Mauricio Macri goes to Chile to participate in the creation of Prosur and redouble the diplomatic offensive against Nicolás Maduro

Regional ideological disputes between leftist governments and center-right presidencies will have a new diplomatic tour this Friday at the Palacio de la Moneda, which now occupies Sebastián Piñera and Salvador Allende occupied fifty years ago. Remnants of Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales and Néstor Kirchner's legacy, architects of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) will face the political positions of Jair Bolsonaro, Mauricio Macri and Iván Duque, which support the creation of the Forum for the Progress of South America (Prosur), a multilateral organization that seeks to defend regional integration, to escape hegemonic leadership and to promote true democracy in the Southern Cone.

"Unasur is already dead, literally, and Prosur is a forum that will prevent us from reaching Venezuela"Bolsonaro told reporters when he arrived in Santiago de Chile.

The burial of Unasur and the eventual creation of Prosur constitute a new chapter of the regional ideological conflict through multilateral diplomacy. When Chávez, Morales and the Kirchner couple imposed the Latin American agenda, Unasur operated as a very expensive entity that hardened relations with Cuba, Russia, Iran and China. Chavez with his oil-financed Unasur, which acted as a multilateral and dialectical defense against the plans of the United States.

With Chávez's death, Macri's triumph over Daniel Scioli, and Piñera's rise to power in Chile and Bolsonaro in Brazil, a new geopolitical chapter has begun in South America. There would be no more leftist hegemony or regional diplomacy that would be content to look with interest at the behavior of the global opponents of the White House.. Donald Trump's triumph over Hillary Clinton deepened this ideological perspective, and the eventual creation of Prosur is a further reflection of the paradigm shift. Piñera and Duque are the ideologues of Prosurthen Macri and Mario Abdo Benítez, President of Paraguay, joined the group. Until last week, Brazil had a position at equal distance, which led to Prosur's approval after Bolsonaro's visit to Washington. Trump has received the Brazilian president with honors and the strategic alliance between DC and Brasilia is no longer in doubt.

To negotiate the creation of Prosur, Chile sent invitations to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname, Peru, and Peru. Uruguay. Juan Guaidó was to attend, but Piñera acted with caution and froze the invitation of the interim president of Venezuela.

If Guaidó arrived at the Prosur Summit, Uruguay, Bolivia and Suriname would not have even sent representatives to Santiago de Chile.. And this situation would have transformed a geopolitical aspiration into a diplomatic corps to bury Unasur and create an alternative model containing all the regional perspectives.

Last night, in Santiago de Chile, issued a reserved memo with few veneers and highlighting eight fundamental axes ranging from regional integration and the defense of democracy, the creation of a multilateral organization "flexible", which "will go without a seat", will have "a temporary, annual and rotating presidency" and whose objectives will be linked to the discussion of the regional security and defense, health, environment and energy, among other key issues for the region.

The memo to be discussed today at the Palacio de la Moneda has been approved by the diplomatic representatives of the ten countries invited by Piñera. They met at the Sheraton for hours, there was a camaraderie and everyone attended their match. For Argentina the ambbadador participated José Octavio Bordón and the Assistant Secretary for American Affairs, Léopold Sahores, who had an open line with Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie, who was in Buenos Aires to lead a key meeting of the United Nations.

In this context, if there is no change in the regional agenda, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Paraguay will be willing to approve the eventual creation of the Prosur Forum. While Bolivia, Suriname and Uruguay will not sign the final document that will urge foreign ministers to begin a series of swift negotiations to create the Prosur before the end of 2019.

With different shades, Bolivia, Suriname and Uruguay consider it wrong to bury Unasur, believe that Prosur will be a new diplomatic tool to corner Nicolás Maduro and argue that in the region, there are already enough multilateral agencies to deal with the problems of the southern cone. For these arguments, Morales (Bolivia), Dési Bouterse (Surinam) and Tabaré Vázquez (Uruguay) will meet today at the Santiago Summit in Chile.

Regardless of the decision of Piñera not to invite Guaidó to guarantee the presence of all countries of South America to the negotiation of Prosur, During the deliberations, the situation of Venezuela and its humanitarian crisis will be examined. The populist regime captured yesterday Roberto Marrero, head of the Guaidó government, which provoked the immediate reaction of the White House and the Lima Group. In Santiago, there is Fabiana Rosales, wife of Guaidó, and it is not excluded that she is received by Macri and Bolsonaro, at the end of the summit which aims to create a new multilateral organization in the region .

Macri will be in Santiago de Chile for a few hours and has not scheduled a bilateral meeting. He will arrive around 10 am and return to Buenos Aires before dark. A flash tour to ratify his foreign policy and his commitment to the democratic transition in Venezuela.