By Orlando Milesi
SAN ANTONIO, Chile, Oct 17 2025 – Maritime transport is key for Chile, which has 34 free trade agreements with countries and blocs of nations, one of the broadest trade networks in the world with access to over 86% of the global gross domestic product (GDP).

In 2024, this South American country surpassed US$100 billion in exports for the first time, mostly of copper, forest products, fresh fruits, fish, and organic foods. In turn, it imported US$78.025 billion, mostly diesel oil, clothing, accessories, and footwear.

Faced with growing trade, experts predict enormous port demand by 2036 in this long and narrow South American country squeezed between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean.



To avoid a collapse in 10 years, the San Antonio Outer Port project will triple the capacity of Chile’s main route for the exit and entry of products.

San Antonio currently handles 29% of the tonnage of maritime foreign trade, 34% of exports, and 71% of Chile’s imports by value.

The high agricultural and mining production from Chile’s central area, which contributes 59% of the country’s GDP and is home to 63% of its 19.7 million inhabitants, passes through this port.

The outer port will allow for the movement of six million containers thanks to two new port terminals, 1,730 meters long and 450 meters wide, with eight new berthing fronts for state-of-the-art container ships.

The total estimated investment for the project is US$4.45 billion, which will be financed by the government and by international companies applying for concessions.

The first months of 2026 will be key for awarding the dredging works, the construction of the breakwater, the protective infrastructure for the new port, and for learning the authorities’ decision on the environmental impact of the San Antonio Outer Port works.

Measures will be taken to mitigate that impact, including the protection of two wetlands located on port land and support for the work of fishermen in nearby coves. To decarbonize, the port project will also use energy produced from renewable sources.

San Antonio, 110 kilometers west of Santiago and south of the historic port of Valparaiso, which it has surpassed in relevance, is aiming for a revival by promoting the largest port infrastructure project in Chile’s history.

It currently provides 10,200 direct jobs to port workers with an average monthly income of US$1,110.

San Antonio aims to consolidate its ninth place among the largest ports in Latin America and expand its role in the movement of cargo to and from Asia and the Americas.

Its managers also seek to show that infrastructure development can be harmonized with the protection and improvement of environmental conditions through a project that is a model of sustainability.

By Sudip Ranjan Basu
BANGKOK Thailand, Oct 17 2025 – The Asia-Pacific region has long served as a springboard for transforming socio-economic implementation gaps into development opportunities. With the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals fast approaching, policymakers are stepping up efforts to translate policy announcements into tangible impacts.

Looking back since 1970s, the region’s development trajectory has been shaped by a series of crises that triggered transformative policy responses. By engaging strategic partnerships, countries in the region are well-positioned to promote shared prosperity for both people and the planet.

Anchoring crisis-driven policy shifts
In the 1970s, technological advances—particularly in agriculture—ushered in a new era. The introduction of high-yield crop varieties, known as the Green Revolution, boosted food production and rural incomes, laying the foundation for the emergence of a middle class. However, the decade also exposed vulnerabilities, as volatility in global commodity and energy prices exposed the risks of external shocks.

The 1980s brought further challenges. Rising oil prices and global interest rates strained national budgets across developing countries. The cost of servicing external debt crowded out investments in productive sectors, highlighting the risks of over-reliance on foreign aid.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis marked a watershed moment. Currency collapses, triggered capital flight and trade disruptions, leaving deep scars and prompting shifts in political governance and economic policy across the region.

By the early 2000s, optimism returned. Trade and investment surged, regional value chains expanded, and ICT-driven growth integrated economies more deeply into the global economy. Globalization was widely seen as a pathway to long-term prosperity.

Yet the 2008 global financial crisis shattered this euphoria. Inflation soared, investor confidence plummeted, and trade contracted.

Fast forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, which once again exposed lingering vulnerabilities: socio-economic inequality was deepened, jobs prospects dimmed, overdependence on supply chain became more pronounced, technological monopolies were revealed, and environmental fragility was clearly manifested. The pandemic reinforced the urgent need for adaptive policy frameworks.

These crisis episodes underscored the importance of coordinated policy action in an interconnected landscape, reinforcing the lesson that growth without adequate and shared outcomes is unsustainable.

Adjusting to changing socio-economic realities
The development journey has been marked by complexity and diversity. A comparative analysis over recent decades reveals recurring patterns: energy and food price volatility and tightening financial conditions have consistently tested policymakers. Rising interest rates in advanced economies have reignited debt concerns in developing countries, threatening economic stability and undermining progress.

Simultaneously, intensifying geopolitical competition is reshaping trade relationships, investment flows and technology transfers. Policymakers must navigate these shifts while advancing national development priorities and adapting to evolving dynamics.

These pressures have prompted to diversify its sources of economic growth and strategic engagements. Despite impressive achievements in social development, long-term stability and impact-driven outcomes hinge on governments’ ability to manage external shocks, anticipate risks, and promote cross-border economic cooperation and accelerate climate action.

Recent policy shifts signal a move toward structural transformation. Governments are spearheading industrialization, accelerating green energy transitions and pioneering sustainable financing mechanisms. This marks a shift from short-term crisis management to building medium- and long-term socio-economic progress.

The pandemic years further emphasised the need for adaptive policies—ones that can absorb unexpected shocks while maintaining progress toward stability.

Adapting through policy lessons
The development experience, particularly the least developed countries, the landlocked developing countries and small island developing States, offers valuable insights into building institutional capabilities and preventing future crises. Four strategic policy insights emerge:

Price stability matters: Volatile prices have repeatedly undermined development gains. Strategic foresight and balanced economic policy planning are essential to safeguard progress.
Fiscal buoyancy is critical: Excessive external borrowing has triggered past crises.

Creating fiscal space, mobilizing domestic resources, scaling blended finance and implementing coordinated debt management frameworks are vital for development.

Crisis preparedness requires coordination: The 1997 and 2008 crises showed that no country can respond effectively in isolation. Strengthening institutions is crucial for early warning systems, policy dialogue and coordinated action.

Sustainability is key to people-centred development: Climate change, socio-economic disparities and institutional inefficiencies pose long-term risks. Integrating sustainability into strategies and promoting technological transformation are no longer optional; they are imperative.

Turning points
The Asia-Pacific region’s development story is one of transition, and transformation. Connecting these turning points reveals a region that has consistently learned from its challenges and leveraged them to advance policy solutions.

The path ahead is promising, but policies must adapt to address shifting socio-economic dynamics, structural and climate change vulnerabilities, and emerging geopolitical realignments. These efforts must be anchored in regional cooperation, inclusive dialogue, and coordinated action, particularly through platforms such as ESCAP.

While governments play a central role, long-term progress will depend on the collective engagement of the private sector, academia, civil society and regional institutions. With strategic convergence, the Asia-Pacific region is well-positioned to overcome today’s uncertainty and shape a better future for all.

Sudip Ranjan Basu is Secretary of the Commission, ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17 2025 – The US hostility towards the UN is threatening to escalate, as a cash-starved world body is struggling for economic survival.

Addressing the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee last week. Ambassador Jeff Bartos, U.S. Representative for U.N. Management and Reform said: “President Trump is absolutely right – the United Nations can be an important institution for solving international challenges, but it has strayed far from its original purpose”.

“Over 80 years, the UN has grown bloated, unfocused, too often ineffective, and sometimes even part of the problem. The UN’s failure to deliver on its core mandates is alarming and undeniable. “

The United States has been, by far, the largest funder of the UN since its founding. Based on the most recent scales of assessment, the United States provides more funding to the UN than 180 other nations combined, he pointed out.

“For the United States, the era of business as usual is over. During the Main Session, we will work with this Committee to achieve deeper cuts to wasteful spending and stronger accountability, with a relentless focus on results”.

The reductions already proposed in special political missions, the closure of unnecessary field offices, and the consolidation of executive offices, are the kind of decisions that must become the rule, not the exception.

Addressing the General Assembly last month, President Trump remarked: “What is the purpose of the United Nations? It’s not even coming close to living up to [its] potential.”

Dismissing the U.N. as an outdated, ineffective organization, he boasted: “I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal.”

But UN’s political ineffectiveness is due primarily to the role played by the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council—the US, UK, France, China and Russia–who are quick to protect their allies accused of human rights violations, war crimes or genocide.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has officially withdrawn or is in the process of withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and has ceased funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Which triggers the question: what’s the fate and economic survival of the UN against an aggressive Trump administration?

Dr Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), told IPS there is no other way to describe how the Trump administration is treating the UN other than self-defeating and detrimental to the US’s national interests, while substantially eroding America’s influence worldwide.

“It is hard to fathom how on earth Trump, who wants to ‘Make America Great Again,’ demonstrates such blatant hostility towards the only global organization in which the United States has, over the years, played such a pivotal and leading role that surpassed any other country since the UN’s creation in 1945.”

The statement by US Ambassador Bartos, he argued, is at best inaccurate and at worst totally wrong. It has never been a secret that the UN is overdue for significant reforms, beginning with the United Nations Security Council and many other UN agencies.

Dismissing the UN’s vital work on many fronts in one brush, however, and cutting humanitarian assistance on which millions in poor countries depend, or withdrawing from vital UN agencies, is unconscionable and highly damaging to the US’ leadership and national interests, he said.

“By what logic does the Trump administration justify its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), whose primary function is coordinating global health responses to crises such as pandemics, and setting international health standards?”

“One would think that the Trump administration would strongly support such an organization that serves US interests from a global health perspective and would only bolster the US influence by playing a significant role in improving its functions”.

How can the Trump administration explain its withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which promotes and protects human rights worldwide through international cooperation?

By withdrawing from this organization, Trump forsakes any role that the US could play in preventing human rights abuses, which leads to fewer global checks on human rights abuses and weaker international standards.

Trump may care less about human rights violations, but how does withdrawing from such an organization serve the US’ overall national and global interests? he asked.

James E. Jennings, PhD, President, Conscience International, told IPS support for the United Nations organization is vital to global health and stability.,

“Those who have worked on the front lines of UN agencies’ responses to wars, natural disasters, and famines throughout the world cannot imagine the degree of inhumanity involved in taking food out of the mouths of babies, refusing to educate children, and letting disease and epidemics rage. This is not politics, it is bullying, and the world should see it for what it is”.

He said there is a pattern in Mr. Trump’s behavior that is easily exposed, Every one of his perceived enemies, as for example in the majority Democratic states of California and Illinois, he describes in the most terrible terms as crime-ridden and out of control.

“Within three days after he sends in ICE storm troopers to places like Washington DC who do nothing except display their muscle, suddenly that city or state is peaceable and under control.“

Trump brags that things are fine now in Portland, Chicago, and other such places, when no real change can be detected except that some normal citizens have been roughed up. Theatrics may win voters but does not in any way solve problems, said Dr Jennings.

The same technique can be observed on the international scene. After deprecating and sidelining UN peacemaking efforts, which go deeply into the issues, he makes phone calls to leaders of countries on the verge of hostilities and claims that he has ended seven wars, which is nonsense.

“By sidelining the UN, he simply wants to dominate it. With the US the biggest donor supporting the organization, there is a fair chance that he can succeed in bending it to his will unless national leaders, US citizens, and people everywhere are resolute in opposing his plans”, declared Dr Jennings.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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