Why do you say that Trump would be interested in inviting himself to the electoral campaign in Peru?
It seems to me that it is not a question of guessing or something that affects me, it is a question that has to do with consistent actions over time. Of course you may be interested in intervening. Every time there has been an election during his first term or second, in which he perceives that his country has an interest in it, he has no problem doing it. And it also has a super low political cost, because every time he loses, he does not assume the loss as his own. With the AfD in Germany, for example. In France he supported Le Pen and did not assume any political costs.
Or nearby, in Brazil, where Bolsonaro’s legal suit was bought.
Exactly, and then he had no problem letting it go. He left it lying around. And that’s what I’m going for. In other words, that attitude does not generate commitments. And now you have this new situation in Latin America, with this new Monroe doctrine, with a Trump corollary, which has been published since November, in which the mandate is to protect the interests of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. And there is an election coming in a country like Peru, where a logistics hub is located, which for a couple of years North American interests have been pointing out as dangerous for the sovereignty of the region. And China has an influence that is absolutely undeniable and an enormous reach to all levels of the Peruvian government. There are thirty billion investments (in different sectors) that are not easily disposable.
And the United States is about a quarter in investment, more or less.
In this period, which is the last 20 years, it is at 7 billion. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but, come on, there is no point of comparison. In other words, United States policy has really been looking in another direction, it has not been looking here. When you realized, here we already had 30 billion dollars of Chinese investment in all important economic sectors, and also a hub in the middle of Latin America that already has plans to connect with the other side of the ocean, through trains that will pass through Brazil, also with Chinese investment. So, they need to reaffirm their position.
In fact, they intervened in the last election in Argentina.
And most likely they have managed to reverse the result, because not even Milei thought they were going to win in Buenos Aires.
Until there was the promise of million-dollar investment from the United States.
Yes, 40 billion, exactly. In Europe, Trump normally sells this support as support for freedom, for defenders of democracy, although we all know that it is a lie, because they have a more authoritarian, anti-rights profile. Not here, here he comes to show money. It tells you: Here is a check this size, but we are going in that direction or there is no check. Now, that is not going to be so simple in Peru, because the investment, the check that we have from China is very substantial. So, the cost for Peru of getting rid of the relations it has with China would be much higher than that for Argentina.
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If Chinese investments are already enormous, what else can the United States offer. Will it be assistance for security issues?
Without a doubt, it is the issue of security, which is the number one problem in all opinion polls, and that is why it is the first thing offered by the 36 candidates in the race. They are going to go there and surely tie up the issue of corruption, with the issue of public services, and how this is reflected in the Police. In Peru we have a punitive approach to the issue. When you tell people “we have to fight crime”, imagine more prisons, imagine more police, imagine more death penalty. These are things that are going to happen once you have already been robbed or extorted. There is no policy that goes ahead. And I am not talking about the “structural causes that explain Peruvian society”, no. I’m talking about special patrolling, with street monitoring, which takes up infrastructure and a lot of money. That type of approach that can be done, and that has visible results in 100 days, can be offered. It costs money, but it can be offered, and the United States can finance it without any problem. Could China finance it too? Yes, sure. But does China have the same incentive to do so? Right now he doesn’t have it.
Now, the most important question. Who would be the candidate of the United States?
In my article I think it could be López Aliaga, because he looks a lot like Trump. Furthermore, López Aliaga has expressed his admiration for Trump many times, he went to the inauguration, he took photos with Muñante.
The last thing he did was say that he could easily provide the United States with a military base.
Of course, to bring in the helicopters, because “they can carry out extraction operations.” Vietnam is what this man wants. That’s another trait they share. One says he is going to annex Greenland and the other says about the helicopters. And I’m sure that some proportion of people must believe that that is something that can really solve problems. But regardless of that, I believe that López Aliaga is the one who would put the least obstacles to an intervention of that nature, the one who would be best willing to associate with the United States in this type of logic. That does not mean in any way that the other candidates do not.
Carlos Espá has a long relationship with the US Embassy. It could also be him.
Exactly. And I think I would have no problem doing so. But there are 36 horses, and you have to bet on the one you think is going to win. Another alternative is Keiko Fujimori. Because it has a national political apparatus, something that Popular Renewal does not have. The hierarchies that exist in Fuerza Popular, that gather behind the leader, that everyone is aligned, are not in the other political parties. It is very important not to lose sight of that issue. So, it is not so important which face the United States chooses. For them it is important that they be allowed to work and block the growth of Chinese investment in the region, or make it the most difficult. That’s the idea, deep down.
How much electoral weight can Trump’s support add to a campaign?
It’s very difficult to say, but I think that in Peru there is a particular admiration for Trump, for Putin. In fact, there is a Datum survey on world leaders and what sympathy they arouse in Peru. And first there is Trump, then Putin and then comes the first Latin American: Bukele. We like those authoritarian profiles here, we don’t disgust them, because we have the feeling that they achieve objectives, they achieve things. Trump has that profile. People like this attitude of the bully who does things and is not asking permission to do them. And if that support adds 2 or 3%, it already puts you in the second round.
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An issue that has been very present in the media, but not necessarily in the electoral debate, is the fiscal imbalance left by the decisions made by Congress. Is that going to be a campaign issue or on the contrary is it going to be left aside?
The problem with this type of issue is that it is like that of the AFPs. You are eating the May bread today, you are going to break the bank. But since you don’t see it in the very short term, it is not in your consideration note. People don’t put it there.
Or perhaps people have not recognized that Congress has done what it wanted with the economy.
Many have probably heard: Hey, they made a fiscal hole. But what does a tax gap mean? How does it affect me in my daily life? How does it affect my life project? How does it affect my children’s life plans? That part, and it seems to me that it has been the responsibility of the media, has not been explained. In other words, it is the same as with the enormous debt that López Aliaga’s management has acquired in the municipality of Lima.
Of course, perhaps these issues should have jumped from the economic pages to the political ones.
Of course they do, because they impact public policies. The capacity that the authority in the Municipality of Lima or the Peruvian State will have, to do things, to be able to provide the services they have to provide, which are already limited, will be affected in the future. In other words, the fact that Congress has approved these spending initiatives and all these cuts and these things that are going to considerably reduce the State’s ability to meet its current obligations, mean that, if today you had to wait 60 days for a doctor’s visit, now you are going to have to wait 180. And as long as you don’t give people that landing, everything is very abstract.
In that same scheme, for years we said that our economy was running on autopilot, that it was oblivious to the vagaries of politics. Has that changed now?
No, but it could change with these Congressional regulations that are going to create a fiscal hole for us. They called this separate sleeves. Politics and the economy are intrinsically linked, but in Peru we were lucky that the reforms of the 90s shielded the Central Bank and the Ministry of Economy in a very efficient way, and both were anchored in the dogma that this should not be touched. And it worked and the results are visible. When you look at the number of political problems that Peru has had in the last ten years, the number of presidents who have fallen, and you compare that with the movement of the exchange rate and the country risk, you realize that they were detached from each other. The economy does not collapse if you change the president from one day to the next, and the proof was Boluarte.
Until now.
Well, this is sustained because we have a high price of raw materials. But we are doing nothing as a country to sustain it. We depend on the status quo that was designed in 93 or 94. We are riding on that and it is the first time that since Congress we have done damage to that way of seeing the State.
To his own dogma of faith. Because the parties that have done this are the ones that repeated that the economy is not affected.
Of course, but there are no more liars than them.
Someone who has embodied the idea that the economy should not be touched is Julio Velarde. What will happen when he leaves the BCR?
We are going to have to pray very hard. Julio Velarde has become a kind of high priest of the market economy, fiscal responsibility and macroeconomic stability. And his figure in itself constitutes a guarantee of stability in all these sectors. There is no one with that weight who can replace him today. Not even if he chooses it.
