The Donroe doctrine wins in Chile but loses against multipolarity – ft. Vijay Prashad

In this long interview, we speak with Vijay Prashad, an indian historian based in Santiago, Chile. Prashad interprets the victory of the reactionary right in the December 14 elections as the first step of a so called “angry tie” in Latin America, where neocolonial elites in Latin are regaining the consent of discontented popular masses, frustrated with center-left coalitions incapable of articulating genuinely emancipatory projects for the working classes. Reduced to merely managing the status quo, these coalitions become easy prey to a form of propaganda that fuses classic “law and order” themes – exemplified by salvadoran leader Bukele – with a (hollow) promise of “new development” and economic revitalization, promoted by figures such as Milei. In this context, the resistance of countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela is crucial, and for this very reason they have become the primary targets of the Trump administration’s offensive. The discussion then shifts to broader issues, beginning with an analysis of economic transformations across the latin american continent and the now inescapable presence of China. The focus then moves to Europe and the impact of the Trump presidency on relations with so-called european allies. Here, Prashad offers an analysis that runs counter to the prevailing liberal narrative: the idea of a russo-american conspiracy to destroy Europe and its “liberal democracy” is a caricatural simplification that fails to grasp the inseparability of euro-atlantic relations from an economic standpoint. Prashad even invokes the possibility of a “bourgeois revolt” against any attempt at a radical rupture in euro-atlantic ties: european elites have too strong an interest in valorizing their investments in U.S. financial markets; the United States, for its part, has too much at stake in preserving its leading export market for goods (above all weapons and hydrocarbons) and services (platform colonialism). At most, one can imagine a European leadership trying to buy time in Ukraine, waiting for the 2028 elections and a return of the Democratic – neocon coalition. A nostalgia for the old master who, while not fundamentally different in enforcing a hierarchical position of dominance, would at least do so while observing the bon ton and etiquette of a golf club. The interview concludes by examining the effects of the Trump presidency on relations between Russia and India, and with a discussion of the future and deeper meaning of the european project, analyzed dialectically in all its complexity, with its lights and shadows. A Europe conceived as a cage against labor, founded on wage deflation and austerity, cannot be the future of Europe’s peoples.