This was an interesting and well-written piece, but unfortunately, I think most of it is not relevant to the fundamental problems of this region.
The endemic problems in Central America generally and the Northern Triangle specifically predate climate change and US meddling and would exist even if the US zeroed out carbon emissions tomorrow. And the root problem is weak governance that has allowed space for corruption and competing governing institutions, including the gangs.
Well-intentioned programs that purport to improve some metric by "x" percentage by doing "y" are not new, but such ivory-tower estimates always crashed into the reality of the fundamental issues of governance and corruption. Money and effort are sapped away and even when projects are completed, there is very rarely follow-through in terms of sustainment. US development efforts in the region end up very much as they have in Afghanistan - another country with weak governance, endemic violence, rampant corruption, and a low-trust society.
Weak governance in this region goes back to the mid-19th century when these countries became independent. Many local governments cannot provide basic services and are under the influence of organized violent groups. The notion that what local governments need is "better planning strategies" assumes a level of capacity, capability, independence, and influence that few local governments actually have.
These are problems the US can't really solve. The best things we could do are end the drug war and focus on efforts designed to improve governing capacity in these countries. But we shouldn't expect that even these things will do much considering the history of failure of historic US efforts to improve governance.
The article is almost a parody of leftist thinking. We must solve climate change to solve immigration and gang violence and all these problems were created by the CIA so the US is morally culpable.
You know I try and say smart things in the comments here. But there’s always someone like you who are even smarter than I am. OK who am I kidding, 95% of you guys are smarter than me. It’s a very good analysis though
Helpful for what? I don't understand the question.
Weak governance is a fundamental problem in any US effort to improve the domestic situation in any other country, not just those in Central America. The historical evidence for this is vast. It's a very real obstacle to actually accomplishing things, one that can't be ignored.
It's a tedious restatement of a critique that is oh - 40 years old at this point? And that has had several decades of responses as well.
It's entirely possible to have effective interventions in countries that seem like they have crappy governance. In fact the evidence for crappy governance is usually... the failure of interventions. The entire enterprise seems to post hoc theorizing to make people feel comfortable doing nothing.
If it's entirely possible to have the kinds of effective interventions described, then what real-world examples can you provide that prove this assertion?
Also, if crappy governance is the result of failing to intervene, then how do you explain Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, etc.? Or the fact that the Northern Triangle countries are still a complete mess despite hundreds of millions a year in US aid and development programs?
I'd submit that history shows that successes are both rare and fleeting when governance is unstable and weak.
The "post hoc theorizing" is actually an analysis of the historical effectiveness of these kinds of programs and determining the reason why most of them do no live up to the promises of proponents.
Finally, I'm pointing this out not to make people feel comfortable about doing nothing, but to note that effectiveness matters as opposed to wishful thinking and good intentions.
'It's entirely possible to have effective interventions in countries that seem like they have crappy governance'. This is demonstrably untrue, but let's pretend that it isn't- shouldn't we, uh, start with Afghanistan, where we've been at war for 20 years now? Can you export your effective intervention strategies there first? Curiously the US & NATO have I guess simply chosen not to use said effective intervention, but seeing as you know more than the military, the State Department, USAID, the UN and so on- can you help fix Afghanistan first? Then once the obvious success is evident, you can export your methodologies to the Northern Triangle along with Syria, Libya and so on
Yes, it's helpful in clarifying the problem that needs to be addressed. We can pump in resources to a country but if its government is weak and corrupt, and the resources get diverted to other actors and used for other purposes, then it's just a waste. You can write down all the budgets and plans you want, but that doesn't mean anything unless the resources are actually spent on the things they're supposed to be spent on. Weak governance is a real issue and one that needs to be addressed ahead of or at least alongside the other real issues facing these Central American countries.
Is it not true that the US *could* solve these issues with a more interventionist foreign policy? Money and aid but backed up by military force and direct intervention in the government. The US has helped create successful countries in other parts of the world. Just because it failed in Afghanistan doesn't mean it could not succeed in another country.
I'm not aware of an instance where intervention has worked to create successful countries. People always point to Germany and Japan, but those examples are sui generis. There were no comparable examples before WWII and there have been none since. The most recent attempt was South Sudan which hasn't worked out well. We've been working on Somalia with several other countries and Somalia's neighbors for decades.
I don't think the historical record is good for pro-intervention policies.
And Germany and Japan were counties with high levels of industrial and organizational skill before U.S. intervention—we just didn’t like the ends of that organization. No wonder they were able to become stable and prosperous again after.
Climate change is a global problem. But, what if the root problems causing immigration are escaping poverty, violence, political oppression and lack of opportunity? I'm not sold on cause and effect here. Florida has hurricanes, California has fires, pollution and other climate change issues too, but every one of these Northern Triangle immigrants would much rather live in either state. I would suggest that most people want to come to the US because of economics, safety and freedom.
Brian, I would have to agree in this point. The other point of comparison we have is other countries in the region, specifically Costa Rica, Belize, and Panama. Each one has positive net migration, and they are exposed to virtually the exact same climate risk. Of course, they have more wealth and stability to deal with climate issues, but that's why your best bet (as is often the case) is to stabilize the domestic situation in these countries, while simultaneously viewing climate change as a long-term global problem where wealth and stability will be a better defense that climate heavy policies in countries that are in social chaos.
Yeah, I'd say that this part of the article: "strong and sturdy shelters, diversified and drought-resistant agricultural practices, and clean water availability and security" makes sense in terms of improving living standards. You still need to couple that with economic development that means people can get a decent job that they feel can support themselves and their family.
I'd say the bigger picture of sustainable energy, lowering carbon emissions, etc, may be very worthy on its own merits, but isn't really closely connected to reducing migration from central America on anything other than a very long term time scale.
These countries are poor, and they aren't poor because of climate change. I have no doubt climate change isn't helping them, but it isn't why those countries are poor. And people in poor countries are moved to desperate measure, including emigrating to richer countries, even in violation of the law.
History has shown over and over that the best way, and perhaps only sustainable way, to reduce poverty is the adoption of market economies, in most cases accompanied with respect for private property, representative government and the rule of law. Until these places, with or without outside assistance, move toward an economic culture that is more consistent with those norms, we will be fighting illegal border crossings for the foreseeable future.
It was naive to think if we gave China's low wage labor easy access to US markets that it, a much bigger country than us, would change its political system in ways we like. And it's naive to think that if we give poor countries on China's periphery easy access to US markets that we'll ever have more gravitational pull on them than China does. But it's different story with poor countries in Latin America, that are no bigger than midsized US states and already have strong ties with the US. We'll benefit by helping them.
Arguably the largest increase in prosperity in recent history has been in China--although some market-based reforms have no doubt contributed to China's success, it's pretty hard to call that a "market economy." The history of our own country also includes a period of industrial policy (including state backing for intellectual property theft, in violation of other countries' laws) leading to our growth.
In other words... I'm not so sure about this reading of history.
A market based economy doesn't mean laissez-faire capitalism. The US didn't have that at our founding and we don't have it now. Nor does any advanced country. Nor does China. But China's growth has been driven by the adoption of market-based reforms across almost the entirety of its economy; they aren't isolated or narrow in scope. At this point, China is filled with capitalists operating in a global economy.
The biggest area where China's growth has challenged conventional wisdom is that it has adopted a market-based economy without granting (or being forced to grant) political freedom and a democratic, representative government.
I think any Central Americans reading your comment might be hearing 'and we will support military coups against any government, democratic or otherwise, that does not meet the 'economic culture' we wish for' unspoken in your comment.
So, then, let the Yanquis leave those countries alone, then. Build a wall, militarize the border, strongarm Mexico into sending the migrants back where they belong. Does that sound better?
This article seems rather thin. We probably could’ve asked the average left-leaning highschooler what we should do, and they would’ve said the same thing. Take in refugees, give them money, build solar farms.
Quite frankly, if the root cause really is climate change, which I am not at all convinced it is. (I’m not saying that climate change is not happening, I’m just saying that these countries were poor and have been poor for a long time), Then any localized fix of building clean energy there won’t even make a dent to the global contributions of the issue.
As far as TPS goes, it’s almost never temporary, and should probably be reserved for immediate natural disasters. Perhaps we should allow more refugees and immigration from Central America, in a organized way, but I don’t see how this will really help the region. The latest studies show that 33%, or 10 million people would move to the United States if they could. Any TPS program would be looked upon as a permanent visa. We need to be real about these numbers. They are regions in the world which have it even worse than Central America.
I think we can do more, and I know it will take money, but I want to see concrete proposals. I suspect we should probably help them with their infrastructure as a whole. How to do this, technically in specifically is what I want to know.
I went down to Honduras when I was in the military, to help build roads with the army reserve. The poverty was striking. It would probably take one or two decades of enormous educational and infrastructure improvements to fix the problems.
And yes the United States is capable of that, but probably not at the same time as our haphazard efforts to try and fix Afghanistan or Iraq.
I think Noah Smith has the best solutions. We need to put massive amounts of research into new technologies, especially clean energy, and then license this to other countries for free.
Anyway, I’m hanging out in South Bend. Have to go to work at 1 PM to inspect a power plant that is having issues. I did spend the morning driving around the campus. It is beautiful, and I say that is a USC fan that doesn’t like Notre Dame.
We don't need to address all problems at the root cause. It's a perfectly reasonable worldview to say, "Climate change isn't at the root of poverty in the Northern Triangle, but it is an exacerbating factor and it's one we can address and make an effect at the margin."
But I'm skeptical. Climate change seems like a uniquely hard margin on which to drive meaningful change. The climate change we'll be experiencing for the next few decades is "baked in" now -- even if we stopped emitting carbon today, worldwide, we'd see decades of warming. Given that, how much meaningful change can we drive specifically for the Northern Triangle with policy today?
Yeah, I don't love takes that talk about how the US can solve an issue by reducing our emissions. As you say the effects are baked in and so any action we take (and we should take action, don't get me wrong!) is going to take a long time to show up - not applicable to reducing migration, wildfires, hurricanes, etc. over the next few years. And beyond that, the US is only responsible for 15% of world carbon emissions (https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emissions) so America is not close to solely responsible for climate change and cannot solve the problem itself regardless.
It’s only 33 million people in those 3 countries; let’s just get settled into some high-density housing and be that much closer to 1 billion Americans.
These are good ideas but I'm not aware of cases where direct aid and subsidies like this had more than a marginal effect around the edges, in contrast to the power of private investment and trade. So in addition to this, it seems that we should review our trade policies to make sure that US companies have stronger incentives for trade with Central American countries than with low wage countries elsewhere, such as in Asia. There are many national security and strategic reasons why a "pivot to the Americas" like that would be beneficial for the US.
As per usual more thoughtful and knowledgeable commenters have added great thoughts already.
So I'll chime in on the margins to ask why on earth poor countries would need or want fitness trails, when we are also talking about people in these areas having to sell their land to survive? Am I being patronizing and shuttered in thinking that fitness trails are not a priority? What do I not know about these countries and situations that turns this comment of Claire's into something other than absurd?
I mean a fitness trail might be good if brings in tourism. And that has long been an environment conservation tactic. Development of tourism industry to provide an economic incentive to protect the environment. I see that as a harder sell in El Salvador. Because crime is bad for tourism.
If the problem you're solving for is "reduce the suffering of Central Americans" then increasing the use of TPS would help. If your aim, however, is to reduce the flow of migrants here by reducing the "push" factor, then, it doesn't help at all. If anything, it increases the pull factor.
Foreign aid seems to be pretty popular even though it seems that Americans overestimate how much we already do. According to this article:
"While not as high as the 8 in 10 who say they favor humanitarian assistance, two-thirds say they favor “aid that helps needy countries develop their economies.” Out of a list of reasons for giving aid, “to help poor countries develop their economies” received an average 6.3 rating on a 0-10 scale, with 62 percent of respondents giving a score above 5."
It might be even more popular if people view the alternative as large amounts of immigration because raising immigration levels in not overly popular. Only about 30% want immigration levels increased.
Glad to see more discussion of CA, thank you for writing this.
In Biden's plan he mentions 4 billion over 4 years? Is fixing these issues really that cheap? Could Bezos throw whatever he made last month at it and solve this? Do we have an idea of the total amount of investment needed?
As some not overly familiar with Carbon Tax policy what does a 200% carbon tax look like? What is it 200% of, the price of any carbon producing good?
Are there some solid estimates of what "...sustainable farming and land-use practices, cutting carbon emissions, increasing green cover in areas that have been deforested or over-developed, and fortifying and earthquake-proofing structures." would do in terms of the disaster risk? How much of it can be mitigated? Is that what the term "welfare" means in this context?
Is there a sense of how welcoming of US intervention these countries will be? I imagine financial aid would be acceptable but do they want the US to play a part in trying rebuild some of their infrastructure?
As people continue to leave is there worry that it could cause destabilization of the countries affected?
Also, can we just have open borders instead of waiting for these people to get hit with a natural disaster?
We can’t have open borders and a welfare state. People on the left have to choose one. If they don’t, moderates in swing states will for them. A previous comment mentioned trade and I agree. Having an “Americas” first attitude is what’s best imho and relying less on Asian countries.
Yeah, that's the conventional wisdom…but I just don't think it's true.
Yes, living on welfare in the US is probably better than subsistence farming in Central America. But having a job in the US is better than living on welfare here!
So I don't see why we shouldn't expect people to immigrate here for the welfare, and then turn around, realize they still want a job, and supercharge our economy.
The only way you square that circle is if you think the number of jobs are fixed, so that any migrant who takes a job puts a native-born on the dole. But immigrants buy stuff, which creates jobs. So there is no net effect. (C.f. Noah Smith's article on this: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-wages).
I feel like the transition cost is challenging here- you might be right that in the limit if everything goes as planned, everyone has jobs and is happily living together. But that comes after a substantial period of serious upheaval as existing structures get overwhelmed and destabilized in unpredictable ways. It’s hard to properly think about all of the tail risk that gets rolled into the “everyone gets along and becomes good little capitalists” model.
"As some not overly familiar with Carbon Tax policy what does a 200% carbon tax look like? What is it 200% of, the price of any carbon producing good?"
Usually carbon taxes aren't phrased as raw percentages like this. Usually they are phrased as $x per ton of CO2 produced, so that it makes a big deal for cheap things that produce lots of carbon per unit value, and a very small deal for expensive things that produce only a bit of carbon per unit value.
My guess is that this "200% carbon tax" is meant to be a carbon tax at twice the level of some specific other proposal for a carbon tax.
well a carbon tax is a tax on carbon at the point of extraction or at the point of importation. The US that would mean big taxes on Oil in ND AK TX big taxes on Coal in WY WV etc. and big tariffs on imported carbon intensive goods such as plastics. I think a 200% carbon tax would be like $7-10 a gallon gas and I also think food would get more expensive because plastic is so involved in packaging it. Gas bills would go from go up about 3x eclectic bills would go up in most places but not all some places use Hydro etc.
It's really weird nomenclature they're using in that paper. I focus on climate in an econ phd program and hadn't seen someone using these percent terms in a paper before. But a footnote explains that they're basing the percentages around an initial price of fossil fuels at $73 per ton of C02, so a 200% carbon tax is $146 USD, which is quite high compared to most enacted taxes. Most similar to the tax Sweden uses on transportation emissions.
Thank you for finding that, I wasn't able to download the PDF earlier and couldn't find that.
I imagine the idea was to time-proof the paper by putting it at a multiple of fuel prices rather than a $ value than is subject to change with the market.
Are you familiar with the welfare calculations they are doing? I was struggling to understand if it was more than just a time-discounted economic welfare or if there was a different context.
Can Mexico just have open borders and let migrants settle there? Can we help shuttle some migrants north to Canada? Why shouldn't other North American countries that are better off than the Northern Triangle states help us out here?
The next 50-100 years is going to be fascinating experiment. Most Western countries have taken in large numbers of migrants, many from quite different cultures to the native culture.
How will they stack up against East Asian nations like China, Japan etc. that have remained relatively ethnically homogenous, but have low TFR?
AFAIK Canada's immigration policy is that they take a lot of immigrants, but are pretty selective about them. Doubt they'd be interested in letting in masses of mostly unqualified people from central america.
And it just turns out agroforestry, a high carbon sequestration land use method, works really well in the Central American climate and the crops grown natively there. Stable income and food while drawing some carbon down.
That climate change affects the region seems worth emphasizing. However, climate change is a global phenomenon, and focusing on (for example) reducing greenhouse gas emission in the Northern Triangle would have very modest effects on climate change and no special impact on this region. In contrast, better land management, including controlling zones of dense habitation and controlling erosion, especially via reforestation, could directly impact the region.
There is a saying that "What are the causes of poverty?" is the wrong question. The better question is "What are the causes of prosperity?". Certainly a prerequisite is a reasonably honest and competent government that can protect life and property and enforce contracts. The Central Americans countries in question lack this prerequisite.
So what's the answer? As a libertarian, I will pivot me from a conservative complaint to a progressive solution. Open borders. Let people leave countries that don't work. Contrary to Janet Yellin, I believe that governments should have to compete for the allegiance of individuals as well as industries.
For my eight bucks a month, can I please have the ability to edit a comment after posting? In your mind, please consider the "me" after "pivot" deleted.
This was an interesting and well-written piece, but unfortunately, I think most of it is not relevant to the fundamental problems of this region.
The endemic problems in Central America generally and the Northern Triangle specifically predate climate change and US meddling and would exist even if the US zeroed out carbon emissions tomorrow. And the root problem is weak governance that has allowed space for corruption and competing governing institutions, including the gangs.
Well-intentioned programs that purport to improve some metric by "x" percentage by doing "y" are not new, but such ivory-tower estimates always crashed into the reality of the fundamental issues of governance and corruption. Money and effort are sapped away and even when projects are completed, there is very rarely follow-through in terms of sustainment. US development efforts in the region end up very much as they have in Afghanistan - another country with weak governance, endemic violence, rampant corruption, and a low-trust society.
Weak governance in this region goes back to the mid-19th century when these countries became independent. Many local governments cannot provide basic services and are under the influence of organized violent groups. The notion that what local governments need is "better planning strategies" assumes a level of capacity, capability, independence, and influence that few local governments actually have.
These are problems the US can't really solve. The best things we could do are end the drug war and focus on efforts designed to improve governing capacity in these countries. But we shouldn't expect that even these things will do much considering the history of failure of historic US efforts to improve governance.
The article is almost a parody of leftist thinking. We must solve climate change to solve immigration and gang violence and all these problems were created by the CIA so the US is morally culpable.
The article literally doesn't mention the CIA anywhere. Have you actually read it?
You got me - I haven't read it. And regardless, the CIA has never interfered in LatAm elections, so I also apologize for sullying their good name.
You know I try and say smart things in the comments here. But there’s always someone like you who are even smarter than I am. OK who am I kidding, 95% of you guys are smarter than me. It’s a very good analysis though
Is this "it's weak governance" throw up your hands-ism really helpful?
Helpful for what? I don't understand the question.
Weak governance is a fundamental problem in any US effort to improve the domestic situation in any other country, not just those in Central America. The historical evidence for this is vast. It's a very real obstacle to actually accomplishing things, one that can't be ignored.
It's a tedious restatement of a critique that is oh - 40 years old at this point? And that has had several decades of responses as well.
It's entirely possible to have effective interventions in countries that seem like they have crappy governance. In fact the evidence for crappy governance is usually... the failure of interventions. The entire enterprise seems to post hoc theorizing to make people feel comfortable doing nothing.
If it's entirely possible to have the kinds of effective interventions described, then what real-world examples can you provide that prove this assertion?
Also, if crappy governance is the result of failing to intervene, then how do you explain Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, etc.? Or the fact that the Northern Triangle countries are still a complete mess despite hundreds of millions a year in US aid and development programs?
I'd submit that history shows that successes are both rare and fleeting when governance is unstable and weak.
The "post hoc theorizing" is actually an analysis of the historical effectiveness of these kinds of programs and determining the reason why most of them do no live up to the promises of proponents.
Finally, I'm pointing this out not to make people feel comfortable about doing nothing, but to note that effectiveness matters as opposed to wishful thinking and good intentions.
'It's entirely possible to have effective interventions in countries that seem like they have crappy governance'. This is demonstrably untrue, but let's pretend that it isn't- shouldn't we, uh, start with Afghanistan, where we've been at war for 20 years now? Can you export your effective intervention strategies there first? Curiously the US & NATO have I guess simply chosen not to use said effective intervention, but seeing as you know more than the military, the State Department, USAID, the UN and so on- can you help fix Afghanistan first? Then once the obvious success is evident, you can export your methodologies to the Northern Triangle along with Syria, Libya and so on
You may find the truth "tedious" but Andy is, unfortunately, correct.
Yes, it's helpful in clarifying the problem that needs to be addressed. We can pump in resources to a country but if its government is weak and corrupt, and the resources get diverted to other actors and used for other purposes, then it's just a waste. You can write down all the budgets and plans you want, but that doesn't mean anything unless the resources are actually spent on the things they're supposed to be spent on. Weak governance is a real issue and one that needs to be addressed ahead of or at least alongside the other real issues facing these Central American countries.
Is it not true that the US *could* solve these issues with a more interventionist foreign policy? Money and aid but backed up by military force and direct intervention in the government. The US has helped create successful countries in other parts of the world. Just because it failed in Afghanistan doesn't mean it could not succeed in another country.
I'm not aware of an instance where intervention has worked to create successful countries. People always point to Germany and Japan, but those examples are sui generis. There were no comparable examples before WWII and there have been none since. The most recent attempt was South Sudan which hasn't worked out well. We've been working on Somalia with several other countries and Somalia's neighbors for decades.
I don't think the historical record is good for pro-intervention policies.
And Germany and Japan were counties with high levels of industrial and organizational skill before U.S. intervention—we just didn’t like the ends of that organization. No wonder they were able to become stable and prosperous again after.
Climate change is a global problem. But, what if the root problems causing immigration are escaping poverty, violence, political oppression and lack of opportunity? I'm not sold on cause and effect here. Florida has hurricanes, California has fires, pollution and other climate change issues too, but every one of these Northern Triangle immigrants would much rather live in either state. I would suggest that most people want to come to the US because of economics, safety and freedom.
Brian, I would have to agree in this point. The other point of comparison we have is other countries in the region, specifically Costa Rica, Belize, and Panama. Each one has positive net migration, and they are exposed to virtually the exact same climate risk. Of course, they have more wealth and stability to deal with climate issues, but that's why your best bet (as is often the case) is to stabilize the domestic situation in these countries, while simultaneously viewing climate change as a long-term global problem where wealth and stability will be a better defense that climate heavy policies in countries that are in social chaos.
Yeah, I'd say that this part of the article: "strong and sturdy shelters, diversified and drought-resistant agricultural practices, and clean water availability and security" makes sense in terms of improving living standards. You still need to couple that with economic development that means people can get a decent job that they feel can support themselves and their family.
I'd say the bigger picture of sustainable energy, lowering carbon emissions, etc, may be very worthy on its own merits, but isn't really closely connected to reducing migration from central America on anything other than a very long term time scale.
These countries are poor, and they aren't poor because of climate change. I have no doubt climate change isn't helping them, but it isn't why those countries are poor. And people in poor countries are moved to desperate measure, including emigrating to richer countries, even in violation of the law.
History has shown over and over that the best way, and perhaps only sustainable way, to reduce poverty is the adoption of market economies, in most cases accompanied with respect for private property, representative government and the rule of law. Until these places, with or without outside assistance, move toward an economic culture that is more consistent with those norms, we will be fighting illegal border crossings for the foreseeable future.
It was naive to think if we gave China's low wage labor easy access to US markets that it, a much bigger country than us, would change its political system in ways we like. And it's naive to think that if we give poor countries on China's periphery easy access to US markets that we'll ever have more gravitational pull on them than China does. But it's different story with poor countries in Latin America, that are no bigger than midsized US states and already have strong ties with the US. We'll benefit by helping them.
The United States
Arguably the largest increase in prosperity in recent history has been in China--although some market-based reforms have no doubt contributed to China's success, it's pretty hard to call that a "market economy." The history of our own country also includes a period of industrial policy (including state backing for intellectual property theft, in violation of other countries' laws) leading to our growth.
In other words... I'm not so sure about this reading of history.
A market based economy doesn't mean laissez-faire capitalism. The US didn't have that at our founding and we don't have it now. Nor does any advanced country. Nor does China. But China's growth has been driven by the adoption of market-based reforms across almost the entirety of its economy; they aren't isolated or narrow in scope. At this point, China is filled with capitalists operating in a global economy.
The biggest area where China's growth has challenged conventional wisdom is that it has adopted a market-based economy without granting (or being forced to grant) political freedom and a democratic, representative government.
I think any Central Americans reading your comment might be hearing 'and we will support military coups against any government, democratic or otherwise, that does not meet the 'economic culture' we wish for' unspoken in your comment.
So, then, let the Yanquis leave those countries alone, then. Build a wall, militarize the border, strongarm Mexico into sending the migrants back where they belong. Does that sound better?
This article seems rather thin. We probably could’ve asked the average left-leaning highschooler what we should do, and they would’ve said the same thing. Take in refugees, give them money, build solar farms.
Quite frankly, if the root cause really is climate change, which I am not at all convinced it is. (I’m not saying that climate change is not happening, I’m just saying that these countries were poor and have been poor for a long time), Then any localized fix of building clean energy there won’t even make a dent to the global contributions of the issue.
As far as TPS goes, it’s almost never temporary, and should probably be reserved for immediate natural disasters. Perhaps we should allow more refugees and immigration from Central America, in a organized way, but I don’t see how this will really help the region. The latest studies show that 33%, or 10 million people would move to the United States if they could. Any TPS program would be looked upon as a permanent visa. We need to be real about these numbers. They are regions in the world which have it even worse than Central America.
I think we can do more, and I know it will take money, but I want to see concrete proposals. I suspect we should probably help them with their infrastructure as a whole. How to do this, technically in specifically is what I want to know.
I went down to Honduras when I was in the military, to help build roads with the army reserve. The poverty was striking. It would probably take one or two decades of enormous educational and infrastructure improvements to fix the problems.
And yes the United States is capable of that, but probably not at the same time as our haphazard efforts to try and fix Afghanistan or Iraq.
I think Noah Smith has the best solutions. We need to put massive amounts of research into new technologies, especially clean energy, and then license this to other countries for free.
Anyway, I’m hanging out in South Bend. Have to go to work at 1 PM to inspect a power plant that is having issues. I did spend the morning driving around the campus. It is beautiful, and I say that is a USC fan that doesn’t like Notre Dame.
Hope everyone is having a good weekend.
We don't need to address all problems at the root cause. It's a perfectly reasonable worldview to say, "Climate change isn't at the root of poverty in the Northern Triangle, but it is an exacerbating factor and it's one we can address and make an effect at the margin."
But I'm skeptical. Climate change seems like a uniquely hard margin on which to drive meaningful change. The climate change we'll be experiencing for the next few decades is "baked in" now -- even if we stopped emitting carbon today, worldwide, we'd see decades of warming. Given that, how much meaningful change can we drive specifically for the Northern Triangle with policy today?
Yeah, I don't love takes that talk about how the US can solve an issue by reducing our emissions. As you say the effects are baked in and so any action we take (and we should take action, don't get me wrong!) is going to take a long time to show up - not applicable to reducing migration, wildfires, hurricanes, etc. over the next few years. And beyond that, the US is only responsible for 15% of world carbon emissions (https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emissions) so America is not close to solely responsible for climate change and cannot solve the problem itself regardless.
And this region is probably only responsible for 1% of emissions, so giving them solar plants, while a good thing, won't change anything.
It’s only 33 million people in those 3 countries; let’s just get settled into some high-density housing and be that much closer to 1 billion Americans.
Yes!
These are good ideas but I'm not aware of cases where direct aid and subsidies like this had more than a marginal effect around the edges, in contrast to the power of private investment and trade. So in addition to this, it seems that we should review our trade policies to make sure that US companies have stronger incentives for trade with Central American countries than with low wage countries elsewhere, such as in Asia. There are many national security and strategic reasons why a "pivot to the Americas" like that would be beneficial for the US.
As per usual more thoughtful and knowledgeable commenters have added great thoughts already.
So I'll chime in on the margins to ask why on earth poor countries would need or want fitness trails, when we are also talking about people in these areas having to sell their land to survive? Am I being patronizing and shuttered in thinking that fitness trails are not a priority? What do I not know about these countries and situations that turns this comment of Claire's into something other than absurd?
I mean a fitness trail might be good if brings in tourism. And that has long been an environment conservation tactic. Development of tourism industry to provide an economic incentive to protect the environment. I see that as a harder sell in El Salvador. Because crime is bad for tourism.
“Back in 1998, we — well, not really me, because I was an infant”
Damn. Saturday morning sucker punch :/
Cool post yo.
If the problem you're solving for is "reduce the suffering of Central Americans" then increasing the use of TPS would help. If your aim, however, is to reduce the flow of migrants here by reducing the "push" factor, then, it doesn't help at all. If anything, it increases the pull factor.
Thanks, Claire.
I wish that doing this were more obviously compatible with the imperative to "do popular stuff."
Foreign aid seems to be pretty popular even though it seems that Americans overestimate how much we already do. According to this article:
"While not as high as the 8 in 10 who say they favor humanitarian assistance, two-thirds say they favor “aid that helps needy countries develop their economies.” Out of a list of reasons for giving aid, “to help poor countries develop their economies” received an average 6.3 rating on a 0-10 scale, with 62 percent of respondents giving a score above 5."
https://www.brookings.edu/research/american-public-support-for-foreign-aid-in-the-age-of-trump/
It might be even more popular if people view the alternative as large amounts of immigration because raising immigration levels in not overly popular. Only about 30% want immigration levels increased.
Man, I love the division of labor here in the comments section:
I post content-free snark, and people answer with facts, studies, and surveys.
Thank you!
Thanks for the interesting article on this important topic, Claire. Looking forward to future articles
Glad to see more discussion of CA, thank you for writing this.
In Biden's plan he mentions 4 billion over 4 years? Is fixing these issues really that cheap? Could Bezos throw whatever he made last month at it and solve this? Do we have an idea of the total amount of investment needed?
As some not overly familiar with Carbon Tax policy what does a 200% carbon tax look like? What is it 200% of, the price of any carbon producing good?
Are there some solid estimates of what "...sustainable farming and land-use practices, cutting carbon emissions, increasing green cover in areas that have been deforested or over-developed, and fortifying and earthquake-proofing structures." would do in terms of the disaster risk? How much of it can be mitigated? Is that what the term "welfare" means in this context?
Is there a sense of how welcoming of US intervention these countries will be? I imagine financial aid would be acceptable but do they want the US to play a part in trying rebuild some of their infrastructure?
As people continue to leave is there worry that it could cause destabilization of the countries affected?
Also, can we just have open borders instead of waiting for these people to get hit with a natural disaster?
We can’t have open borders and a welfare state. People on the left have to choose one. If they don’t, moderates in swing states will for them. A previous comment mentioned trade and I agree. Having an “Americas” first attitude is what’s best imho and relying less on Asian countries.
Yeah, that's the conventional wisdom…but I just don't think it's true.
Yes, living on welfare in the US is probably better than subsistence farming in Central America. But having a job in the US is better than living on welfare here!
So I don't see why we shouldn't expect people to immigrate here for the welfare, and then turn around, realize they still want a job, and supercharge our economy.
The only way you square that circle is if you think the number of jobs are fixed, so that any migrant who takes a job puts a native-born on the dole. But immigrants buy stuff, which creates jobs. So there is no net effect. (C.f. Noah Smith's article on this: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-wages).
I feel like the transition cost is challenging here- you might be right that in the limit if everything goes as planned, everyone has jobs and is happily living together. But that comes after a substantial period of serious upheaval as existing structures get overwhelmed and destabilized in unpredictable ways. It’s hard to properly think about all of the tail risk that gets rolled into the “everyone gets along and becomes good little capitalists” model.
You can have welfare state with difficult rules like we have.
"As some not overly familiar with Carbon Tax policy what does a 200% carbon tax look like? What is it 200% of, the price of any carbon producing good?"
Usually carbon taxes aren't phrased as raw percentages like this. Usually they are phrased as $x per ton of CO2 produced, so that it makes a big deal for cheap things that produce lots of carbon per unit value, and a very small deal for expensive things that produce only a bit of carbon per unit value.
My guess is that this "200% carbon tax" is meant to be a carbon tax at twice the level of some specific other proposal for a carbon tax.
To help the discussion, about 100 gallons of gasoline produce a ton of CO2
well a carbon tax is a tax on carbon at the point of extraction or at the point of importation. The US that would mean big taxes on Oil in ND AK TX big taxes on Coal in WY WV etc. and big tariffs on imported carbon intensive goods such as plastics. I think a 200% carbon tax would be like $7-10 a gallon gas and I also think food would get more expensive because plastic is so involved in packaging it. Gas bills would go from go up about 3x eclectic bills would go up in most places but not all some places use Hydro etc.
Yeah I mostly see something like a price per ton but I am not overly versed in climate policy so I wasn't sure what the 200% referred to.
It's really weird nomenclature they're using in that paper. I focus on climate in an econ phd program and hadn't seen someone using these percent terms in a paper before. But a footnote explains that they're basing the percentages around an initial price of fossil fuels at $73 per ton of C02, so a 200% carbon tax is $146 USD, which is quite high compared to most enacted taxes. Most similar to the tax Sweden uses on transportation emissions.
Thank you for finding that, I wasn't able to download the PDF earlier and couldn't find that.
I imagine the idea was to time-proof the paper by putting it at a multiple of fuel prices rather than a $ value than is subject to change with the market.
Are you familiar with the welfare calculations they are doing? I was struggling to understand if it was more than just a time-discounted economic welfare or if there was a different context.
"can we just have open borders"
Can Mexico just have open borders and let migrants settle there? Can we help shuttle some migrants north to Canada? Why shouldn't other North American countries that are better off than the Northern Triangle states help us out here?
I wonder why China and Japan never take any immigrants.
The next 50-100 years is going to be fascinating experiment. Most Western countries have taken in large numbers of migrants, many from quite different cultures to the native culture.
How will they stack up against East Asian nations like China, Japan etc. that have remained relatively ethnically homogenous, but have low TFR?
I am not very familiar with Mexican or Canadian politics but if they could make that work that would be cool.
AFAIK Canada's immigration policy is that they take a lot of immigrants, but are pretty selective about them. Doubt they'd be interested in letting in masses of mostly unqualified people from central america.
And it just turns out agroforestry, a high carbon sequestration land use method, works really well in the Central American climate and the crops grown natively there. Stable income and food while drawing some carbon down.
Yes. Planting more fruit trees is also a really good idea.
That climate change affects the region seems worth emphasizing. However, climate change is a global phenomenon, and focusing on (for example) reducing greenhouse gas emission in the Northern Triangle would have very modest effects on climate change and no special impact on this region. In contrast, better land management, including controlling zones of dense habitation and controlling erosion, especially via reforestation, could directly impact the region.
Great article - enjoyed it and look forward to the next one!
There is a saying that "What are the causes of poverty?" is the wrong question. The better question is "What are the causes of prosperity?". Certainly a prerequisite is a reasonably honest and competent government that can protect life and property and enforce contracts. The Central Americans countries in question lack this prerequisite.
So what's the answer? As a libertarian, I will pivot me from a conservative complaint to a progressive solution. Open borders. Let people leave countries that don't work. Contrary to Janet Yellin, I believe that governments should have to compete for the allegiance of individuals as well as industries.
Yeah. Poverty should be considered the default norm. Anything more than "abjectly poor" requires some form of societal effort.
For my eight bucks a month, can I please have the ability to edit a comment after posting? In your mind, please consider the "me" after "pivot" deleted.