U.S. Army War College’s Evan Ellis rushed out a Dec. 10 warning to U.S. policymakers that “Nicaragua’s Flip to China” is the biggest “wake-up call” yet that the U.S. military-industrial complex-plus is no longer the only game in town in the Western Hemisphere. His concluding sentence: “Washington has never faced a hemisphere so politically disposed to resist U.S. pressure, or so fully enabled by an adversary’s money to do so.”
Ellis is upset about the effect of small nations which his crowd viewed as destined to forever be “compliant” banana republics, asserting their right to development. Nicaragua’s break with Taiwan, and Honduras’s discussion of the same, is occurring “in a part of the hemisphere once considered politically allied or at least compliant with the U.S…. It is a harsh reminder that Central American governments and others have very real options to ally themselves with extra-hemispheric actors threatening the United States, if the U.S. treats them with contempt or disinterest. The days in which the U.S. had the luxury of strong-arming compliant Central American partners, whether over corruption, democracy, or immigration, are over.”
Worst of all: Nicaragua’s ties with China could “resurrect” the interoceanic canal project “at some point,” and they “will likely open the way for significant infrastructure projects in sectors from ports and highways to electricity, designed by Chinese companies, built by Chinese laborers [the usual geopolitical lie], and funded by Chinese policy bank loans…. In economic terms, if Honduras joins Nicaragua and El Salvador in recognizing the P.R.C., its decision will create synergies for P.R.C.-driven logistics projects around the Gulf of Fonseca, improving the chances for a new port at La Unión, the improved dry canal corridor from Tigre Island to the Atlantic Coast of Honduras, and a connection to Nicaragua.”
