, the US and Argentina continue to compete economically, to a certain degree.
It might be tempting to say that the same is true of Brazil, which is the world's second largest producer of soybeans and beef, and third largest producer of corn. But actually, most of Brazil's export revenues come from goods that are net imports of the United States and Argentina, such as oil, iron ore, coffee, and sugar. Partly because of this, in fact, Brazil exports approximately 7.5 times as much to the US as Argentina does, even though Brazil's overall exports are only 3.5 times larger than Argentina's overall exports.
3. Language
Because of the high utility of the Spanish language, Latin America is one of the worst regions in the world at speaking English. According to English First, "Latin America is the weakest [at speaking English] of all regions, with an average English proficiency score barely surpassing the low proficiency cut-off." (Spain, similarly, is far behind the other major countries in the European Union in terms of its English language proficiency). Argentina is no exception to this pattern. Only 6.5 percent or so of its population has a "high" level of English proficiency, according to this article.
In addition to serving as a commercial barrier between the two countries, the Spanish-English linguistic division has also helped keep the US and Argentina apart in the political sphere. Argentina's Spanish identity, for example, has given it ties to countries which the US has had rivalrous relations with in the past, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico (where the US invaded Mexico City during the 1840's, and Veracruz in 1914), Spain (which the US fought a globe-spanning war against in 1898, and which had a fascistic government during middle of the 20th century), Nicaragua (which the US occupied in the 1910s and 1920s, and supported guerillas in during the country's civil war in the 1980's), Panama (invaded by the US in 1885, and again in 1989), and others. America's English identity, similarly, has helped given it relatively close ties to Britain, which Argentina fought a war against in 1982 over the Falkland Islands, resulting in more than 900 deaths.
4. Geopolitics
While today Argentina is generally seen as being an insignificant country when compared to its larger neighbour Brazil, this was not always the case. As recently as the 1950s, Argentina's economy was actually estimated to be larger than Brazil's. Brazil aslo used to be much more internally divided along both regional and racial lines than it is today (and even today it is highly divided along both regional and racial lines), in relative contrast to Argentina where the population and political power was more closely unified. Indeed, rather than Brazil, it was Argentina and even Chile which were the major military and naval powers native to the region until at least the early part of the 20th century. Plus, because Brazil spoke Portuguese rather than Spanish, its potential influence within the rest of Latin America or Spain seemed comparatively limited. Many therefore predicted that Argentina, not Brazil, would wind up emerging as South America's "Great Power".
Of course, the US does not take too kindly to fellow Great Power hopefuls. Thus, it saw no reason to become too chummy with Argentina, particularly following Argentina's relative victory over Brazil in a war for Uruguay in the 1820's, and Argentina's decisive victory over Paraguay during the 1860's (in a war in which arguably 90 percent of Paraguay's entire male population died, making it perhaps the deadliest war for a country in modern history). When, for example, the US convened the first-ever International Conference of American States – the precursor to today's Organization of American States – in 1890, hoping to implement a hemipshere-spanning trade union and formal political network, the conference resulted in feuding between Argentina and the US, and to a lesser extent between Chile and the US, which prevented the US's political goals from being realized.
Argentina later irked the US during the begining and middle of the 20th century when, partly as a result of the fact that its population had some significant Italian and to a lesser extent German roots, it took a relatively sympathetic position toward US's adversaries in the World Wars. To this day, Americans often associate Argentina with its providing of shelter to prominent Nazis fleeing Germany following the end of the war. Following the end of the war in 1945, in fact, the United States even briefly tried to keep Argentina out of the newly-created United Nations. Brazil, in contrast, was the only independent South American country to send soldiers to fight on the side of the Allies during the war.
Later still, during the Cold War, the Soviets hoped to gain influence in Latin America to serve as leverage against the United States. While the US was mainly concerned with the close-to-home governments, geurillas, or criminal organizations in places like Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, and Central America, the bond between Latin American nations meant that the US often viewed the left-wing governments of countries further south, like Chile (such as that of Salvador Allende, who was killed in 1973 in a military coup sponsored by the CIA) and Argentina (such as that of Isabel Peron, who was toppled in 1976 in a military coup that may have been sponsored or supported by the US government), as potential threats as well.
Argentina and the US are in some ways exact opposites of one another in terms of their political culture and internal geopolitical structure. In the US, no single region holds a majority of national economic power; rather, the country's economic activity is spread out among a number of different influential regions, such as California, Texas, Florida, the Northeast, the Midwest, the South, and so on. The largest urban area in the US, in and around New York City, only has around 5-10 percent of the country's total population, while the largest region, the Greater Northeast, only has around 15-20 percent.
Even within the US's Greater Northeast region, economic power and influence is spread out between a sizeable number of major states, all of which have had their own unique assets — politics in Washington, finance and culture in New York, education and technology in Massachusetts, coal and natural gas in Pennsylvania, shipping and gambling in New Jersey, manufacturing in Michigan and Ohio, services and agriculture in Ilinois, etc. — as well as their own natural harbours on the Atlantic Ocean or Great Lakes with which they have historically been able to engage with the outside world. Divisions like these have arguably made it difficult for a powerful central government to form within the United States.
Argentina is perhaps the extreme counter-example of this sort of highly diffuse American system. The Buenos Aires urban area, which is the political, cultural, financial, and commercial capital of the country, is home to approximately one-third of Argentina's overall population. Another 15 percent or so of Argentina's population lives within the general area around Buenos Aires. No other metropolitan area in Argentina has a population that is even more than 10-15 percent as large as Buenos Aires' is.
[Update: In Argentina's presidential elections this past October, the two candidates were the leaders of the province of Buenos Aires and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, respectively].
In addition to this, a large majority of both Argentina's entire population and farmland is located within river basins that empty into the Atlantic at precisely the spot where Buenos Aires is located (see maps below), and the produce of these farmlands is transported almost entirely along these rivers. The farmland of Paraguay, Uruguay, and even of significant areas of Brazil is also located within this basin. Moreover, most of the Argentinian population within this basin is highly dependent on Buenos Aires to ship its produce to international markets, because there are few other natural harbours to serve as ports in northern Argentina apart from the Rio de la Plata Estuary in which Buenos Aires (and Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay) is situated.
As such, any government that is able to control Buenos Aires and the region around it faces relatively little challenge in controlling the entire country — at least, absent interference by a foreign power or neighbouring state. Buenos Aires is, in fact, probably quite a bit more influential within Argentina than even cities like London, Paris, or Moscow are within Britain, France, or Russia. Partly as a result of this, Argentina has often seen a lot of "European-style" Big Government, as opposed to "American-style" libertarianistic government. This Argentinian style did not much please the US during its Cold War against the Soviet Union, when Americans saw themselves as being locked in a struggled against centralized socialistic styles of government, which Argentina possessed in an on-and-off fashion prior to the military junta that seized formal control of the country between 1976 and 1983. Argentina also experienced military coups in 1943, 1955, 1962, and 1966.
Even today, Argentina's government continues to support poltical and economic policies Americans think of as illiberal and overweening, such as high trade tarrifs and high government subsidies of commodities like water and gas. Similarly, the Argentinian government is overwhelmingly viewed by America's investor class as being populist, corrupt, and dishonest brokers in longstanding disputes over the repayment of Argentina's foreign debts. In these sorts of ways, the sharp divisions in political culture between the US and Argentina have perhaps contributed to the two countries' continuing relative estrangement from one another.
10 Reasons Argentina and the US could finally become close in the future:
1. The Decline of Distance
While the influence of distance on trade remains large, it is already much smaller than it once was in the past, and may continue becoming smaller in the years or decades ahead. As was alluded to earlier, cheaper air travel could be especially likely to help boost US-Argentine ties, since the distance between the two countries by air is significantly shorter than it is by sea. The Internet is obviously another potential driver behind the potentially declining economic importance of distance — making the fact that Argentina may have the first or second highest rates of Internet access in Latin America, and among the highest in the entire developing world – especially noteworthy. Around 60-75 percent of Argentina's population is estimated to hae Internet access, up from just 20 percent a decade ago.
Given that linguistic ties will perhaps be very important in allowing for Internet-based economic or social connections to take place, the Internet could also help create indirect ties between Argentina and the US via Mexico and the countries of the Caribbean basin, which are already close to the US commercially and socially even without the Internet. More importantly, it could create direct ties between Argentina and the US as a result of the growing ubiquity and importance of the Spanish language within the United States itself. Which brings us to point number two:
2. Spanish in the United States
As a result of the American immigration boom of the relatively recent past (see graph below), the Hispanic population in the US is currently estimated at 55 million, which means that it is actually larger than Argentina's entire population is. An estimated 40 million Hispanic Americans speak Spanish at home, up from just 17 million in 1990. US Hispanic populations have a median income estimated at around $40,000 (not far from three times higher than Argentina's) — compared to $52,000 for the United States as a whole.
Even if the US's high rates of immigration from Latin America were to decrease, the number of Hispanic Americans in higher-paying jobs and in the workforce in general would continue to grow quickly over the next few decades, as a result of the fact that there are many Hispanic children, teenagers, and 20-30 year olds in the country. The estimated median age for US Hispanics is 27 years old, for example, compared to 37 years old for the country as a whole. Most Hispanic children and teenagers are American born and raised, and are therefore much more likely than their parents or grandparents to possess the social connections, English language skills, and educational qualifications that are often the prerequisites to achieving financial success in the United States.
Hispanic Americans have also been living mostly within relatively wealthy or fast-growing US economies, such as Texas, California, New York City, Washington D.C., Washington state, Colorado, etc. If the economic and political clout of Hispanics in the US continues to grow, it may create opportunities for Spanish-speaking countries like Argentina to forge greater economic linkages with it. As was mentioned above, this relationship is likely to be particularly significant because of they continued spread and increased ubiquity and sophistication of the Internet. Online connections between Spanish-speakers in the US and Argentina could increase not only in direct terms, but also indirectly via Spanish-speakers in countries like Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
As for Argentinians living in the US, there are only about a quarter of a million. However, this number has been growing: around 60 percent of Argentinian-Americans arrived in the US after 1990, and most came since Argentina's economic crash in 2001. Most live in Florida, California, or New York. Given that about a quarter of Argentinian-Americans live in Flordia, and that they are significantly more wealthy than the general Hispanic-American population, it is actually theoretically possible that they could play an important role in deciding the outcome of a US presidential election.
3. Containing Brazil
Argentina may have had a slightly larger economy than Brazil back in the 1950s or 1960s, but that is hardly the case today. Brazil's economy has grown to become the world's sixth or seventh largest, both in nominal terms and adjusted for purchasing power. It is close to quadruple the size of Argentina's and ten times that of Venezuela's (Brazil's next largest neighbour). Brazil's population, meanwhile, is the fifth largest in the world, around five times larger than Argentina's and almost two-thirds as large as the US's. And of course, Brazil's territory remains enormous, nearly as large as the US's, Canada's, or China's, and triple the size of Argentina's.
Brazil has the world's largest resources of freshwater and biodiversity, and it is the second largest producer of soybeans and iron ore, the third largest oil producer outside of the Middle East or North America, and the largest producer of coffee, sugar, raw tobacco, meat products, fruit juice, wood pulp, and a number of other commodities. Brazil has also become the world's seventh largest motor vehicle manufacturer. (Argentina, meanwhile, is the 19th largest motor vehicle producer; the per capita motor vehicle production of Argentina and Brazil is about the same).
In the past, Brazil's economy has been hurt by the difficulty of developing its challenging terrain, unifying its disparate regions, accessing the far-away markets of North America, Europe, and Asia, and overcoming its racial and class divisions (Brazil arguably has the most class-based income inequality of any major country, and, relatedly, was the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery, in 1888). If, however, Brazil can overcome these challenges, perhaps helped by technological advances to do so, it could maybe become a great power in the decades ahead. Notably, unlike in other Great Power aspirants, such as the former Soviet Union, India, or even China, the internal regional divisions in Brazil are not overlain by internal linguistic divisions or milleania-old historical divisions. Nearly 100% of Brazilians speak Portuguese.
If Brazil does end up becoming a Great Power, a US-Argentine relationship would probably form to try and contain it. A powerful Brazil would almost by definition make Argentina feel threatened, for a number of reasons including that Brazil's influence in Uruguay – a country of just 3 million people, which was part of Brazil until Brazil lost a war to Argentina in the 1820's – would put it much too close to Buenos Aires for Argentina to feel comfortable with.
From the US's perspective, meanwhile, if a Brazil was able to eventually take control of Argentinian politics – whether formally or informally – it might be able to use Argentina's resources (and also Uruguay's, Paraguay's, and Bolivia's) to become more powerful still. Given that Brazil also has ties to the rest of Latin America and Spain, since Portuguese and Spanish are really not all that different, such a move could theoretically allow Brazil to become a rival global superpower to the United States. The US would almost certainly not want to take the chance of allowing that to happen, and so would probably prefer to ally itself closely with Argentina to begin with to make sure that it never does.
4. Shale Gas
Today, an estimated 40% of US natural gas production (and the US produces the most natural gas in the world) comes from shale deposits, as does 15% of Canadian natural gas production (and Canada produces the world's fourth most natural gas). And yet, because of the various challenges associated with shale production, no country in the world apart from the US or Canada produces any significant quantity of shale energy. And even US and Canadian shale production only began in earnest less than a decade ago.
Going forward, it may be that there will be diminishing returns in the US and Canadian shale gas production industries, such that their production costs will rise over time in comparison to the potential production costs of shale gas deposits in other countries. This could make American energy companies – the only ones with the expertise required to produce significant quantities of shale gas – look abroad for gas to develop. Outside of North America, the two largest shale gas reserves are thought to be in China and Argentina. Argentina is also thought to have the fourth highest shale oil reserves, behind only the US, Russia, and China.
Developing China's shale gas reserves could be difficult for American companies, not only because of potential political barriers between the two countries, but also because of China's high population density and shortage of freshwater (which fracking uses intensively) in some of its gas-rich regions, and because China's basins are is in many cases more difficult to develop from a geological standpoint than American ones are. Developing shale reserves in Russia could also be very difficult for US companies.
Argentina, on the other hand, seems like a relatively favourable location for shale gas production. Argentina also wants to boost its gas production, since in recent years its demand for gas has outpaced its domestic supply, forcing it to become dependent on imports from Bolivia. And it has the gas pipelines to do so in place already, since it is has long been a major conventional gas producer (it produces around 13 times more natural gas per capita than China does). This is important, since natural gas cannot be transported in trucks, trains, or barges, like oil and coal can, but instead must have pipelines to move from the site of production to the markets of consumption. Argentina could perhaps become the next mecca for American energy companies, therefore. Chevron has already gotten the ball rolling on this, investing over a billion dollars in the country in 2013.
5. Mexico, the Carribbean, Central America, and Spain
Argentina may be located on the oppopsite site of the globe from the United States, but Mexico, the Carribbean islands, Central America, and to a lesser extent the northern countries of South America and Spain are not. If these Spanish-speaking countries can become closer to the United States, it could create closer indirect ties between Argentina and the US (though, of course, the reverse of this is also true: if Mexico and the United States were to have a falling out as a result of drug trafficking or immigration issues, for example, it could potentially damage US-Argentinian relations in an indirect way). So, in what ways could these countries be likely to become closer to the US in the years ahead?
One area, of course, is outsourcing. In recent decades, when the United States was looking to save money by outsourcing its manufacturing base, it frequently chose to do so in China. Today, however, Chinese exports are increasingly expensive, and the US increasingly views China as a potential rival. It may be that the US will need to find new locations to outsource to in place of eastern China. Many see India as the likely candidate for this, and maybe they are right; however, the fact is that India, because of its intense regional internal complexities, lacks the political and commercial economies of scale that helped make China (and Japan, and Northeast Asia as a whole) such a significant exporter to the US during the past half century or so. Moreover, unlike Northeast Asia, India is located far closer to wealthy consumers in Europe, East Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Australia than it is to the US, so it may be that its economic ties will mainly be to those areas, rather than to North America. The US, then, may find that Mexico, Central America, and the Carribbean are the economies most likely to become its "next China".
Mexico is already well along this path. Its exports to the US have benefited not only from cost increases in China, but also from the Texas shale gas boom, which, because gas cannot be shipped cheaply overseas like oil can, the Texans have been exporting huge amounts to Mexico, which has been helping to keep the cost of Mexican electricity relatively competitive. US exports to Mexico are up almost 450 percent since 1993 (when NAFTA was finalized), while Mexican exports to the US is up more than 600 percent since 1993.
Meanwhile, if the US and Cuba can finally mend fences, it could also obviously be a huge development, since Cuba is not only the largest Caribbean state, but is also located much closer to the US than any other. Given how slowly container ships move, this proximity to US markets could be very important for companies that are using "just-in-time" logistics – as more have increasingly been doing as a result of the ability to use sophisticated computer programs to organize logistical networks. Indeed, any move toward "just-in-time" logistics would help grow US trade with Mexico and the Carribbean in general.
The proximity of this region to the US could also help it to grow its American and Canadian tourist industry, which for a number of reasons could increase a lot in the future. (For example, because of the growing number of American retirees, or the possibility of growing seasonal American unemployment as a result of job automation, or the increasing ease of being away from home for longer amounts of time because the Internet). In 2014, just under three-quarters of the estimated 68 million US tourist visits abroad were to countries within the Americas.
Trade between South America and the US, meanwhile, could also increase because of possible changes in technology. If, for example, machines allow North America to take back much of the world's manufacturing industry from Asia, it could cause countries like Peru, Chile, and Colombia to export more of their mineral resources northward to the US instead of halfway across the world to Asia. Similarly, the development of once-remote African, Siberian, or Central Asian mineral resources could lead Asian (and European) manufacturers to rely less on South American natural resources than they do today, which could also free them up to be sold to the United States instead.
It is probably also worth mentioning that in the past generation there has been a huge religious shift within Latin America, and particularly within Central America, whereby tens of millions of people who were raised Catholic have switched to become Protestant evangelicals (or, to a lesser extent, to become religiously unaffiliated or atheistic). The share of Protestant evangelicalism has risen from an estimated 4 to 19 percent of Latin America's population since 1970. Given that more than 50 percent of the US population is Protestant, and that maybe 25 percent are Evangelical, this religious shift might influence relations between the US and Latin America to some degree. In Argentina, meanwhile, an estimated 15 percent of people are now Protestant, more than half of them new converts. Argentina's population also has the highest rates of secular or atheistic people in Latin America apart from Uruguay, Chile, or the Dominican Republic, also giving it something in common with the "developed" world.
Finally, US ties to Spain will perhaps remain relatively close during the decades ahead. One reason for this is that the US is highly dependent upon Spain's Strait of Gibraltar in order access to the Mediterranean Sea (and by extension, to access the Indian Ocean and the Black Sea). Another is that the US may want a strong ally in Europe in addition to Britain, in order to keep any potential relationships between major continental European powers like Germany, Russia, and France in check. Spain is arguably a likely candidate to become this ally, since Spain's economic ties with Germany and Russia are very small compared to, say, Italy's, France's, or Turkey's ties with Germany and Russia. Moreover, Spain has a potential connection to Spanish-speakers in the US, and it already has a relatively significant economic relationship with Britain (and could become by far the main destination for British Baby Boomer retirees in the coming years). Indeed, Spain has already been one of the US's main European allies in modern times, for example sending more troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq than any European country apart from Britain, Poland, Italy, or the Netherlands.
6. Food Exports
As was mentioned earlier in the article, Argentina and the US have often been economic competitors of one another in the past, as a result of both being major food exporting nations. Today they are still competitors in global food markets, though because the US economy is no longer as agriculturally-oriented as it once was, they do not always compete to the same extent as they used to in the past. If Argentina could reduce its dependence on agricultural exports as well, it could further cause the level of economic competition between the two countries to fall. Of course, the reverse of this is true as well: if Argentina and the US are able to increase their agricultural exports, they would maybe become more competitive with one another again.
One area to watch here is biofuels. Both the US and Argentina (but especially the US) are world leaders in biofuel production, and both might try to increase their biofuel production going forward in order reduce their dependence on oil imports and reduce their carbon emissions. Already, for example, about 40 percent of the US's world-leading corn production is used to create ethanol, which accounts for around 10 percent of the fuels used by American vehicles. Argentina's overall biofuel production is lower than the US's, but its per capita biofuel production is quite a bit higher than the US's.
If biofuels become the next big thing in "renewable" energy production, such that Argentina and the United States start using much more of their corn and soybean production to create biofuels to use domestically in their transportation sectors, then they will probably not be exporting nearly as much food as they do today, and so will not be competing as much with one another economically. If, on the other hand, their biofuel production decreases, then they could start competing with one another more in global food markets again.
Finally, in the decades ahead world food markets could perhaps be transformed by technology. If new technologies allow countries with a lot of remote, under-developed, or "unconventional" farmland – like Kazakstan, Russia, Brazil, Australia, Africa, etc.. – to become major grain exporters for the first time, or if it allows countries with little farmland but a lot of capital – like Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.. – to become larger grain exporters, then countries that have historically dominated global grain exports, like the US (along with Canada) and Argentina (along with Paraguay and Uruguay), could find themselves in a much more diverse global food marketplace. If more countries turn in to major food exporters (which in fact did happen during the decade of the 2000's, for instance with the quadrupling of Brazilian soybean exports, which led to increased Argentinian-Brazilian economic competition), it could potentially reduce the level of competition between Argentina and the US.
7. Bridging the Andes
Argentina and Chile are the second and fourth largest economies in South America and the 48th and 50th richest countries in the world in terms of their per capita nominal GDP. They both speak Spanish, and they share a land border that is more than 5000 km long, the third longest border between any two countries in the world. Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires is only 900 km from Chile's capital of Santiago, while Argentina's fourth largest city, Mendoza, is just 150 km from Santiago.
In contrast, Santiago is 2500-3000 km from Sao Paolo (Brazil's largest city by far), Rio de Jaenaro (Brazil's second largest city by far), or Lima (Peru's largest city, and the second largest city in South America). It is 1400-1800 km from the largest cities of Paraguay and Bolivia, and 4200-4800 km from the largest cities of Colombia and Venezeula. In addition to their physical proximity, both Argentina and Chile could also potentially use one another as very significant short-cuts in order to access the Pacific Ocean (for Argentina) or the Atlantic Ocean (for Chile).
And yet, Argentina and Chile actually do not have all that much to do with one another. There is some trade and travel between the two countries, but not nearly as much as one might think. The reason for this is that the Andes Mountains sit in between the two countries, and they are such a formidable barrier that, even today, there are no railways or all-season roads that cross them. The lack of railways between the two countries is especially significant, because Argentina and Chile mainly produce bulk goods like grains (for Argentina) and minerals (for Chile), neither of which can be transported long distances efficiently by truck in most cases.
In the future it might be that Argentina and Chile will overcome the Andes, whether through a tunnel with a railway through it (which they are hoping to finally build within the next decade), or by air travel becoming cheaper (whether passenger flights or cargo flights), or by more reliable mountain roads being constructed and maintained, or by cyberspace becoming more important, or by gas pipelines (which already exist — see map below) exporting more of Argentina's natural gas to Chile's gas-hungry economy. If this were to happen, the two countries might form a very close relationship. Though it is not likely to result in their fusing to become a single country, the future synergy between Chile and Argentina (Chargentina?) might become extremely significant.
This could have an affect on US-Argentina relations, for several reasons. First, the US could see Argentina-Chilean cooperation as being worhty of political engaegement, since a connection with Chile could help Argentina to more successfully ensure that Brazil never becomes a great global power. Second, a railway linking Chile to Argentina could do a lot to help boost trade between Argentina and the US West Coast. From Chile's northern commercial port of Antofogasta to Las Angeles by sea, for example, is less than half the distance from Argentina's northern port of Buenos Aires to Las Angeles via the Panama Canal. Antofagasta to Las Angeles is even shorter than from Buenos Aires to Miami.
Lastly, a connection between Argentina and Chile could create an indirect connection between Argentina and the US. This is because the Chilean economy is much more closely integrated with the US economy than Argentina is. Whereas in Argentina trade with the US only accounts for about 8 percent of total Argentinian trade, and Argentina's total trade only accounts for about 25 percent of Argentina's GDP, in Chile trade with the US accounts for about 16 percent of total Chilean trade, and Chile's total trade accounts for an estimated 56 percent of Chile's GDP. In other words, Chile's trade with the US relative to the size of its GDP is more than four times as large as Argentina's is.
Even leaving Chile aside, Argentina could also find the Andes Mountains less imposing in the future because of the completion of the large expansion to the Panama Canal, which is expected to finally be complete (after having been delayed several times) in 2016. The expansion is supposed to allow ships carrying up to arount 13,000 containers to use the canal, up from around 5000 containers today. The expansion could help Argentina access the US West Coast, and could help Pacific Latin American countries, like Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and El Salvador, access the eastern half of the US. Similarly, improvements in the overland intermodal transport networks of countries like the US, Mexico, Panama, or Costa Rica could help in trade between the two sides of the American continent, which could have both a direct and an indirect positive influence on US-Argentinian trade.
8. The Falkland Islands
In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands (which it calls the Malvinas Islands), prompting a war with Britain, which successfully counter-invaded the islands. Around 900 people were killed. Though certain elements of the US government (including, arguably, then-president Reagan) were sympathetic to the Argentinians claim on the islands, the US ultimately supported Britain in the war, hurting US-Argentine relations.
Today the Falklands is still a tense issue in British-Argentinian relations. However, as the population of Britain is now another generation removed from its grand imperial past (remember, even as late as the 1970's Britain still formally had a pretty huge empire), and as Argentina is no longer ruled by an intensley right-wing military junta as it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the war occured, and as the Falklands/Malvinas Islands are only home to fewer than three thousand people to begin with, it seems possible that it will become less and less problematic of an issue going forward.
If Britain and Argentina can finally manage to sort out the Islands issue, it might help to boost US-Argentina relations. In fact, even if Argentina and Britain cannot sort out the issue without another conflict, US-Argentinian relations could perhaps improve if the Argentinians become pleasantly surprised by US neutrality (or perhaps even outright support for Argentina) in any future spat (or war) over the islands.
9. The Antarctic Connection
World maps tend to be somewhat misleading, since they often tend to make areas nearer to the north and south poles – like Greenland, for example – a lot larger than they actually are in the real world. This stretching applies to Argentina too, since Buenos Aires is acually located further south than Cape Town in South Africa or Sydney in Australia. The southernmost provinces of Argentina are about 2000 km further south than Africa or Australia, in fact, and they are several hundred km south of southern New Zealand. A similar thing is true of Chile: Santiago is situated at roughly the same latutide as Buenos Aires is, and southern Chile extends about as far south as southern Argentina does.
One of the effects of this is that the distance between Argentina and the other southernmost countries in the world, namely Australia, South Africa, especially New Zealand, can be a lot less than it appears. Looking at a two-dimensional map, for instance, one would probably assume that northern Argentina is a lot closer to South Africa than southern Argentina is. But in fact, southern Argentina is actually slightly closer to South Africa than northern Argentina is. Both are only around 7000 km from South Africa, which means that by sea Argentina is actually closer to South Africa than Argentina is to Venezuela or Colombia. Indeed, from southern Argentina to South Africa is more than twice as close by sea as is the distance between southern Argentina and Europe.
Similarly, even though New Zealand is often considered a part of Asia, the distance by air from Buenos Aires to central New Zealand is actually about the exact same as from central New Zealand to Shanghai, while the flight from southern Argentina to southern New Zealand is about 1.5 shorter than from New Zealand to Beijing. The flight from Melbourne or Sydney in Australia to Buenos Aires, meanwhile, is only about 1.5 times further than from Melbourne or Sydney to Shanghai, and is around the same as from Melbourne or Sydney to Mumbai. Sydney is around 9000 km from southern Argentina by air, whereas New York City is around 1600 km from Sydney by air.
Thus, anything that would reduce air cargo costs and the safety costs associated with flying over the Antarctic ice could be significant in increasing the interactivity between these Antarctic-region countries. In fact, the most direct route between Argentina and western Australia is by flying basically over the South Pole itself. Even by sea, however, by rounding the southern cape of South America, Buenos Aires is about as close to New Zealand as New Zealand is from Shanghai (and quite a bit closer than to Beijing or Seoul), and Buenos Aires is only about 1.5 times further from Australia as Australia is from Shanghai.
If Argentina becomes much closer than it is today to South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand – each a significant member of the global "Anglosphere" – it could perhaps help bring Argentina indirectly closer to the United States. In addition, and perhaps even more importantly, the US continues to have some very significant strategic military interests in various parts of the region around Antarctica: in particular, the US navy wants to ensure that it continues to have access to the route around the southern cape of Argentina and Chile, since its aircraft carriers are too large to pass through the Panama Canal or the Northwest Passage to move between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
There are some other reasons to think that Argentina might become somewhat more closely entwined with these countries. In the case of South Africa, most of Argentina's exports (which are mostly of food) pass directly by its shores on their way to food importing nations in the Arab world and southern Asia. In addition, South Africa's chief regional rival is Angola, a Portuguese-speaking country that was often the world's fastest growing economy during the past decade or so, and which has potential pan-Portuguese ties with Argentina's potential rival, Brazil (and to a lesser extent with Mozambique, which is South Africa's most populous next-door neighbour by far). It is not unthinkable that a South Africa-Argentina relationship would form to counter a Brazil-Angola one.
Argentina could also potentially become closer with South Africa and Australia if Argentina finally uses its wealth to develop a large industrial base, since South Africa and Australia are both huge exporter of various minerals. Or, if Argentina finally mends its relationship with Britain over the Falklands; during the Falklands war, for example, even then-apartheid-era South Africa cut off diplomatic ties with Argentina, and did not resume them for nearly a decade. Also, if Australia's severe water shortage risks eventually turn it from a net exporter of grains to a major net importer of grains, it could lead to a much larger trade relationship between the two countries.
Finally, because of the relative proximity between areas of the Antarctic region, if the southern halves of Argentina and southern Chile could be developed economically on a significant scale for the first time, perhaps through the use of new technologies like water desalination (southern Argentina is arid), wind power (southern Argentina is one of the windiest places on the planet), machine-intensive development (southern Argentina lacks a significant labour force because it is sparsely populated, but it is also resource rich), or cheaper air travel (southern Argentina and Chile have huge tourist potential, yet are very remote, and in many cases are also highly mountainous and archipelagic), it might have a positive influence on their economic interaction with fellow Antarctic-region economies in South Africa, southern Australia, and New Zealand.
10. Political Convergences
Earlier we talked about how Argentina's and the United States' geo-economic and political systems are in a certain sense complete opposites of one another, with Argentina being highly centralized around northern Argentina in general and Buenos Aires in particular, and with the US being extraordinarily diffuse by comparison. However, this could be changing in both countries, because of technology. In the US, technology may be serving to bring the country's disparate regions closer together – as communication has already become easy because of the Internet, and travel could perhaps become much easier in the future as well. Technology might allow the US to overcome its de-centralized geography to become somewhat more centralized, in other words.
In Argentina, conversely, technology could perhaps allow the country to overcome its centralized geography to become somewhat more de-centralized, if, for example, it empowers Argentinian individuals, businesses, or other groups, allows northern Argentina to become somewhat less dependent on Buenos Aires, or allows for the development of regions – such as the Andes regions and southern Argentina – that in the past have not had significant economies. If technology allows the US to become more centralized and Argentina less centralized, the two countries might start to have more in common in terms of political culture. In turn, this could perhaps help them finally become closer to one another.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Church is located on East Tropicana Ave. nar Sandhill Road about a 1/4 mile from the US 95 expressway. Please arrive at least five minutes early.
Our organization does not offer placement or sale of any pets at our weekly support group meeting.


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Home > Style > Fashion > Burberry transforms Jeju Island with a mirrored mountain from the future
Burberry transforms Jeju Island with a mirrored mountain from the future
Pameyla Cambe
As many travellers to South Korea can attest, Jeju Island is a sight to behold. Now, you can do so a hundred times over, thanks to a new installation by Burberry.
The British fashion brand has set up a massive, temple-like sculpture dubbed "Imagined Landscapes", right at the heart of South Korea's island paradise. With its reflective façade, the futuristic structure seems to merge with its natural environment, mirroring the skies overhead and the greenery all around it.
Imagined Landscapes sits right at the foot of the Halla mountain; visitors can take in the view from a dedicated platform overlooking the Sanbang mountain and the South Shore. TikTok users can also enhance the sculpture through a special AR lens that fills the sky with sharks.
(Photo credit: Burberry)
Inside Burberry's mirrored mountain
It's safe to say that Burberry's installation is unlike anything Jeju Island has seen before. In fact, Imagined Landscapes is one of the brand's many pop-up spaces around the world that hopes to blur "the lines between nature and technology, the indoors and outdoors, the real and the imagined."
The contrast becomes more obvious inside Burberry's mirrored mountain, where visitors will be immersed in cinematic films by artists Maotik, Cao Yuxi, Lia Jiayu. Each have created unique virtual worlds that visitors can interact with and get lost in through the surrounding screens.
Of course, visitors will also be able to shop. Within the space, Burberry has launched a series of outerwear pieces, including its iconic trench coat, made with a new type of gabardine. The technical fabric, crafted in the UK, is water-resistant and lightweight, resulting in clothes that are ideal for the outdoors.
Inside a digital room at Imagined Landscapes. (Photo credit: Burberry)
Burberry's café comes to South Korea
Imagined Landscapes offers something new for both tourists and locals. The latter will finally get to experience Thomas's Café, Burberry's very own dining destination, which was previously only available in London and at the brand's flagship store in Shenzhen, China.
While the café is very much inspired by the heritage of Burberry, with its beige palette and animal motifs, it also pays homage to its new location. The café will be helmed by Seoul-based pastry chef Justin Lee from JL Dessert Bar, who will whip up an assortment of sweet treats.
Burberry is also giving back to Jeju Island in a more significant way: the luxury brand has partnered with the local non-profit organisation Jeju Olle Foundation, and will invest in maintaining the South Korean island's scenic trails for the next five years. It's one of the many efforts that the fashion brand has made to preserve the environment (another example being that its new Imagined Landscapes experience is certified carbon neutral).
When should you travel to Imagined Landscapes?
Following a launch event that included South Korean stars Cha Eunwoo and Lee Dahee, as well as K-Pop girl group ITZY, Imagined Landscapes is now open to the public. The installation runs until 12 December, which covers Jeju Island's transition from autumn to winter.
Book your flight tickets now if you don't want to get there when it's too chilly. Still, if you get cold, you can always count on a Burberry jacket to keep you warm.
Header photo credit: Burberry
Burberry Jeju Island
Pameyla Cambe is a fashion and jewellery writer who believes that style and substance shouldn't be mutually exclusive. She makes sense of the world through Gothic novels, horror films and music. Lots of music.
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The Batman: Arkham Knight gameplay was hinted at once again when Rocksteady gave some ideas what the Dark Knight's wonderful toys can do this time. Many of the staples will be returning, such as the Batarang, the grapnel gun, and the line launcher, and some new gadgets are most likely on their way.
We've known about one of the new gadgets for months now. The Batmobile may be more of a mode of transportation, but that doesn't make it any less versatile than most of Batman's arsenal. Rocksteady Social Marketing Manager Gaz Deaves revealed some of the enticing aspects of the iconic car.
It sounds like the Batmobile will be much more than just a car, giving the Batman: Arkham Knight gameplay a boost in some interesting ways. It might be used to attack from a distance, as seen in Asylum when he took down Bane, or possibly to scale buildings like he did in Batman Forever.
Deaves added that the returning gadgets will have more functionality due to the height and scope of Gotham City in Arkham Knight's stomping grounds. There will be skyscrapers this time, much like in Origins, so many gadgets will be given mid-flight controls. Deaves went on to emphasize how these wonderful toys will enhance the Batman: Arkham Knight gameplay.
"One of the best things about working with Batman is thinking of new ways to use gadgets to solve problems. We haven't talked about the new gadgets that we're adding to Batman's utility belt yet, but on top of all the new tools you'll have access to, one of the things we wanted to do this time is expand on how some of our classic Arkham gadgets can be deployed.
It sounds like navigation in Arkham Knight is taking a queue from games like Saints Row 4 and Prototype, just more realistically.
What kind of new gadgets do you think will be added to the Batman: Arkham Knight gameplay? Get ready to play with the Caped Crusader's wonderful toys once again on the Batman: Arkham Knight release date of June 2.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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The Regulatory Affairs unit manages the registration and updating of marketing authorization (MA) records of products registered in France. It verifies product advertising, packaging, and in general, the application of the texts relating to the French Public Health Code.
The Quality Assurance unit implements a quality management system. It manages pharmaceutical statutes on the sites of Courbevoie (headquarters) and la Chaussée St-Victor (industrial site). It ensures compliance of internal and external (subcontracting) practices with the current regulations.
The DMOS unit ensures compliance with the DMOS law called "anti-gift law" which governs the relationships between health professionals and companies. It is responsible for submitting applications to official bodies and provides training to collaborators.
The Pharmacovigilance unit monitors and prevents the risk of adverse events.
The Medical Information unit disseminates scientific and medical information relevant to the proper use of the company medicinal products.
and on the other hand, external and internal communication.
The operational departments are intended to strengthen our presence with Health stakeholders, and our expertise in our therapeutic areas, including in Pulmonology.
A "Retail" Business Unit which brings together the promotional (including networks of Medical Sales Representatives for general practitioners and specialists) and Marketing teams, dedicated to the promotion of our products intended for private practices, first in the respiratory field but also in malnutrition.
The Business Knowledge and Customer Strategy Directorate aims to handle knowledge of our environment, our customers and our markets, as well as the efficiency of our organization to define the strategy for our company to optimize its performance on the French pharmaceutical market.
The "Business Knowledge" Pole brings together the activities of Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE), market studies, and Business Development. Its role is to provide the most appropriate marketing strategy for each customer and for each product in their competitive landscape.
The "Customer Strategy" Pole brings together the activities of Customer Relationship Management / Close Loop Marketing (CRM/CLM) and analysis of all operations around a customer. Its role is to suggest recommendations on the means to be implemented to optimize communication with its customers.
The factory, built in 1992 is located at la CHAUSSEE ST-VICTOR (41).
The factory is specialized in the manufacture of medicinal products in powder form and the packaging of aerosol and dry forms and has a production capacity of 20 million units.
It has become the main factory of the group for manufacturing and packaging a device for powder inhalation for the treatment of respiratory diseases.
It supplies the French (30%) and international (70%) markets, in particular the German, English, Belgian, Italian and Spanish subsidiaries of the CHIESI Group.
The Medical Affairs Directorate led the medical strategy of the subsidiary taking into account the global strategic issues and in compliance with the ethics and regulation. This directorate interfaces with many partners: internally, the Global and especially the R&D, the key operational functions of the subsidiary, marketing, sales, strategy management, regulatory affairs and, externally, opinion leaders, learned societies or Health Authorities.
the scientific affairs which provide their expertise to internal customers, including in the field through the "regional medical responsible" function and are guarantor of the quality of scientific messages in the laboratory communication.
the training of Medical Sales Representatives networks which establishes training plans in accordance with the Charter of the Medical Examination and business training needs. It allows our Medical Sales Representatives to master the environment of diseases related to the laboratory activity and to ensure knowledge of our medicinal products to enhance them and develop their proper use.
the monitoring and market access that manages the economic lifecycle of marketed or future products (prices, reimbursements, relationships with Trustee Authorities) and the analysis of the economic, political, scientific, regulatory, and competitive environment which should help Chiesi to adapt better and faster to change.
Chiesi France is based on a merger-acquisition history (Logeais Laboratories ...). Today, we are constantly looking for new partners in all types of therapeutic areas and especially in Specialty Care, whether it is for medicinal products, diagnoses or medical devices.
Do not hesitate to contact us to propose an alliance or a partnership.


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Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB)
India's top university is the Indian Institute of Bombay (IITB), ranking 152 nd in the world university rankings. The institute is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of engineering education and research, earning first place for both the academic reputation and employer reputation in the QS India University Rankings.
IITB was established in 1958, as the second IIT in the country, and has since produced a number of high achieving graduates who have made contributions in the fields of industry, academics, research, business, government and more.
India's University By Rankings 2020
Rank University City
1 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) Mumbai
2 Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bangalore Bangalore
3 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) Delhi
4 Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) Chennai
5 Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IITKGP) Kharagpur
6 Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) Kanpur
7 University of Delhi Delhi
8 University of Hyderabad Hyderabad
9 Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR) Roorkee
10 Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG) Guwahati
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India, Oman ready to support each amid Covid-19 crisis
Diplomacy, Diaspora, National, , April 07, 2020, 10:48 pm Daily World
New Delhi, April 7 : India and Oman on Tuesday agreed to provide "possible support" to each other as the Covid-19 pandemic has created havoc across the globe. In a telephonic conversation on Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tarik discussed the health and economic challenges posed by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and the steps being taken by their respective countries to respond to them, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said. "They agreed that both countries would extend all possible support to each other in dealing with the crisis." The Omani ruler assured the Prime Minister Modi about the safety and well-being of the Indian community in Oman in the present situation and also thanked him for the recent support provided by Indian government to Omani citizens in India. Modi reiterated his condolences for the demise of HM Late Sultan Qaboos and conveyed his best wishes for Sultan Haitham's reign, and for the peace and prosperity of the people of Oman. He stressed that India regards Oman as a very important part of its extended neighbourhood. In a similar telephonic conversation with his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Monday, Modi agreed on the "importance of bilateral experience sharing". /IANS
US foreign arms sales increase significantly in fiscal 2022 due to military support for Ukraine
Washington, Jan 28 : US foreign arms sales grew significantly in fiscal year 2022, according to data released by the Department of State, which attrib
Tehran, Jan 28 : The Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has condemned the deadly armed attack on Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran, saying
Sudan, Ethiopia agree to resolve differences through joint mechanisms, dialogue
Khartoum, Jan 27 : Sudan and Ethiopia have agreed to settle their border disputes as well as the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) t
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Washington, Jan 28 : US foreign arms sales grew significantly in fiscal year 2022, according to data released by the Department of State, which attributed the increase mainly to US military support fo […]
Tehran, Jan 28 : The Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has condemned the deadly armed attack on Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran, saying the two countries should not let their ties be af […]
Berlin, Jan 28 : Germany's education system is facing the "biggest shortage of teachers in 50 years" as a result of education policy failures, the country's teachers' association said. The probl […]
Stockholm, Jan 28 : A damaged nuclear reactor in Sweden that was due to be restarted in February has been hit by yet more delays, it was reported on Friday. Ringhals 4 was originally due to be r […]
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