ANDRES OPPENHEIMER Katrina's geopolitical threat: isolationism

What irony! Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and rightist perennial U.S. presidential candidate Pat Buchanan had the same reaction after the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Both said the U.S. empire may be in its death throes.
Is it really? Has Katrina been a geopolitical disaster for the United States, as extremists on both sides of the political spectrum claim?
Before we answer these questions, let's look at what Chavez and Buchanan said. Venezuela's self-described "revolutionary" ruler, speaking Sept. 7 in Montego Bay, Jamaica, as he signed a Petrocaribe contract to supply oil at preferential rates to Caribbean Community countries, said that "The North American empire may be mortally wounded, and hopefully it is mortally wounded."
He added, "Either this empire comes to an end, or the world will come to an end," according to the Bolivarian News Agency, Venezuela's official news service.
Chavez, who was speaking with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at his side, repeated his theory that, as America slowly drowns in a political quagmire resulting from the ineffective government response to Katrina, the rise in world oil prices and the war in Iraq, the world is moving toward a "socialism of the 21st century," where figures such as Cuba's Castro will be the new political stars.
End of an empire?
Meantime, in the United States, Buchanan was saying that "summer is over for America." The unifying image of Bush as commander in chief atop a pile of debris in New York in the aftermath of 9/11 has been replaced by ugly accusations over who lost New Orleans, he wrote in a column published by The Miami Herald. The empire is in trouble because it has overextended itself, he added.
"With a federal deficit, because of Katrina, rising to $400 billion, a trade deficit of $700 billion to $800 billion and Americans saving only 1 percent of their income, we can no longer afford such nonsense," he wrote. "The tax cuts, or the welfare-warfare state, or the New American Empire has to go. We cannot afford them all."
U.S. ultra-conservative politicians, and the influential talk show hosts who echo their views, say the answer is less government: They want to cut public spending, close the borders and reduce U.S. military and economic commitments around the world, including free-trade agreements with Latin America.
Interestingly, as Buchanan was making his arguments, the United Nations unveiled a massive report saying rich countries such as the United States are not meeting their commitments to end world poverty, and that Washington should substantially increase its foreign aid.
"International aid is one of the most effective weapons in the war against poverty," the U.N.'s 2005 Human Development Report says. It adds that "today, that weapon is underused," noting that while the United States is by far the largest world donor in dollar terms, it ranks almost last among the richest countries in the foreign assistance it provides in relation to the size of its economy.
My conclusion: The world's biggest post-Katrina geopolitical threat is not Chavez's dreams of a totalitarian communist revival, but Buchanan's yearning for an isolated, inward-looking United States that would cut back on its commitments to help the world's poor, and defend -- albeit erratically -- human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Chavez's vision of a doomed capitalism is so deranged that it barely needs comment. In fact, China, India and the former Eastern Europe's phenomenal economic success in recent years may go down in history as the biggest capitalist revolution in history.
Ups and downs
For the first time in centuries, world poverty has been reduced by almost half -- from 40 percent to 21 percent -- since China and India began their opening to the global economy two decades ago, according to World Bank figures. Meantime, Venezuela's poverty has risen by 10 percent since Chavez took power, according to that country's own official figures, and Cuba has become one of Latin America's countries with the lowest per capita income.
Hurricane Katrina is not likely to mark the end of U.S. superpower status. The U.S. economy has been over-stretched by deficits many times before, only to correct itself. The biggest challenge to a U.S. recovery -- and greater hope for the world's poor -- is not overexposure, but isolationism.
X Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.