A photo is the best summary of what the second, organized between Wednesday and Thursday in Panama by the CAF development bank and the support of Grupo Prisa (editor of EL PAÍS), has meant for the region. With a smiling face, the president of Brazil, shakes hands with the president of Chile as of March 11. There cannot be political leaders who are further away from each other in their political ideas. The first is the most relevant leftist leader in the region; the second, a leader who comes from the Chilean extreme right and does not deny the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). At the end of a meeting of an hour and a half, an unusual duration for this type of contact, the Chilean said that the relationship with Lula would be from now on. The same conciliatory spirit ran through the forum in Panama City: in the face of the United States’ advance in the region, internal quarrels weaken the capacity for resistance.
Originally thought of as an economic forum, this edition, unlike the previous one, had a high political content. Almost 4,500 people entered the convention center that overlooks the Pacific on Wednesday. No one named Donald Trump during the two days of deliberations, but the Republican was always there. It flew over the presidents’ speeches and the panels on democracy, climate change, digital development, investments or South-South collaboration. The rejection of United States policies was in this city the cement that united differences and mobilized the search for common strategies.
In Panama there was talk of the need to seek a single voice, regional integration, democratic quality and the proliferation of authoritarian regimes. For the first time in many years, the word “integration” was heard in the mouths of both left and right leaders. For a moment, the alliance structures of the past seemed to be left behind, with a progressive Unasur, an Alba focused on promoting “21st century socialism” and a Pacific Alliance that proclaimed itself “without ideology,” only focused on trade.
Once the common threat was identified, the forum became the sounding board for voices that until now were irreconcilable. Lula shook Kast’s hand, the Colombian Gustavo Petro shared the stage with the Ecuadorian Daniel Noboa and the Bolivian Rodrigo Paz, who had just debuted in this type of event, gave a speech of unity with Chile, a country with which his country has a long-standing conflict over access to the sea. “Yesterday [por el miércoles] We had an encouraging sign,” celebrated former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos in a forum panel. “Seven presidents together and one more elected, all of different ideological and political orientations, but in a tone of mutual respect, something that was common in his time, became rare in recent years. Many of them highlighted the centrality of regional integration,” Santos added.
The gestures were too eloquent for the Argentine Javier Milei or the Paraguayan Santiago Peña, aligned without nuances with Donald Trump. Milei’s closeness with the Republican is even closer than that which the Peronist Carlos Menem had in the nineties with George Bush, times when the Argentine Foreign Ministry spoke in a celebratory tone of “carnal relations.” If the Argentine far-right correctly foresaw that the tone of the forum would not be to his liking, something more inexplicable was the absence of representatives from Mexico, the second largest bastion of regional progressivism after Brazil.
Democratic quality, the need for quality education and the effects of digitalization crossed a good part of the discussions. During the opening of the event, he highlighted that the use of technologies, such as artificial intelligence, allow innovation in educational systems and reach more and more students, in the case of Grupo Prisa through Santillana. “3.6 million subscriptions guarantee that more than 20% of students in the private market study with educational materials with a highly advanced innovation and data system that ensures the highest level of competence,” he said.
Oughourlian also highlighted the call made by President Paz to create a culture of trust to reverse the deterioration of democracy. The Bolivian president insisted on the idea during the talk he had on Thursday with the director of EL PAÍS, Jan Martínez Ahrens. “What I saw yesterday in the speeches of the leaders was a pragmatic position, beyond ideological positions. Of joining forces to find medium and long-term solutions. It was extraordinary. The northern hemisphere is with its lies and misinformation and usually thinks that what hurts above also hurts below. But what we have now is a Latin America and the Caribbean in need of generating certainties between us and that will be very positive,” Paz said.
The Panama forum exceeded all expectations. It almost tripled the number of attendees from the first edition and achieved a meeting of leaders unthinkable for any official regional summit. The region seemed to become aware of the need to iron out internal differences, to which Brazilian Lula blamed integration problems, to look at itself and seek solutions in an increasingly confusing world. There was no closing document or official statement on Thursday. The meeting became an unexpected setting for multilateral dialogues between countries of different political colors. Time will tell if the idea of a new integration grows or stagnates.
