A Latin American Pipeline Dream

Regional Leaders Put Weight Behind Gas Plan

BUENOS AIRES — South American leaders from Venezuela to Argentina are proposing to build the world’s largest fuel pipeline across Latin America, and they hope it will deliver much more than natural gas: They portray the plan as the first blueprint for a new era of regional cooperation, greater independence from international markets and a more prominent voice on the world stage.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has labeled the proposal a 5,000-mile symbol of diminishing U.S. influence in Latin America. Enthusiastic support for the project from regional heavyweights, including Brazil and Argentina, has prompted others to describe the project as the first true joint venture of a political coalition determined to forge a new South American identity.

“This is the end of the Washington consensus,” Chavez told reporters in Caracas last month, using the term for the market-driven economic policies that many Latin American countries adopted in the 1990s with U.S. encouragement. “It’s the beginning of a South American consensus.”

But the pipeline is a long way from being built, and many potential obstacles — finding the estimated $20 billion to pay for it, resolving the environmental concerns of burrowing through the Amazon rainforest, dealing with competing interests of individual nations — have caused some analysts to wonder whether the public pledges of unity can withstand a concrete test.

Washington Post