Susan Segal on the Bretton Woods Committee Podcast about Latin America's Future
Susan Segal on the Bretton Woods Committee Podcast about Latin America's Future
"It's the moment for regional integration," said AS/COA's president and CEO, who also spoke about the renewed U.S. engagement in the Western Hemisphere.
Executive Director of the Bretton Woods Committee (BWC) Emily Slater interviewed Americas Society/Council of the Americas President and CEO Susan Segal for BWC's Macro Matters podcast about the growing momentum around Latin America's regional integration, which was one of the main focuses of CAF’s Economic Forum in Panama City in January.
Both Segal and Slater were at the forum and spoke about their key takeaways from the conference, which they qualified as "impressive," with an attendance of about 6,000 people.
"I think that showed two things," said Segal. "Number one, the local Panamanians and Central Americans were very interested in the conference. And number two, just the broad interest in Latin America that exists today. And it shows a third thing too, and that is that CAF has huge convening power."
"Integration" was the buzzword of the forum, said Slater, who asked Segal if this was the moment for regional integration.
"Yes, I do. I absolutely think it’s the moment," responded Segal.
"I’m not saying Latin America is ready to integrate to the extent of the EU. No way do I see that path in the short term. But there are a couple things that I think are important," said Segal. "Number one, something like 70 percent of all commerce in Europe is within the EU. In Latin America, it’s something like 17 percent. So, the opportunity for Latin American countries to trade among themselves is huge and something that I think can drive more growth within countries. Number two, there is so much space for capital markets to get scale because Brazil has scale. Mexico has scale. Argentina is beginning to have scale. But a lot of countries—if countries worked together—they would have more scale, more liquidity, more opportunity."
Segal also said that the renewed interest on Latin America coming from Washington makes this a good moment for integration.
"For a long time, the U.S. has kind of said, 'Well, we've got to stop China, we've gotta do all these things.' But this is the first time—I mean you can like a lot of policies of Trump, or dislike them—but it is the first time that the U.S. has put money where their mouth is. And I think that is also, in some way [...] unifying," said AS/COA's leader.
