* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
The elected president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, revealed the names of the 11 of the 17 ministers who will accompany him in his government management. Three of them are in the eye of the storm: the designated chancellor, Javier Martínez Acha; that of Security, Frank Abrego, and that of Economy and Finance, Felipe Chapman.
Martínez-Acha, son of a respectable Spanish migrant and who maintains unbreakable ties with his father’s land, will have to maintain a foreign policy of the right middle and assertive diplomacy to face a world of quicksand and the excessive optimism of the great powers. of the West.
In this dispute board, the designated foreign minister will enter the scenario in which two of the large blocks – China and the United States – seek to retain geopolitical control of sensitive areas, among them, the one located in America, and that is Panama, the only and safe strait that unites two large ocean masses, the Pacific and the Atlantic.
It is important to note that studies by renowned researchers affirm that the Atlantic Ocean for Americans has been a key means of controlling global trade. On the geographical map it extends from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, bordering the Americas to the west and Europe and Africa to the east.
Likewise, for the United States the Atlantic area is of great importance, since Panama, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean concentrate almost half of US investment, more than 70% of inter-American trade and around 85 % of Latin American migration to that nation.
While the Pacific Sea is their military rearguard, their security zone, to avoid another Pearl Harbor, for them their military philosophy is supported: Whoever controls the seas controls the world.
Therefore, this small country is the United States’ point of support for each of its military and commercial strategies, but China tries to dispute it by presenting bilateral strategic partnerships on the table to displace American unilateralism.
It is necessary to remember that the “diplomacy of the warrior wolves” promoted by Beijing, in which it calibrates its penetration with assistance agreements, achieved its objective by establishing diplomatic relations with the government of Juan Carlos Varela, in 2017, cutting at a stroke the close communion that Panama maintained with Taiwan. The worst thing about this issue is that they took their former ally – Taiwan – and, in turn, the United States by surprise. An ungentlemanly and diplomatic move.
But, this decision was not to the liking of the Washington Falcons and they gave clear signs of this. And, the Varela government maintained an entropic bipolarism, between the rise of China and the United States with its transnational character. And, his foreign policy failed, he could not effectively manage and control these two powers, becoming engulfed in the quicksand.
In the current world situation, Panamanian foreign policy must strengthen ties with its natural partner, the United States, and ally itself with the European Union; and China taking calculated risks, based on the fact that that country maintains principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and equality and reciprocal benefits, and of course, peaceful coexistence.
Panamanian foreign policy will have to face these quicksands and avoid falling into them. The picture that is painted: A China allied with Russia and the United States along with the European Union allied with Ukraine. And, there are others that you will have to overcome.
And, consolidating Panama’s position before the United Nations Security Council, will take Martínez Acha’s foreign policy to its highest level, giving a Copernican turn in which the country once again emerges as a center of dialogue and agreement. But, to put his foot down, he will have to restructure the General Directorate of Anti-Terrorist Analysis, which remains in limbo.
This answer will be provided by the designated Minister of Security, Frank Abrego, who knows every inch of the Darién Jungle. He knows her so well, more than the lines on his palms.
So many bilateral and multilateral meetings on migration only remained in papers proposing “roadmaps.” But, gentlemen, upon hearing a representative of a Central American country point out that when migrants arrived in the United States, their lives took a 360 degree turn, that is, they returned to the beginning, to the Darién Jungle, I could only laugh at so much ignorance and audacity.
But I would recommend to Abrego to clean up the structures of the National Migration Institute, break with the negotiations that arose with illegal migration that have generated millions of dollars for these “businessmen of pain” and first return, in an orderly manner, to the mothers and their children to their countries of origin. Restore lost dignity.
On the internal front, dismantle the criminal gangs that have taken over “territories” as war bastions, the province of Colón, in the Panamanian Caribbean, and the district of San Miguelito, located in the center of the city. To achieve this, a purge in the security devices is inevitable.
Use the formula of President Nayib Bukele, start with the cleaning of the military establishments, and then move on to action, as the intelligence and counterintelligence specialist Felipe Camargo points out, the formula of the three Ps: “stick, lead and pressure” . There is no other.
And in terms of finances, Dr. Chapman will sit as a creditor country with the international financial institutions, it is necessary to rescue the “almost lost” trust.
Economists consulted consider that the government of Laurentino Cortizo Cohen inherits a classic dichotomy that consists of “determining real GDP, as well as other real variables, without needing to know the level of money supply, as well as its inflation rate.” Pre Keynesians.
But, Chapman’s main challenge is to convince Panamanian society, which sees the inefficiency and disenchantment of the functions performed by the Ministry of Finance and Economy, and its management to restore the lost trust.
At the international level, exclusion from the black and gray lists would result in greater foreign investment and job creation to raise the standard of living of the economically active population, especially those marginalized for a decade.
And, he concluded, paraphrasing Bernard Shaw: Panama is not trying to find itself, Panama is creating itself, it is emerging from its rubble, stronger than ever.
