Just hanky-panky at the banky?

The executive board of the Interamerican Development Bank (what’s that?) have united in a call to dismiss their president… for, according to media reports (here and here from the conservative Infobae site… as well as AP, EFE and others) an undisclosed romantic relationship with a subordinate.

As if. The bank… set up in 1959 under the auspices of the United States… is another of those financial institutions — like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — that may have been designed to “develop” nations, but generally end up racking up huge public debts, that are then repaid through “restructing” the economy… i.e., debt bondage and being held hostage to global northern business interests.

That’s slightly (only slightly) unfair… while the United States, a basket of European nations, and Canada provide most of the funds, the borrowing nations hold the majority of shares, and … by tradition, the bank’s president is always from one of the borrowing nations.

However, in 2019, under the leadership of the then US president (figure it out) pushed thru a “Latin”… of sorts. Mauricio Claver-Carone, a recent “Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director of Western Hemisphere Affairs” on the National Security Council, until 2019, when he moved up to “Deputy Assistant to the President”.

As Wikipedia notes, “In this role, Claver-Carone is credited for creating the U.S. government’s maximum-pressure campaign against the Maduro regime in Venezuela and for conceptualizing the “América Crece” economic growth strategy and frameworks.” The latter is “… a framework for supporting economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean by catalyzing private sector investment in energy and other infrastructure projects.”… in other words, assisting US companies in penetrating the Latin American energy markets.

Apparently, this was nothing new… Claver-Carone’s first career was pushing “Democracy” for Cuba, from his home base in… you guessed it… Miami. And, by the way, “democracy” in this context means “capitalism”.

Nothing against Capitalism (well… a lot, but bankers gotta bank) and very little interest in the guy’s private affairs (descibed in media reports only as “salacious”), but it certainly sounds, given his whining that his “constitutional rights” to due process are being violated, and even the (sitting) US President’s call for his resignation, indicates he hasn’t exactly won friends and whatever he’s trying to influence in the way of “development” (his big signature project was getting Latin governments to borrow money to BUY COVID-19 vaccines… as opposed to every country’s call for open patents or reducted prices) … at market rates.

In other words… the same old same old US policy at a time when the global south is exploring new possibilities (hey, China has wazoos of cash, and some pretty nifty technology too), rejecting the “debt trap” and… just… not… liking the guy… he should go.