Americans Should Stand Together to Protect Americans
Rather than bury the lede, I wanted to first say up front that this article is meant to ask you to help us protect U.S. investment in Próspera ZEDE from expropriation by the Government of Honduras.
Let’s work together to defend what Silicon Valley Blogger Scott Alexander called possibly the?best political institution in the world: Próspera ZEDE .
One way you can help is to engage on twitter and other social media. Yes – it seems trite, but the network effects are real. Hearts and minds are won on the margins. Please follow, like AND retweet @prosperahn, @prosperaglobal, @prosperazede, and maybe even my own handle: @nickdranias. Also, consider reaching out to your Congress(wo)man or Senator and ask them to co-sponsor the House or Senate counterpart (as applicable) of the?Protect U.S. investments Act.
And now the backstory….
If you’ve been following my posts, you already know that Amnesty International of the Americas (the Latin American division) lauded the Honduran government’s expropriative efforts to repeal the ZEDE investment framework in defiance of CAFTA-backed guarantees of 50-years of legal stability. They did so by libelously asserting that human rights were potentially more at risk in the three ZEDE special economic zones, including Próspera, than greater Honduras.
That’s ridiculous because Próspera guarantees human rights protection at or above the U.S. Bill of Rights level , with arbitral oversight by top-flight retired U.S. judges and legal experts .
Well, that was not the end of the propaganda campaign we need to confront and overcome. It was just the beginning.
The very next day, two gentlemen demanded that the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) publish their commentary attacking ZEDEs. Although I personally would have been embarrassed to publish the screed that was eventually submitted (in my former life overseeing policy publications in the think tank world), in the spirit of “equal time,” CSIS nevertheless decided to entertain a debate between them and its top Latin American policy analyst, Ryan Berg, PhD .?
The resulting contrast between the two positions was stark.
With cogent analysis based on extensive past work in the field, Dr. Berg underscored the incredible opportunity ZEDEs offer for U.S. investment, stability in Latin American, increased nearshoring opportunities, and the deterrence of Chinese, Cuban, and Venezuelan influence.
In contrast, the political activist commentary (linked in Dr. Berg’s piece above) reads like a troll’s twitter rant.
It’s only the loss of?“15,000 Honduran jobs!”?The activists say.
They claim that somehow ZEDEs offend democracy even though the framework is a product of the same democracy they laud. And if you read between the lines, they also believe it’s “Democracy” for the Honduran Castro Administration to violate CAFTA investment treaty guarantees with the U.S., to pull the rug out from underneath U.S investors, and to cause the Honduran government to be exposed to nearly $11 billion in damages —the cost of which will be “democratically” borne by Honduran taxpayers and future Honduran elected officials.
Of course, that’s not the spirit of real “democracy.”
As a near libelous way of slinging mud at Próspera, they also recounted a virtual novella of the tragically typical political drama and controversies that are endemic in Honduras no matter what political party is in power. But the same cast of characters, albeit with different names and from different political parties, can be found in the current Castro administration and its Libre Party. It’s not fair or logical to impose “guilt-by-association” or some sort of “original sin” on innocent U.S. investors who relied upon CAFTA-backed guarantees in daring to invest under a lawful Honduran investment framework.
If anything, the corruption and criminality of too much of the Honduran political class underscores the?genius?of the Honduran framers of the ZEDE system.
The ZEDE framework is designed to create semi-autonomous zones with 50-years of legal stability for the very purpose of insulating investors from such tumultuous domestic politics. It is quite simply the best hope Honduras has ever had to encourage the exponential levels of investment that will deliver prosperity to its people.
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Not only does the activists’ nakedly ideological screed not hold a candle to the incisive analysis and pro-U.S. investment position of CSIS’s own Dr. Ryan Berg, they don’t actually even address the incredible governance platform that U.S. investment in Próspera ZEDE has brought to Honduras.
In addition to a super-efficient eGovernance system modeled after Estonia’s eResidency system, and fair simple taxation, Próspera ZEDE is built on two uniquely innovative ideas:
(1) “fiduciary governance,” in which all public officials are literal trustees of a public trust, and
(2) “universal regulatory reciprocity” for U.S. standards and OECD+ countries, making it easy for companies to nearshore their supply chains from China and Europe.
These policy foundations are a gamechanger. Consider what the brilliant Scott Alexander, a blogger read by almost any big name in Silicon Valley, said months earlier:
Because of the innovative Próspera platform , in just 24 months (and despite launching in the middle of Covid), the Próspera platform has brought to Honduras:
This is all in full alignment with the shared values and goals of both executive branch and legislative leadership in the U.S., regardless of party.
Both the Biden Administration’s Central American Partnership project led by VP Kamala Harris AND the aligned Americas Act proposed by Sen. Cassidy and Rep. Salazar require a backbone of strong protections for U.S. investment in Latin America, not excuses for badly behaving governments by expropriation apologists.
The bottom line is -?Americans should stand together to protect Americans. That’s not a partisan principle.
If some Americans want to bolster the anti-investment actions of the Honduran Castro Administration to the detriment of fellow Americans,?they should have better than twitter-troll arguments to justify that attack.
Please send me a message if you would like to help support efforts to advance the Protect U.S. Investments Act . We have a lot of work to do.
The pile of carrots on offer needs at least one stick.
And if you want the real story behind the incredible opportunities, innovation and investment enabled by Próspera, please watch this recent online seminar on the incredible things that have happened and are planned for the future .
It’s time for Americans to stand together regardless of party affiliation.