Latin American regional giant Brazil has become the driving force behind a proposed economic, political and military union that threatens to exclude the United States from military planning in the vast region spanning from Cape Horn to the isthmus of Panama.

On May 23, leaders from the 12 sovereign nations of South America met in the Brazilian capital and signed the constituent treaty outlining the legal framework of the Union of South American Nations (unasur). This legal framework outlines a plan of action that is to culminate in the establishment of an EU-style government for the South American continent. It would unite South America’s two major trade blocs—Mercosur and the Andean Community—and would establish a South American parliament based in Cochabamba, Bolivia. In addition to these measures, the constituent treaty would establish a South American Defense Council to mediate regional conflicts and defend the region from foreign intervention.

“We are going to make it so that the strength of South America is born of the union of our peoples,” Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim told the press back in April.

The constituent treaty will come into full force after it is ratified by nine of its 12 would-be member states.

While there are definite obstacles to overcome, the political, economic and military integration of South America is bound to be eased by the fact that it is the only multinational continent in the world to be united by a common linguistic background, a common culture, and a common religion. These factors should make South America’s path to integration a lot smoother than the rocky road the European Union has had to travel for the past 51 years. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s exclamation that “From Mexico to Argentina, we are one whole nation” may be a little premature, but it definitely holds a core of truth.

This region is being united by more than just religion, culture and money, however. It is being united by a dangerous ideology that every American should know about. That ideology is anti-Americanism.

Anti-Americanism

One of the key stimulations that emerged during the framing of unasur and the South American Defense Council was that the United States was to be in no way involved. According to the Brazilian defense minister, “[T]here is no possibility of participation by the United States because the council is South American and the U.S. is not in South America.” He has already met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to firmly establish this.

The United States has been deeply entrenched in Latin American affairs since 1823, when U.S. President James Monroe established the Monroe Doctrine to keep European powers out of the New World. In pursuit of American interests, the United States has overthrown no less than 40 hostile Latin American governments in the 20th century alone. What many in America view as a policy of protection and liberation, however, is now viewed in Latin America as a policy of imperialism.

As a sign of just how far America’s relationship with Latin America has fallen, the Pentagon has found it necessary to redeploy the U.S. Navy’s 4th Fleet to the waters off the eastern coast of South and Central America for the first time since shortly after World War ii. This move is likely in response to all the anti-American rhetoric being spewed from the mouth of Hugo Chavez. Rear Adm. James Stevenson, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, said that the deployment would probably focus on security issues and would send a clear message to the entire Latin American region.

One bbc news analysis article, titled “How the U.S. ‘lost’ Latin America,” sums up the distribution of Latin America’s anti-Americanism this way: “If you were to color a map of anti-Americanism in Latin America, for nearly 50 years Fidel Castro’s Cuba has been the deepest red. Three of the most economically developed countries—Brazil, Chile and Argentina—are now in varying shades of left-of-center pink.” The article continues that Venezuela and Bolivia could both now be considered deep red and says that current conditions in Peru, Mexico and Nicaragua indicate that they also may become more anti-American in the near future. Colombia is the only country in the region that could really be considered an “ally” of the U.S.

U.S.-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger, who has dedicated herself to exposing U.S. intervention in Venezuela, claims that the United States has literally lost control of the region. “The backyard of the U.S. has gone,” she says. “It’s created its own neighborhood, and the U.S. isn’t part of it.”

Former Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro further lamented the fact that U.S. politicians can always seem to find the money to sponsor wars in Latin America, but can rarely seem to come up with enough funds for peacetime developments. She claims that even a slice of the money used to back anti-Communist Contra guerillas in her country would be enough to build a whole new Nicaragua.

European Alliance

If peace-time investment levels are the problem, however, Germany and its EU allies should be Latin America’s best friends. Even though the European trade bloc is still only Latin America’s second-greatest trade partner (behind the United States), it is definitely Latin America’s greatest investor and its primary donor of developmental aid. German trade alone across the entire Latin American region has already risen to a value of $55 billion as of last year—making Germany Latin America’s largest trade partner in the European Union.

German industrial giants like ThyssenKrupp AG have been developing relationships with Latin American countries through their investments since 1837. Now ThyssenKrupp is building the largest steel-producing complex to be built in Brazil in 20 years. When finished, this steel-producing complex will have cost $4.6 billion and will be ready to start actively churning out steel products to be sold to Germany and South America. It is reported that a full 10 percent of Brazil’s industrial gross domestic product is produced by German daughter companies throughout the nation.

Germany has sold 340 German tanks to the Chilean military over the past 12 years. Even though Germany’s relationship with Venezuela is still pretty rocky at times, high levels of economic investment, developmental aid, and arms exports are forging a strategic partnership between a German-led EU and most of Latin America. As anti-Americanism increases, Europe is becoming the rising star south of the Rio Grande.

This relationship is not completely one-sided by any means, because Latin America is far more important to Europe as an industrial base than as a simple trade partner. The entire region from the Rio Grande to Terra del Fuego is a giant storehouse of timber, natural gas, crude oil, minerals, precious metals, and especially iron. These are resources that Europe needs if it is to continue its ascension to world superpower status.

So, what does the emergence of a unified, anti-American, European-oriented trade bloc mean for the world? Consider the following quote from the May 1962 Plain Truth: “The United States is going to be left out in the cold as twogigantic trade blocs, Europe and Latin America, mesh together and begin calling the shots in world commerce. The United States is going to be literally besieged—economically—frozen out of world trade.”

If the United States lost Latin America to Europe as a primary trade partner, the effects would be devastating. The U.S. economy would starve to death industrially—it is that reliant on its southern neighbors. Such an eventuality could even be the death knell for the U.S. dollar. If the dollar were to collapse, as it is in grave danger of doing, the economic reverberations would shake this world’s financial systems to their core. Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel would all experience economic meltdown. The nations of Asia, which are based on American consumerism, would suffer, at least temporarily. The only self-sustaining economic bloc at that point would be Europe. Countries across Latin America (and Africa) would have no option other than complete reliance on the economic ties that a German-led EU is currently establishing with them.

Either in name or in effect, the nations of Latin America would become virtual colonies of a European empire. It is as T.H. Tetens wrote in his book Germany Plots With the Kremlin, “South America will be conquered by business agents, not by guns.”