Russia and Latin America: Constants and Variables in Trade and Economic Relations

Abstract

The article shows that during the two decades of the 21st century, a new reality of trade and economic relations between the Russian Federation and Latin America (Latin-Caribbean America – LCA) has been formed and filled with concrete content, which, it can be argued, has passed the test of complementarity, and in a number of cases reached the level of large-scale partnership. According to the author, these relations are not artificially done geoeconomic construction, but a consequence of both objective factors that bring Russia and the LCA closer together (including in approaches to achieving the sustainable development goals and restructuring of the existing system of world economic relations), and the efforts of state bodies, business circles, representatives of the expert community interested in the development of Russian-Latin American cooperation. Of course, over the past decades the dynamics of trade and economic relations between Russia and Latin America has not always been stable, at some point it was largely lost, there was some pullback and “surrender” of some significant positions. This happened in large part because in the conditions of increased turbulence in the international markets and rapid global changes, the parties sometimes lost a promising vision of the future of Russian-Latin American economic cooperation, did not find opportunely new areas of cooperation attractive to both sides. In fact, positive introductory approaches to strengthening relations on the principles of strategic partnership have been periodically tested, especially in times of renewed international instability that has eroded the established world order. But each time the parties mobilized existing internal reserves and offered extraordinary areas of interaction. An example of the most recent time is the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, which has crossed political boundaries on the map of Latin-Caribbean America, became the core of the so called “vaccine diplomacy” and opened a “second breath” in the relationship between Russia and the LСA in the key area of business cooperation.