Why the Americas Are Important for Europe’s Future
https://fundaciondisenso.org/por-que-las-americas-son-importantes-para-el-futuro-de-europa/
Alejandro Peña Esclusa
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico, and Venezuela are the leading oil-producing countries in Ibero-America. In the medium term, Venezuela could become Europe’s principal oil supplier, as it possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves—approximately 300 billion barrels.
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico, and Venezuela are the leading oil-producing countries in Ibero-America. In the medium term, Venezuela could become Europe’s principal oil supplier, as it possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves—approximately 300 billion barrels.
The Patriots for Europe Foundation, with the participation of Fundación Disenso, launched a conference series in Madrid on April 16 entitled «A New Alliance: Why the Americas Are Important for Europe’s Future.» The initiative was conceived to strengthen ties between patriotic movements on both sides of the Atlantic.
These conferences take place against the backdrop of ongoing political changes in Ibero-America, where the «red tide» associated with the São Paulo Forum is receding, giving way to governments that promote democracy, individual freedoms, and economic development. Indeed, the political left has suffered electoral defeats in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Honduras, and Costa Rica, in chronological order. Similar outcomes may soon occur in Colombia and Brazil.
At the same time, Ibero-America is waging a war against drug-trafficking organizations through the «Shield of the Americas,» an initiative launched by President Donald Trump as part of his new National Security Strategy. The strategy seeks to defeat drug cartels through the use of the armed forces. As a result, authorities captured Nicolás Maduro, identified as the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, and neutralized the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), known as «El Mencho.»
While these developments unfold in Ibero-America, Europe faces mounting challenges arising from the war between Russia and Ukraine, the military strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran, and the negative consequences of woke policies—including the Green Deal, gender ideology, and illegal immigration. Together, these factors have driven up energy costs, contributed to economic stagnation and deindustrialization, accelerated demographic decline, and threatened the Christian identity of the Old Continent.
This raises an important question: Can an alliance between Europe and the Americas help address these serious challenges?
Europe and the Continent of Hope
The first person to refer to Ibero-America as the «Continent of Hope» was Pope Paul VI, while Pope John Paul II later adopted the expression as a recurring theme in his speeches.
Indeed, Ibero-America is home to the world’s largest freshwater reserves and vast forests. It is also rich in nearly every major mineral resource, including those considered strategically important.
This remarkable concentration of natural wealth exists in a region where nearly the entire population speaks closely related languages and shares a common Christian heritage. Moreover, it is a continent characterized by optimism and vitality, having been less affected than many other regions by materialist philosophies and woke ideologies, despite repeated efforts by the São Paulo Forum to impose a progressive cultural hegemony.
For Europe, Ibero-America offers a combination that few regions can match: abundant natural resources, food production, energy supplies, Atlantic trade routes, a shared Western cultural tradition, and—across much of the region—a lower level of systemic risk than many other parts of the world.
In fact, Ibero-America and the European Union already maintain close economic ties. According to the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), the European Union is the region’s third-largest trading partner, behind only the United States and China.
Furthermore, Europe is the leading source of foreign direct investment in Ibero-America, with an estimated accumulated investment stock of €800 billion as of 2023. By that year, European companies had invested more in Ibero-America than they had collectively invested in China, Japan, Russia, and India. This demonstrates that the relationship is not only strong but also possesses considerable room for future growth.
Following the sharp reduction in Russian energy supplies as a consequence of the war in Ukraine, Europe has turned to alternative sources. In 2025, the United States became the European Union’s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG), accounting for 56 percent of total imports. At the same time, the EU has intensified its energy cooperation with Ibero-America. In May 2025, the European Union and the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE) signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cooperation in the energy sector.
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico, and Venezuela are the principal oil-producing countries in Ibero-America. In the medium term, Venezuela could become Europe’s leading oil supplier, given that it possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at approximately 300 billion barrels.
Moreover, electrification, electric mobility, advanced defense technologies, and data centers all depend on reliable access to copper, lithium, nickel, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals. Ibero-America is particularly rich in copper and lithium. According to the World Bank, the region is a global leader in both the reserves and production of these minerals, with Chile, Peru, and Mexico together accounting for nearly 40 percent of the world’s copper reserves.
For Europe, this is a matter of strategic importance. Without stable access to these essential raw materials, Europe’s industrial agenda becomes increasingly dependent on external actors. This is where direct competition with China emerges: whichever power secures long-term contracts, processing capacity, financing arrangements, and associated infrastructure throughout the Americas will enjoy a significant industrial advantage over the coming decade.
Opportunities Offered by the 2025 National Security Strategy
The new United States National Security Strategy, published in November 2025, states:
«We seek a hemisphere that remains free from hostile foreign incursions or the seizure of key strategic assets.»
The strategy identifies Russia, China, and Iran, among others, as hostile powers.
The United States’ concern is understandable. Over the past twenty-five years, the relationship between China and Ibero-America has undergone a profound transformation. In 2000, the Chinese market accounted for less than 2 percent of Ibero-American exports. Today, China is South America’s largest trading partner and the second most important trading partner for Ibero-America as a whole, after the United States.
Beijing’s strategic interests in the region span a wide range of sectors, including the large-scale purchase of commodities and agricultural products, the exploitation of strategic minerals, investments in energy—including natural gas, oil, and electricity—major infrastructure projects, control of technology and telecommunications, as well as aerospace and military research.
This rapid expansion was driven by two principal factors. First, the relatively weak hemispheric security policies pursued by the Obama and Biden administrations. Second, the strategy adopted by governments aligned with the São Paulo Forum—including Hugo Chávez and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—which sought to distance themselves from the traditional sphere of U.S. influence while cultivating closer partnerships with other global powers, particularly China.
As the region shifts politically toward the right, governments participating in the Shield of the Americas have committed themselves to President Trump to gradually reduce Beijing’s strategic investments throughout the region. This development creates significant opportunities for European companies to occupy the economic and commercial space that may emerge as Chinese influence recedes.
Europe’s Contribution to the Shield of the Americas
The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy also states:
«We seek to protect this country from drug trafficking and human trafficking,»
adding that the United States will undertake:
«Targeted interventions to defeat the cartels, including, when necessary, the use of lethal force to replace the failed strategy of relying exclusively on law enforcement that has characterized the past several decades.»
According to President Donald Trump, the use of military force is necessary to combat drug trafficking because the cartels have waged a form of hybrid warfare against the United States, killing more Americans through cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl than have died in some armed conflicts. Indeed, certain organizations—such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)—maintain paramilitary forces whose firepower surpasses that of many national armies in the region.
A similar argument could be made in Europe. According to the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), an estimated 7,500 people died from drug overdoses in the European Union in 2023. Most of these deaths were linked to opioids—including heroin and synthetic opioids—or to the combined use of multiple substances. In recent years, overdose fatalities have shown an upward trend, compounded by the emergence of increasingly potent synthetic opioids.
Although Europe has not experienced the same level of cartel-related violence as the United States, the European Union has become one of the principal destinations for laundering the proceeds of organized crime. Over time, this undermines the legitimate economy, as criminal organizations acquire businesses not to operate them productively, but primarily to launder illicit funds.
A report by Nasdaq Verafin, Financial Crime Insights: Europe, illustrates the staggering scale of financial crime across the continent. Of the $3.1 trillion estimated to have been laundered worldwide in 2023, nearly one quarter was linked to Europe, despite the fact that the region accounts for less than ten percent of the world’s population. Within the European Union alone, approximately $178 billion in laundered funds were estimated to originate from drug trafficking.
If Europe wishes to prevent organized crime from continuing to infiltrate and distort its economy, it should join the fight against the cartels by supporting the Shield of the Americas.
The Assumptions Europe Should Reconsider
One of the principal obstacles to deeper cooperation between Ibero-America and Europe is the progressive ideology that currently predominates within many European institutions. A clear example is the trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), which is expected to enter into force on May 1 after years of negotiations.
European farmers have opposed the agreement because the regulatory burdens imposed by the European Green Deal place them at a severe competitive disadvantage compared to Ibero-American producers, who are not subject to the same restrictions. As Patriots for Europe has argued:
«The Mercosur agreement represents a direct attack on European farmers, who are already being suffocated by unfair competition, growing regulation, and rising costs. It will flood the European market with products from producers who are not required to comply with the same sanitary, environmental, or labor standards. This is not free trade. It is organized unfair competition that will devastate European agriculture.»
Numerous studies have criticized the Green Deal for lacking a sound scientific foundation and for relying instead on ideological assumptions. For this reason, repealing these policies would be of vital importance to strengthening trade relations between Europe and Ibero-America.
On October 14, the Center for Fundamental Rights (CFR) presented a report in Brussels detailing nearly €1 billion that the European Union had spent over the previous decade financing non-governmental organizations in Ibero-America. According to the report, most of these organizations promote left-wing and woke ideological agendas.
The report categorizes the beneficiaries into several groups, including intersectional organizations, LGBT advocacy groups, radical feminist organizations, sexual and reproductive rights campaigns, indigenous and racial activism, open-border organizations, and so-called «anti-disinformation» media outlets.
This form of ideologically driven funding—similar to that provided by USAID before the Trump administration—creates tensions between the European Union and many Ibero-American nations because it conflicts with the Christian values that remain influential throughout much of the region. If Brussels genuinely sought to contribute to the development of the Americas, it would focus its assistance on food security, healthcare, education, technology, and infrastructure rather than on ideological initiatives, since ideology is not development assistance.
As these examples demonstrate, a genuine strategic partnership between Europe and Ibero-America would require the European Union to carefully consider the proposal put forward by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference: namely, that Europe should abandon woke ideology and return to the traditional values that have historically characterized European civilization.
Conclusion
An alliance between Europe and the Americas offers an ideal framework for confronting the principal threats facing the Old Continent, including geopolitical conflict, the energy crisis, organized crime, economic decline, and regional security challenges. By strengthening cooperation across the Atlantic—through shared strategic interests, complementary economic resources, and common civilizational values—both regions would be better positioned to safeguard their prosperity, stability, and long-term security.
