U.S. Not Edged Out of Latin America: State
U.S. Not Edged Out of Latin America: State
At a discussion in AS/COA, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roberta Jacobson, dismissed the views that China may be edging the United States out of Latin America’s markets.
A US assistant secretary of state criticized the US media's "Chicken Little" views on China's growing engagement with Latin America, saying "it's not a question of someone edging us (the US) out of a market".
"That's an exaggeration," Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said during a talk at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Calling the US's Latin America relationships "the strongest they've ever been", Jacobson said in response to an audience member's question that she is "not particularly worried about (the US) becoming obsolete in the region" despite media reports that have suggested the country is "losing influence" in a part of the world considered its backyard. Jacobson attributed the negative portrayal to a US media obsession with the invading "country of the moment".
"One day it's China, one day Russia," she said.
Jacobson compared the reports to the tale of Chicken Little, the fictional chicken who shouts "the sky is falling" because of her hysterical and mistaken belief that the world is coming to an end and disaster is imminent....
