Jim Mattis on Latin America

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on China's role in Latin America.

“There’s more than one way to lose sovereignty in this world. It’s not just by bayonets. It can also be by countries that come in bearing gifts and large loans…piling massive debt on countries knowing they know will not be able to repay it,” Mattis said, in what appeared to be a jab at Chinese loans to countries like Venezuela and the Philippines.

My head is not big enough to give this the proper eye roll that it deserves. Let's set aside the obvious fact that the history of U.S.-Latin American relations is full of countless effort to undermine Latin American sovereignty through means other than military force.

But more importantly, this statement directly says that Latin American leaders are too stupid to know what amount of debt their countries should take on. The reporter mentions Venezuela but loans are going out all over the place. In other words, China is swindling the moronic Latin Americans, who will simply take on debt they cannot pay.

Hopefully the messages he carried to Latin American leaders during his trip the last few days were not this condescending.