Colombia’s Brimming Border Insecurities
Colombian shares led Latin America with a 10% gain through July, as President Duque took office on a pledge to rework the FARC rebel peace pact, as members of their new political party won parliament seats. He refused to consider a similar accord with the rival ELN until they abandon violence, as his sponsor former President Uribe was forced to resign from the Senate to face charges of aiding paramilitary gangs. President Santos finished his term with abysmal opinion ratings on perceived guerilla negotiation economic policy mishandling, with growth stuck at 2-3% on a chronic current account gap and public-private infrastructure partnerships slow to materialize. However before leaving he granted temporary residence and work permits to half a million Venezuelans roughly doubling the internal population, and covered health costs while appealing for international assistance. The US chipped in $60 million for humanitarian support to the region now hosting 1.5 million Venezuelan refugees, with experts predicting the number to double as President Maduro further squeezes the opposition and economy after narrowly escaping a drone attack. The assassination bid delayed new currency issuance as existing denominations cannot keep pace with estimated 1,000,000% year-end inflation, according to the IMF. The government long ago stopped updating statistics, but the fiscal deficit may be 30% of GDP and foreign reserves may be totally exhausted beyond minimal external debt and essential import payments. The sovereign could be removed from the JP Morgan benchmark index on both default and future tradability risks, as existing US Treasury Department curbs could imperil restructurings for new paper. Any workout will bump against parallel sanctions against Russia’s state energy giants with controlling stakes in oil fields, as well as Chinese bilateral lending in the $50 billion range. An IMF program is off the table since the socialist regime renounced relations over a decade ago, although Colombia with a backup credit line has requested a dedicated refugee facility which could partner with the World Bank’s concessional middle-income country pool for this purpose.
The UN Refugee agency urges that designation so that asylum and protection treaties signed by neighbors apply, with the 30-year old Cartagena declaration designed for Central America’s war exodus potentially a cross-border cooperation model. Latin America’s safety nets and infrastructure are more advanced than in other developing regions hosting displaced groups, with Colombia also able to share funding and service experience from handling its 15% relocated domestic population. Chile and Ecuador could also be eligible for the World Bank’s discount window, and the Inter-American Development Bank could establish an umbrella fund to meet objectives in a comprehensive framework, as recommended by the proposed Global Compact on Refugees. The US Agency for International Development head recently visited Colombia to underscore crisis priority, as the new unified Finance Corporation moves through congressional passage to modernize the bilateral toolkit. OPIC’s investment ceiling will double to $60 billion as it is equipped to take equity stakes alongside existing debt and risk guarantees. It could help launch refugee-specific pilots to prepare for a time when Caracas’ leadership will shift ideological for diplomatic and investor solidarity as stagnation and starvation drone on relentlessly.
