Friday, 6 February
Latin America finds itself in a pivotal moment. Fresh from CAF’s Economic Forum in Panama City, this episode of Macro Matters explores how the region is navigating a shifting global order, renewed U.S. engagement in the Western Hemisphere, and growing momentum around regional integration. Susan Segal joins host Emily Slater to unpack key takeaways from the conference, discuss why integration has reemerged as a central theme, and share why she is more optimistic than ever about Latin America’s future—from investment and multilateralism to leadership on the global stage.
Susan Segal is the President and CEO of Americas Society/Council of the Americas. She has spent decades working across Latin America in both the private and public sectors, including during the region’s debt crises of the 1980s and 1990s. She has been deeply involved in Bretton Woods Committee sovereign debt work and currently serves on its Advisory Council.
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Transcript:
Slater: All right. On today’s episode of Macro Matters, I’m very fortunate to be joined by Susan Segal. And Susan and I just returned from Latin America, and we are going to talk all things Latin America and the Caribbean today. For a region that’s really in focus at the moment. And Susan is the President and CEO of the America Society and Council of Americas. She’s had a long career in Latin America in the private sector, was involved in the Latin American debt crisis in the 80s and 90s, has been involved in BWC’s sovereign debt work, served on our Board of Directors, and currently serves on our Advisory Council. So, Susan, welcome. I’m just thrilled to have you here today, and I’m really looking forward to diving in and to hearing your impressions.
Segal: Well, thank you very much for inviting me, Emily. It’s very exciting, and I love all the work that you do with the Bretton Woods Committee. I hope someday I’ll have more time to get even more involved.
Slater: Well, we’re very fortunate to have had you involved and we’ll get into some of the debt issues and in just a bit here, but I want to start because you and I were both just in Panama City at the CAF for Economico, which is a Latin American and Caribbean focused conference. People were dubbing it the “Davos of Latin America.” It’s put on by CAF, the Development Bank for Latin America, and it brought together 6,000 people from the region. I think there were seven or eight heads of state. I mean, it really was a very impressive, convening at a very pivotal moment, I think, for the region where clearly there’s a lot of renewed focus, especially from the US on the Western Hemisphere. So, I really just want to start Susan by kind of asking you, what were your takeaways from the couple of days in Panama City? The conversations were really fascinating to me.
Segal: Well, thank you very much again, Emily. First of all, in comparison to last year, we also attended last year’s conference. There were about, I don’t know, 1,600 to 2,000 people. And while CAF, I know, targeted to have more people particularly from the private sector, it was a little overwhelming to have you know what it was five or six thousand people at the conference, and I think that showed two things. Number one, the local Panamanians and Central Americans were very interested in the conference. And number two, just the broad interest in Latin America that exists today. And it shows a third thing too, and that is that CAF has huge convening power. Sergio Diaz Ganados has really leaned in to being the leader of CAF. And he’s extraordinary. And most people don’t know this, but they actually lend more than the IDB does today. And you know, he does a really good job. He’s entrepreneurial, he doesn’t have some of the bureaucratic issues, and he’s creative. And I think he has an interesting team around him which he is building out. It’s quite impressive, his convening power. He really wanted to turn this into “the Davos of Latin America” and he went out and did it. So, I was very impressed by the overall gathering, and we hope we can you know support him again next year.
Slater: Yeah, it was an absolutely impressive convening and gathering and display of really CAF’s relevance and leadership in the region, so certainly kudos to them.
Segal: Absolutely.
Slater: I want to dive into some of the content a little bit because of course I mean it was a couple of days of discussions and dialogues, round tables, plenaries I mean; it was the full scale. But really the forum was seeking to sort of answer the question, of how should Latin America and the Caribbean position itself in this changing global landscape? And the conference came just post Davos where there was this discussion about the rupturing of the global order, there were a lot of conversations about that at CAF. Obviously, this is coming sort of post US intervention in Venezuela. So, a lot of attention on sort of US policy towards the region. So, I want to ask you in terms of tone and tenor of the conversations. What did you take away?
Segal: Well, I thought, I don’t know if you listened to the presidents at the beginning?
Slater: Yes.
Segal: I thought it was really, really interesting. With the exception of possibly one president, I thought that the presidents were trying to assert themselves. I think that if we listen to the Canadian Prime Minister’s speech about the medium-sized countries, needing to come together and unite. I think we heard a lot of that from the Latin American countries. And you know for many years I have been waiting, and we have been talking, and I personally believe that a path for Latin America is more integration. And Latin America has kind of rejected that for a whole bunch of reasons, and the attempt many years ago, for example, for the Pacific Alliance kind of fell away under Amlo. But what I heard and what I heard Lula say and what I heard the other presidents say is we want to integrate. We need more integration. We need more connectivity. We need to work together more. And I thought that Lula standing up, President Lula standing up and kind of articulating this kind of perspective and trying to find his space for leadership in this area, but also to hear, for example, I thought Kast was outstanding and I truly believe Chile has a huge role. To hear the president of Bolivia, President Paz, talk about his five ports. I think it was five, maybe it was four, five ports, which is all of the connections that he has with every country in Latin America, as an access way. As opposed to wanting to declare war on Chile, he wants to work with Chile to integrate and to be able to let Chile use Bolivia as access to the Atlantic Ocean and Bolivia actually using Chile and Peru and other countries as access to the Pacific. I thought this was a total and complete turnaround in terms of attitude. The other thing to really remember is that you look at the EU, and I’m not saying Latin America is ready to integrate to the extent of the EU. No way do I see that path in the short term. But there are a couple things that I think are important. And number one, something like 70% of all commerce in Europe, is within the EU. In Latin America, it’s something like 17%.
Slater: It’s really low, yeah.
Segal: It’s really low. So, it’s somewhere between 14 and 17%. So, the opportunity for Latin American countries to trade among themselves is huge and something that I think can drive more growth within countries, number one. Number two, there is so much space such as you know was originally thought of in this pacific alliance for some of the integration across countries for capital markets to get scale, because Brazil has scale. Mexico has scale. Argentina is beginning to have scale. But a lot of countries, if countries worked together, they would have more scale, more liquidity, more opportunity. And finally, if you really think about the number one issue across Latin America in most countries today is crime, thugs, drugs. Well, you know what? If you approach it together, you will do much better because what’s happening is these criminals are going from one country to another country. This is an international, this is like running a multinational company. The way these drug dealers and thugs are running their empires. And so, if you can’t beat them with weapons, you’ve got to beat them with technology. So, if countries come together and work together and then approach the US in a more unified way, maybe there’s a better path to actually resolving some of the criminal issues and solving crime, resolving crime in Latin America. Because even Chile I mean you know, Kast was elected that was the number one issue, and so I think it is a way forward, in my opinion for Latin America.
Slater: Yeah. And it came through really strongly in the conversations at the conference. All of the leaders were really focused on the security element from the criminal standpoint, not necessarily national security.
Segal: The other thing which is really interesting is that we’re about to have a number of center right governments, right, in Latin America that really have the same perspective. And even the center left governments, right, and I would put Mexico and Brazil there. There is a huge space where they may not necessarily agree on all of the issues, all the social issues, or in the presentation. But I think they can there’s a lot of space where they do agree on things like criminality, on things like integration of a sudden, and other things. Infrastructure, the need for more infrastructure, for more ports, for more opportunity for the people of Latin America. These are huge areas of agreement. And so, you may not always agree how you get there, but I think there’s agreement. There’s lots of space for more agreement than disagreement in my opinion, for most countries.
Slater: Yeah, I mean integration was the buzzword of the conference, for sure. I think in a lot of the kind of side chats that I was having with people about it, a lot of people were saying, “yes more regional integration we need this” but we’ve known we’ve needed this for a long time. And we’ve had Mercosur, and we’ve had the Pacific Alliance, and they’ve been either failed attempts or limited success. So, is now the moment where we can really overcome some of the ideological differences? As you said, Susan, sort of between center right and center left governments to really make meaningful progress on deepening regional integration. Do you think it’s the moment?
Segal: Yes, I do. I absolutely think it’s the moment. I think it’s the moment for a bunch of reasons. Number one, because you have a lot of leaders that are emerging that are all looking for more prosperity, solving crime, getting rid of drugs in their countries, and developing their countries, that’s number one. Number two, what’s happening with the US is also very interesting, Emily. I mean for a long time, the US has kind of said, “well, we got to we got to stop China, we gotta do all these things.” But this is the first time I mean you can like a lot of policies of Trump, or dislike them, but it is the first time that the US has put money where their mouth is. And I think that is also, in some way even though some countries won’t admit it, it’s unifying, I mean you know, if you think about what’s going on in Washington this week, a strategic mineral minerals conference. The US wants to stockpile something like $10 billion worth of strategic minerals. And they’re using US EXIM and private companies, and this is a really different path than we’ve seen before.
Slater: Absolutely.
Segal: And so, I think that is also adding to some of the ability to find space to work particularly on economic development; it’s not just philosophical. We need to really build out some of these…
Slater: How to attract investment, yeah.
Segal: Yeah. And we need to have, you know, real investment in these countries for them to grow.
Slater: Yeah. I mean, I was unsure of what to expect going to the conference as an American and some of the recent intervention obviously in Venezuela, and some of the articulation of the Donroe doctrine, but the mood there was decidedly optimistic. I mean, they viewed, some of the leader’s kind of said “sovereignty is important, of course, but we have a huge opportunity for investment here.” This is an enormous opportunity for economic growth in the region.
Segal: Yeah. Nobody wants to give up sovereignty, and nobody’s talking about giving up sovereignty, even when they talk about integration. But the opportunity to have real investment. I was stopped by some people that are helping different multilateral banks, and they were talking about how do we encourage more investment? And I said, well one of the ways you encourage more investment is to start splitting risks apart. So, maybe companies are willing to invest in mining, in energy, and other things, but they’re scared of the sovereign risk. You know, multilateral development banks understand sovereign risk. So, maybe you can start splitting risks and changing what the risk dynamics look like. And, I had said that many times to multilateral development banks before, and they had kind of said, “you’re out of your mind” since the debt crisis. We actually did this with Chile in the 1980s during the debt restructuring in one of the multiple rounds of financing using the co-investment product at the World Bank. But it’s the first time that I’ve really heard people say yes, we really need to talk more about this because maybe this is one of the ways forward, right? And so, I think we’re at a very different place. And obviously, tariffs aren’t good for pushing our trade agenda forward. But it’s not just about trade; it’s also about investment. And a lot of these countries need investment. They need investment from not just US companies, but global companies. And the other thing, Emily, which I thought was very, which we’ve seen in our membership over time, is that it’s not just about US companies anymore. It’s about Latin American companies that are multi-latinas, that are investing around the world and in the United States. You know, one of our Guatemalan members has invested like $2 billion dollars or something in the United States. So, it’s about a two-way investment which is good for everybody, right?
Slater: Yeah, I think there’s just enormous opportunities here, and that really seemed to be to be the mood and the tone of the conversations. You mentioned the EU, and kind of an analogy there in terms of integration. And my kind of takeaway and idea from the conference was we need like a droggy style plan for Latin America right now, right? I mean the political and the monetary union is not going to happen. But in terms of the integration and regional competitiveness, we kind of need that type of vision for Latin America.
Segal: Yeah. I mean I’m starting in a much simpler space, right? And I mean we could just start, for example, with more infrastructure, more connectivity, and roads. I mean, Latin America is horribly underdeveloped in ports, in roads, in airports; I mean across all kinds of infrastructure for a whole bunch of reasons. So, if you could just begin to build this infrastructure and this connectivity, right? And then you could have countries and leaders who kind of think alike along economic terms, sit down and really think about how do we do more together, right? And I think you’re there, in some ways. I think that would take us a long way. And then maybe you can revive a little bit. You have Mercosur now with an agreement with Europe, big deal, that was discussed a lot. You can maybe revive a little bit the Pacific Alliance. And you know, you can anchor a lot of this in energy, in minerals, in many things that the US wants and needs as well.
Slater: And the region has an abundance, yeah.
Segal: And agriculture, which obviously is competitive with our agriculture, but still. And the region has things that most people don’t even think about. I mean, most people don’t realize that, for example, there’s a burgeoning biotech industry in some countries in Latin America. Particularly ones that are willing to fix their intellectual rights issues, right?
Slater: Well, you mentioned the need for infrastructure investment and of course, China has been a large financer of infrastructure in Latin America. So, what were your impressions from some of the conversations from the conference about how the region intends to kind of navigate the US China geopolitics? Because both countries are important partners to the region.
Segal: I think that they’re going to engage with both China and the United States. And I don’t think they’re going to be, generally speaking; I don’t think they’re going to be ideological about it. They’re going to be pragmatic about it.
Slater: Yeah, pragmatism was another buzz word. Yeah.
Segal: Yes. They’re going to be pragmatic. And you know, many leaders have said, “look, you know, we can’t not have China invest, but it seems to me there’s a lot of space for rebalancing.” And what do I mean by that? More US investment as well. Because I think part of what the problem has been that it’s been a one country show. China’s been investing and US and US companies for a whole bunch of reasons have not. China is the state. They can invest; they have money. In the case of the United States, up until now, it’s got to be the private sector. A lot of private sector companies have been burned over the last 50 years investing in Latin America. You heard the CEO of Exxon talking about how he had his company nationalized twice or something in Venezuela. And so, all of a sudden, I think the good news is the US is kind of standing up and saying well, wait a second, we’re willing to go side by side with you in some ways in some of these places. And I think is trying to incent companies to invest, and I turn to the strategic minerals stockpile idea that he has companies bought into. I don’t exactly know what that means, but it’s something right. And so, mining investments are beginning to go back into Latin America. So, when all of a sudden, the US is a buyer on the other side of a mineral project, you can finance that easily because you have contracts on the other side, right? So, I think Latin America is generally going to be very pragmatic and has for a long time been saying, “the US, you don’t want us to deal with China, put your money where your mouth is.” Well, I think now you’re going to see some money, you know, where your mouth is. And I think the answer has to be balance, right?
Slater: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, completely agree with you on the sort of pragmatic approach. That was the takeaway that I had from the conference as well. I mean, despite some of the ideological political differences of the region, everyone was very, like I said. The buzzword was, we’re going to be pragmatic moving forward.
Segal: Yeah. The other thing which I think is really right is you know, I come back to mining and energy of which there is just an abundance in Latin America. And I am of the opinion that we need to mine, you know, US companies or Australian companies or Canadian companies, they need to mine and we need export into the United States and we need to refine because the dependence of China mining the minerals, sending them, mining them in Latin America, sending them to China, refining them in China and then sending them back to the United States. That is a national security interest, a national security problem. It is, I mean, we can’t change that.
Slater: Yeah, yeah. More of the value ad needs to be done in the region for sure in Latin America. Well, I want to finish up talking a little bit about the issue near and dear to your and BWC’s hearts, sovereign debt. So obviously, the Venezuela situation is kind of very active and very live, I mean sort of, what do you think is next for rebuilding Venezuela? And obviously, the debt issue is front and center.
Segal: Emily, I think we are at step one.
Slater: Yeah.
Segal: Of a multi-step process. You know, I mean, the country, from what I can determine is in ruins, right? And it needs God knows how many billions of dollars to rebuild the oil industry, you just can’t take it out of the ground. There are all kinds of issues around that. And so, there’s strategic minerals, there many things, but you need real, the country needs a plan, right? It just can’t be an oil plan; it’s got to be a plan. I understand totally why Delcy is there, whether you like it or you don’t, and you would prefer to see Maria Karina or some other democratically elected leader today. Which is always my preference, but I understand why Delcy is there, because she’s got to balance a very tricky political situation. The country is run by little militias, right? And if you can’t control those and you can’t control the military, and you can’t transition the institutions that are left, if there are any, to democratic leadership, it will be very hard to sustain democracy and not run into chaos. And you asked about sovereign debt, but the backdrop for any kind of sovereign debt or investment has to be stability. And Secretary Rubio in his three points that he talks about and testified in front of Congress, lays that out incredibly well. So, the sovereign debt, look, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think that it is very hard for me to understand where Venezuela will come up with the money.
Slater: Yeah.
Segal: To pay the sovereign debt, okay. And I can’t believe that our country would invade the country and then let it fall down over sovereign debt, right. So, do I see that? Obviously, it’s going to have to go through some kind of restructuring. It’s going to have to go through many things. I think, you know, clearly the country will have to have some kind of debt equity program. it’ll have to whatever happens will have it will be very long-term maybe linked to some kind of oil warrant but, there’s also the possibility, I’m not saying that it’s happening or that it will happen, but it’s also the possibility that US government will go to the courts and say this is a strategic interest, and write a brief like no brief we have ever seen in the history of sovereign debt or in the history of Argentina, and say this is a national security priority and put it into play in the courts for potentially generations, right? So, I think it’s very, very early. I think people that I can understand why people when the bonds bounced why they sold, I can’t understand why you would buy at the bounced price. The selling if you bought it at the lowest point and sold, good idea, right? But I think that this is step one, and I think it’s really hard to call, I think what we need to focus on, in my opinion, is an economic plan, a development plan for the country. Not just a plan for oil, but for the entire country. Because the only way that you’re going to transform the country is if you go back to the roots and you figure out how to get people food, how to get people medicine, how to restart an education system that is collapsed, right? And give people hope, right? And that to me, is the most critical piece. And until you’ve done that, you can’t get real economic productivity. And part of that has to be democratic elections. Because I don’t personally think that you’re going to get a lot, maybe you’ll get some investment, you’ll get wild caters, you’ll get Chevron to put a little bit more money in. But you’re not going to get a lot of investment because companies, in my opinion, unless the US guarantees it, aren’t going to put money in if they don’t know the rules of the game. And the rules of the game can only be established long term by a credible government and a credible Congress. And you’re not there yet.
Slater: Otherwise, it’s too risky. Yeah.
Segal: Yeah.
Slater: Yeah. Just to dive a little bit deeper on the debt, I mean, of course, China is one of the largest creditors. So, there’s really kind of a question for people who follow sovereign debt architecture, like you and BWC. How is China going to approach this? Of course, the terms of what is owed to China and their contracts is always opaque and that’s always one of the issues. And so, in terms of how you think China’s going to approach this, yeah, any thoughts?
Segal: I don’t have any concrete thoughts, but if I were China, right, I would basically just say, look, let’s extend this as long as possible. First of all, they would come under, let’s say, the official debt, the Paris club, whatever you want to call it. But there is just no way that I think in this environment, China can expect to be paid, right? And so, if I were China, I would want to uphold the obligation that the Venezuelan government has but push it out as long as possible. They don’t care about what the date of the repayment is. They just want repayment one day; that would be my guess. So, if I were China, that’s what I would do. I would just lay low for the time being and eventually do something that just pushes the maturity out, while you allow productivity. Because no one’s going to get paid if you don’t have a productive economy. And so, until you figure out how to have a productive economy, you know. Talking about how you’re going to get paid makes absolutely no sense because there’s no money. And the little money that’s going into the system, I hope, is as Secretary Rubio said, going to the Venezuelan people that need to eat, need some medicine, need education, but you need to put structures around all of that as well. Because everything has disintegrated for the general population. I think it’s been okay if you’re wealthy, but you know.
Slater: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just to push a little bit further on the sovereign debt issue, I’ve heard an argument that the US should really use the situation in Venezuela to push China to join the Paris Club, or to agree to kind of the similar terms as the rest of the official creditors. What are your thoughts on that? You think it’s an opportunity?
Segal: I think it’s a great opportunity. I think it’s a great opportunity. And if you listen to China, they might do it. Because they’re kind of taking the position that we want to be a rules-based player. If you listen to them at Davos, and you listen to them since, they’re trying to make the case that they’re the rules-based player.
Slater: They’re following the rules, yeah.
Segal: They’re following the rules today.
Slater: Yeah.
Segal: So, I think it’s a great opportunity if they’re willing to bite and maybe they would be willing. And yeah, and remember, maybe they would be willing. There are a lot of things that are, you know, I think we also have to watch how it plays out in the multilateral, you know, in the IMF. We have to look at how China plays out in the World Bank in these changing environments. We have to see again, the WTO, it just seems to me that there are a lot if China wants to be a rules-based player, in today’s world, there are a lot of opportunities for them to shine and try to become more of a rules-based player. And the Paris club is certainly one of those places where they should. There’s also a lot, I think Russia has a lot of debt, I mean I think there are a lot of countries with a lot of debt in Venezuela. My guess is we probably don’t even know how much.
Slater: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s just an enormous, enormous problem. I mean, like you said, just the debt, but just the rebuilding. It’s just going to be a long, difficult road.
Segal: Yeah, this is generational. This will not happen in one year or five years. I mean sure, you can go back, and we can start to produce oil, but you know. I mean I lived in Venezuela in the late 70s, and I traveled there until the late 80s. In fact, Bill Rhodes was my first boss in Venezuela.
Slater: Yeah, yes.
Segal: And to rebuild, when I went there, it was the most stable country; it was a democracy. I lived by myself at 23 years old, I traveled around. It was amazing. To rebuild it to that, that’s going to take a long time, right?
Slater: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And just to go back to where we started with some of the takeaways of the conference, I was unsure what to expect, how other countries would have reacted to the US intervention in Venezuela, but I thought that the tone was very much, “we’re happy that there’s a resolution,” or that there’s now a pathway to a resolution anyways. You know, these countries were having to absorb so many migrants across their borders, putting strains on their own systems, that there really did seem to be kind of a recognition that it was necessary to have a resolution, that this was a necessary step.
Segal: Yeah. And the other thing, Emily, which I think is really interesting, is that countries in the region may disagree about how Maduro was disposed of. But I don’t think you can find, except maybe Nicaragua and Cuba, I don’t think you can find a country that believed that Maduro was a legitimate leader at this point and didn’t need to go. So, you can disagree on how he went, how.
Slater: Exactly, yeah.
Segal: But I don’t think you can disagree that he should have gone.
Slater: On the outcome. Yeah, yeah.
Segal: And so now the question is, what next, right?
Slater: Yep.
Segal: And here again, there’s a really interesting opportunity for Latin America. To be very supportive in the rebuilding of the country and the move towards a more democratic regime.
Slater: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. One final question for you, Susan. The next UN Secretary General is going to come from Latin America. That was something that was discussed at the conference. And I think there was really a sentiment of Latin America playing a larger leadership role in the global order, on the global stage and in multilateralism. So, of course, BWC, as the champions of multilateralism. I want to just end on sort of what do you think is next for Latin America in terms of its position in the global order?
Segal: Oh, I think Latin America has a lot of space for leadership in the global order. A lot of space. And it’s not just the United Nations, but I think, there’s some really good Latin American candidates. Rebecca Greenspan, Rafael Grosi, you know, for the United Nations, Michelle Bachelet, they’re amazing candidates, that would provide spectacular leadership and really put Latin America on center stage as a group in some ways aligned but non-aligned countries, trying to provide some global leadership. There’s that, but I also think that, maybe over time, they’ll instead of being the problem children of the IMF, the World Bank, the IDB, CAF, they can emerge as leaders that can help other countries and help reshape their economy there. And finally, I think you know they have a global role to play in the global economy. Because if those countries begin to grow, they will have trade more within themselves and can solve some of the issues that have been out there for generations they will have. Because they have oil or energy, both traditional and non-traditional in abundance. They could feed the world in terms of agriculture. They have some of the best entrepreneurs. I mean a lot of these countries have entrepreneurs that are world class, on the same stage as entrepreneurs coming out of Silicon Valley. I have known them well for many years, not just in tech, but you know across many industries. So, they’ve got an educated class. So, you know, they have a lot to offer the world. With a little bit of economic stability, political and economic stability, which is what I see in Latin America today. And so, if you integrate, if you update the infrastructure, you and Latin American leaders instead of fighting among themselves are working together, you really change the face of Latin America, and that’s a turnaround that can happen overnight.
Slater: Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think there was just an enormous understanding of the opportunity for the region, as you have just articulated. And really a lot of enthusiasm to actually make progress.
Segal: You know, I’ve worked with Latin America since the late 70s, I have never been as optimistic as I am right now. I am just very optimistic about Latin America and its leadership, and its place in the world and the opportunity. So, and I think you can take it not just out of the CAF conference, but in many different ways, they want to engage. And that’s great.
Slater: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Susan, it’s been so delightful to have you join me today to share our takeaways from the conference, and also just the enormous opportunity and optimism for the region. I think in a world where it’s often easy to be pessimistic and get overwhelmed by the speed and frequency of changes and events, I think it was really uplifting to have those conversations in Panama City, and to have this kind of outlook for the region. It leaves us with a little bit of optimism.
Segal: I hope.
Slater: Yep. Well, thank you, Susan, very much. I very much appreciate you joining.