Ecuador and Venezuela, and other countries of South America, are eager to welcome dissidents such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden because they already have longstanding economic grievances against the United States. They were willing to forgive a dictator like Hugo Chavez a number of sins because he articulated their economic grievances.

One thing which emerges is that the United States is increasingly “needy” in its economic relationships with large parts of the world. The United States is not the world’s manufacturing floor anymore. That is China. One might add that India has become the world’s “back office.”

As a general rule, a country with a population density of two hundred people per square mile or less can produce enough food and raw materials to supply itself, and to export something besides. Failure to do so is usually a sign of poor management. The United States imports oil because, for essentially political reasons, we have failed to switch our transportation over to electricity. Most of the countries of South America are not natural trading partners with the United States. When an Ecuadorian wants beef, he does not have to buy American grain, still less American frozen beef. He sends cattle down into the jungle, to eat the bark off the trees, deer-fashion, and to gradually transform the land into savanna (tropical prairie), which they can graze in the usual manner. The vaquero takes along a chain saw, and cuts down trees to bring their leafy tops within the cattle’s reach, helping the process along. It’s basically a case of learning to make what you want out of what you have.

As for intellectual property, foreigners in general are profoundly unresponsive to the idea that they should pay large sums for off-the-shelf items which can easily be copied for pennies, when the United States shows little or no interest in purchasing such intellectual property as these countries might produce.

These countries tend to develop pervasive senses of economic grievance. The United States wants to wage war on their soil against the production of drugs; the United States wants them to pay sizable royalties on intellectual property, and again it wants to wage war on their soil to that end; the United States wants them to give favored treatment to American companies like McDonalds and Wal-Mart, rather than encouraging native businesses; and, in order not to offend the American farm vote, the only agricultural goods the United States will accept are those for which it lacks a suitable climate, or which require overwhelming quantities of hand-labor.

Ecuador, like Venezuela, gets most of its foreign-exchange from oil. It doesn’t have very much oil, but it doesn’t have very many automobiles, either, and there is an exportable surplus. Oil is famously fungible– it can easily be sold to China or Brazil if the United States will not buy it.

Galapagos islands, the worlds highest active volcano, tropical rainforests – and now – a people who put principle before commerce. Sounds like a place that I’d be willing to support with my tourist money.