Sept. 6—On Sept. 4, Executive Intelligence Review combined with the 170th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) to host a roundtable discussion on the topic, “An Alternative to War and Looting in the Americas.” The day-long deliberations—which brought together distinguished panelists from Ibero-America, China, Spain, Germany, and the United States—began by listening to remarks delivered by EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche during a June 2002 visit to Brazil, which laid out a challenge, both to the roundtable panelists and to the more-than-2,500 on-line participants listening from 38 countries in five different languages:
“On the subject of integration: The bringing together of people of different cultures and nations for a common enterprise, a strategic enterprise, is the most important and most challenging enterprise in all statecraft. You cannot use ordinary politics under such circumstances,” LaRouche cautioned, because to achieve true integration “you must actually communicate ideas.”
He elaborated on the essential idea which in fact unites all nations, all religions, all language groups and all races:
Every animal species has a more or less fixed potential relative population-density. Then how does man reach a level of several billions of population on this planet? By changing his own behavior. Other species can only do this through a kind of evolutionary development of their genetic material. Man can do it as an act of will, as in the image of God. How does this result in human progress? By transmission of these discoveries from one generation to another.
This is the basis, LaRouche argued, on which we can “agree, strategically, to create a community of nations on this planet, which is fit for human beings to live in.”
With that conceptual guidepost, the participants took up the specific challenges of integration around the most critical infrastructure project of Ibero-America and the Caribbean: building a bi-oceanic rail corridor from Brazil’s Atlantic ports to Peru’s Chancay Port on the Pacific, in order to link the entire region to the phenomenal growth expressed in China’s Belt and Road Initiative across the Pacific.
EIR Editor-in-Chief Helga Zepp-LaRouche used her keynote address to put the proposal in strategic focus:
The time has come that the countries of the Global South have to assume a leadership role in the world of today, and prove that Kissinger’s mantra that “history is not made in the South” is utterly false. If the countries of Ibero-America unite around a common development plan, they can assume sovereignty of all and determine their own future. Rather than having the South American continent be a playground for a geopolitical confrontation, a united Ibero-America can influence the course of world politics.
She turned her attention to Brazil, which is facing a presidential election on Oct. 4 in which the speculative vultures of Wall Street and the City of London are doing everything in their power to try to stop President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from being reelected.
“Brazil is a founding member of the BRICS,” Zepp-LaRouche reminded the audience, “and in that capacity can play the role of a mediator between the Global Majority and the Global North, invoking the tradition of the spirit of cooperation between [Brazilian President] Getúlio Vargas and [U.S. President] Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By putting the bi-oceanic railway corridor on the agenda, Brazil can invite both China and the United States to participate in the perspective of common development.”
A central issue discussed during the dialogue among the panelists was how—or even if—the United States that today is imposing the law of the jungle around the world, could ever be brought back to its senses and revive the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon LaRouche. Zepp-LaRouche stressed that such a change in the United States, driven by the “voice of the Global South” demanding a new system of justice for all, is the only way to avoid a head-on collision which would likely lead to thermonuclear war.
Zhang Weiwei, professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, conveyed China’s full support of such a development-based approach to solving global problems, as seen in Chancay Port, which was jointly built by Peru and China and inaugurated in 2024. “At this moment of history, a time of uncertainty and much chaos, it’s indeed timely and very perceptive to discuss this landmark project, the bi-oceanic rail corridor linking Peru’s Chancay Port and Brazil’s Ilhéus Port,” Zhang stated. “[This] is a landmark project under joint feasibility study by Brazil, Peru, and China, which I think is an expression of genuine multilateral cooperation and Global South solidarity.”
As became clear in the course of the roundtable dialogue, building such an integration project will not only serve as a living alternative to the policies of war and looting today being unleashed across Ibero-America by the U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. It will also serve as a proof-of-principle that the same approach to integration—“the most important and most challenging enterprise in all statecraft”—can be applied to even more difficult and entrenched problems elsewhere, such as the ongoing genocide and wars in Southwest Asia.
As Prof. Zhang put it: “The bi-oceanic rail corridor is more than a transport infrastructure project. It is a powerful symbol of South American integration, mutual assistance, and independent development. It unites rather than divides, delivers development rather than confrontation, and pursues common prosperity and development. I think we should all work hard to promote this kind of idea and fascinating project in the interests of the Global South.”
Cooperation and Integration
The first panel of the EIR roundtable featured presentations by distinguished speakers from the principal protagonist nations, Brazil, Peru, and China. Roberto Amaral, former Brazilian Minister of Science and Technology (2003) in Lula’s first government, spoke on “The Future of Brazil: Science, Technology, Innovation and Sovereignty.” He began by emphasizing that “scientific and technological progress creates the minimum conditions necessary to fuel the dream of sovereignty in a markedly asymmetrical world, amid a globalization heading toward a new Cold War that, as we know, does not serve the interests of humanity.” Without mentioning the United States by name, he warned that a single nation was “imposing its own law, based on the primacy of force that dictates legal norms after the fact.”
He continued: “Brazil, due to its size, population, and level of development, as well as its vast reserves of strategic metals—such as the so-called ‘rare earths’—could serve as a bastion of resistance; as it stands, it is already a nuisance that must be eliminated.” For Brazil to defend itself, “foreign policy, science policy, and defense policy converge,” and he advocated for joint integration projects with Brazil’s neighbors and others: “For our projects, it is essential to strengthen relations with the other countries of South America and establish deep bonds of cooperation. The same applies to our long-standing collaboration with China, South Africa, India, and Russia—countries that, together with us, form the core of the BRICS and with which we have negotiated scientific cooperation programs.”
Minister Amaral concluded by stressing the role of “science, technology, and innovation as the core of development and the guarantors of sovereignty.”
He was followed by Peruvian Gen. (ret.) Edwin Patterson Monsalve, an academic and professor of geopolitics and geostrategy with special expertise on Chancay Port, who spoke on “Peru’s Chancay Port and South America’s Development and Integration Networks.” He said that there is a long-standing view in his country that “there can be no development without security, and no security without development.” He added that the bipolar world of the Cold War had shifted to a unipolar world dominated by the United States, but that it must in turn yield to a multipolar world as new alliances emerge, such as the BRICS.
He described the Port of Chancay as “a strategic goal of the Peruvian state,” which will transform Peru’s relations with the rest of South America and the world at large. He highlighted the role of China in conceiving and helping Peru build the project, and anticipated the port’s role in strengthening Peru’s trade relations with that country, while becoming a hub for other South American nations wishing to increase their economic relations with China—which he demonstrated with maps and other graphics, including a projected bi-oceanic rail corridor linking Chancay with Brazil’s Atlantic coast.
Until the opening of Chancay in late 2024, all Peruvian trade with China first went through North American ports such as Long Beach. Gen. Patterson reported that the U.S. fears China’s influence in South America, including the prospect of losing its position of being the middleman for trade between South America and Asia. Peru’s long-standing policy, he emphasized, seeks good economic relations with all nations and favors South American integration, tracing this approach back to Peruvian General Edgardo Mercado Jarrín, who was Foreign Minister (1968-1971) and then Prime Minister (1973-1975) under the Presidency of General Juan Velasco Alvarado, who brought Peru into the Non-Aligned Movement in Sept. 1973.
Gen. Patterson later added that the “complex interdependence” of nations can only succeed if the citizens are fully engaged in the political process.
What Role Will the U.S. Play?
Paulo Nogueira Batista, Jr., a Brazilian economist who was formerly the executive director for Brazil and 10 other countries at the IMF in Washington, D.C. (from 2007-2015), as well as co-founder and vice president of the New Development Bank established by the BRICS, spoke next on “The New Monroe Doctrine and the U.S. Claims to Uncontested Hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.”
He charged that the United States is “acting according to its new precepts,” with the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President Nicolás Maduro, the siege of Cuba, and growing disputes with Canada and other nations. But the U.S. also “commits enormous strategic errors,” he said, by picking simultaneous fights with Russia, Iran, and China and forcing those three nations to tend to unite. Iran has proved that “the capacity to resist aggression” does not depend on nuclear deterrence, and he called upon Brazil and other nations to build up their own defense capabilities, to safeguard against the possibility of further actions by the United States, like those carried out against Venezuela.
“This means building, as quickly as possible, a national defense strategy and preparing for the worst: hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. And this preparing for the worst includes, for example, military cooperation.” He concluded with a stark warning:
“So, the question posed by Lyndon LaRouche [in his video excerpt], ‘Can we survive?’ is even more relevant now than when he stated that. We’re living in a world of hyper-imperialism…. We are facing an existential threat in the new circumstances created by hyper-imperialism.”
In the discussion period, Helga Zepp-LaRouche agreed about the havoc that the United States and Europe are currently wreaking on the rest of the world, but warned that if we are not able to change the strategic direction of the United States, and the world therefore hardens into two competing blocs—the Global South vs. the Collective West—then thermonuclear war is a likely outcome. A global solution to the crisis is not a luxury, but a necessity, she insisted.
Nogueira Batista reiterated that he thought it unlikely that such a desirable new global order would emerge anytime soon, due to the intransigence and the destructive role of the United States.
EIR Ibero-American director Dennis Small replied that, “speaking as an American,” it is important for us all to remember that the United States is not Wall Street, George Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump—who have produced terrible harm around the world. “There is a strand running throughout the history of our country, best expressed by Lyndon LaRouche,” which is the key to solving the current breakdown crisis. The U.S., Small argued, is also Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who allied with Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas to help develop that country, and with Mexico’s President Lázaro Cárdenas to support his nationalization of Mexico’s oil. The U.S. is also the policies of John Quincy Adams, who wrote the original Monroe Doctrine—the exact opposite of the later Teddy Roosevelt Corollary that Trump adores—and of Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon LaRouche. It is that strand that makes it both possible and necessary to bring the U.S. back to a policy of community of interests with all the nations of the planet, Small concluded. Nogueira Batista agreed that the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lincoln, and also John F. Kennedy offered a different model, but he said that recent history is far less encouraging. “Trump is not an anomaly,” he stated, adding that he saw little hope that the United States would resume such earlier positive policies.
In response, Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded everyone of the very real threat of nuclear war, saying, essentially, that failure is not an option. She reiterated the strategic importance of the voices of the Global South—such as those expressed in this EIR roundtable—being heard loud and clear in the United States and Europe, in order to bring about the needed strategic shift. She thanked the participants for their contribution to that effort, and noted that the discussion brought out very clearly the question which needs to be solved: Can mankind self-govern or not?
No to NATO
The final speaker of Panel One was Col. (ret.) Pedro Baños of Spain, a geopolitical analyst and frequent lecturer in various military institutions in Spain and elsewhere, who brought a useful counterpoint to the discussion by speaking on “Why Spain Must Not Join NATO’s War Against Russia and Iran.” Baños, who has a YouTube following of almost one million in Spain and Ibero-America, began by reviewing the history of NATO from its inception in 1949, and Spain’s role as a participant, which began in 1982, with the proviso that Spain not host nuclear weapons or U.S. military bases. This proviso was later modified in the 1990s. When the Warsaw Pact dissolved itself, it was done with the understanding that NATO would also gradually dissolve. Instead, NATO doubled in size. If Spain were to comply with U.S. demands that it spend 5% of its budget on defense, that would be a five-fold increase, and would be difficult to sustain.
Spain has nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by joining a war against Russia, Baños stated emphatically.
South America’s Bi-Oceanic Rail Corridor
The second panel began with a video clip from an address by Lyndon LaRouche to a 1997 conference in Washington, D.C., in which he said, “The U.S. relationship to China can become the essential pivot and keystone for a global change.” LaRouche explained his World Land-Bridge concept: “What is at stake, is the development of a global infrastructural system, which had its genesis in the work of the Lincoln administration in the United States, beginning 1861. That is, under the influence of the world’s then-leading economist, Henry C. Carey, the American economist. The United States entered into a development program internal to the United States, called the transcontinental railroad. We set up a network of transcontinental railroad routes across from the Atlantic to the Pacific, of the United States. These were not simply transportation routes, but these were designed as development corridors, such that for a distance of 50 to 75 kilometers on either side of the rail link, you would have agricultural and other development, would be occurring.” LaRouche explained that the goal is to “bring the whole world together in one large-scale economic development program, which can be the basis for the revival and prosperity of the world economy in the coming century. That’s the policy.”
Dennis Small then spoke on “South America’s Bi-Oceanic Rail Corridor, a Century-Scale Planetary Transformation.” He recounted a trip to Brazil in 1982 during which he visited Carajás, the site of the world’s largest reserves of iron ore. Brazil faced a choice of whether to simply export the ore to get foreign exchange for debt service, or to develop the iron for internal use in infrastructure projects and industry. This is the classic choice still today for nations which wish to become sovereign nations instead of colonies, and the key to what the South American bi-oceanic rail corridor must become.
Small then returned to the 19th-Century example of Lincoln’s transcontinental railroad as referenced by LaRouche, quoting Lincoln’s advisor Henry Carey on the benefits of such infrastructure. In the early 20th Century, Russia built the Trans-Siberian Railroad, under the leadership of Finance Minister Count Witte, a follower of the American System school of Carey and German economist Friedrich List. In the 21st Century, this same approach to physical economy is behind China’s stunning 50,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, which also represents an embrace, with Chinese characteristics, of the American System of Lincoln and Carey, as well as a rejection of the British imperial approach.
But the bi-oceanic rail corridor is just the beginning, Small emphasized. South Americans, like all humans, must now turn their eyes to the stars and engage in space science and eventual colonization beyond Earth. The Hubble telescope has revealed over two trillion galaxies in the observable universe, each with hundreds of billions of stars. That’s 4 x 10 to the 23rd power stars! And NASA’s new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble. What is most amazing, Small concluded, is not that the universe is so unfathomably large, but that man’s mind is capable of grasping that concept, and continuously improving our scientific understanding of that ongoing process of creation we call the universe.
Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana (2011-2015), spoke on “A Good Neighbor Policy Among the Nations of South America.” He began by reviewing some of the recent “natural disasters” such as the flood in Nepal. He then rejected the term “natural disaster,” because human negligence is the real culprit. He then moved to the foreign policy follies of the Anglosphere, such as its support for Ukraine and Israel in their respective benighted wars. He characterized those Western governments as puppets of corrupt private interests, such as the notorious military-industrial complex. He denounced the open interference by the United States in elections in South American nations, as well as militarization of the Caribbean with senseless bombings of fishing boats, and lamented the capitulation of many Caribbean nations.
“But what we are seeing in the United States is not just strength, but desperation,” President Ramotar argued. “They are deathly afraid of the BRICS.” The stalwart resistance of the Iranian people has shown that there are limits to the power of the U.S. He closed by citing the warning of Rosa Luxemburg, who said in 1915 that if we do not change this system, we will end up with barbarism. He pointed to President Lula in Brazil as an example of a leader of the Global South who understands the need for integration, and building a new international security and development architecture.
Sara Madueño de Vásquez, EIR bureau chief in Lima, Peru, spoke on “The ‘Chancay Effect’ on the Eve of the Pope’s Visit to Peru.” She cited the Pope’s commitment to development, and specifically to the development of the Chancay Port and the South American continent as a whole, referring to the historical example of the Inca Road, which connected the Inca Empire beginning in the 15th Century, as precedent. She contrasted the exploitative approach of the U.S. toward South America, to the collaborative approach of China. Mrs. Madueño went on to review some of the proposed railway routes for Peru, a number of which are scheduled to be built by China.
Infrastructure in and of itself is not enough; Madueño emphasized that we also need education and poverty reduction. She described the historical significance of 19th-Century Peruvian President Manuel Pardo, who said that great works generate optimism—as the Chancay port is doing in Peru today. She later added: “We have to wake up as the Chinese did…. In order to have development, we have to have education.”
The panel concluded with two videos submitted by members of the Schiller Institute international youth movement. The first was by Estevão Damacena of Brazil, titled “Brazil’s Physical Economic Vulnerabilities and How To Overcome Them.” He reported that he and other Brazilian youth—such as his colleague Felipe Bombardelli, who later participated in the discussion period—are engaging in a study of the Brazilian physical economy, using the conceptual framework supplied by Lyndon LaRouche. He observed that in Brazil, manufacturing as a percentage of GDP has declined to 15.3%, half of what it was in the 1980s. He attributed this decline in large part to disastrous banking and financial policies—the benchmark interest rate in Brazil is over 14% today, one of the highest in the world—and the huge diversion of funds to debt service, which now comprises about 36% of the government’s budget.
Damacena was followed by Timothy Ninsiima, a Ugandan member of the youth movement of the Schiller Institute, who provided an excited and optimistic reading of a recently issued document, “Joint Statement for the Formation of the Global Youth Movement for a Just World Order and New Paradigm.”
The roundtable concluded with Dennis Small’s recapitulation of Lyndon LaRouche’s opening theme: that the issue of integration is the most profound and challenging issue of all statecraft, because it requires all parties to rise above ideological differences and base their unity on what truly defines mankind, our characteristic creativity, which makes it possible to fight for the One Humanity. We are seeing this approach beginning to succeed right now, in the efforts of Brazil, Peru, and China to build the bi-oceanic rail corridor. Its success will constitute a proof of principle to be applied around the world.
