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SPECIAL REPORTS -
Wednesday 06
January 2010 |
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US-LATAM:
More Continuity Than Change
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Nearly one year
after his inauguration, hopes that President
Barack Obama would bring fundamental changes
to U.S. relations with Latin American have
faded badly.
Distracted by the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression, a major
legislative battle over health care policy,
and the two wars in the Greater Middle East
left to him by his predecessor, George W.
Bush, Obama has had very little time to
devote to tending ties with Washington's
southern neighbours.
And it didn't help that some of his most
important appointments, notably Arturo
Valenzuela as his assistant secretary of
state for Western Hemisphere Affairs and
Thomas Shannon as his ambassador to Brazil,
among others, were held up for months by
right-wing Republican senators determined to
prevent Honduran President Manuel Zelaya,
viewed by them as a proxy for Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, from returning to
power.
But, despite a promising start with Obama's
appearance and pledge to pursue "engagement
based on mutual respect" at the Summit of
the Americas in Trinidad last April, his
administration has fumbled a number of
issues in ways that have contributed to what
appears to be the growing disillusionment.
Most recently, the administration abruptly
reversed its demand – along with that of all
of the Latin American states - that Zelaya,
who was ousted in a military coup d'etat
last June be reinstated before the November
elections. And the U.S. failed to consult
and reassure its sister nations in advance
about a new, 10-year accord with Colombia
that gives Washington access to seven
military bases around the country.
"The administration's about-face in Honduras
over recognising the legitimacy of the
elections prior to Zelaya's restoration
appears to have had more to do with pressure
from Senate Republicans over the
confirmation of Valenzuela," according to
Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin
America programme at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars.
"The Colombia case had more to do with a
profoundly inadequate process of
consultation and vetting with regional
allies," she noted.
In both cases, Washington found itself
isolated from most of the rest of the
hemisphere, notably from Brazilian President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in whose embassy
in Tegucigalpa Zelaya continues to be
living.
Obama has ostentatiously courted Lula – he
called him "my man" and "the most popular
politician on Earth" at the G20 Summit in
London last April – as Washington's most
important South American partner. However,
Lula recently accused of the U.S. president
of "ignoring Latin America" and failing to
follow through on his Trinidad pledges.
"While Obama began the year hoping to forge
a truly strategic partnership with Brazil,
the mishandling of both Honduras and the
bases agreement in Colombia, whose precise
implications for the region remain pretty
murky despite the administration's efforts
to reassure the region, have caused serious
friction and damaged the bilateral
relationship," according to Geoff Thale,
programme director at the Washington Office
on Latin America (WOLA).
Aside from those snafus, the Obama
administration has also failed to address
more enduring problems in its relations with
Latin America.
While he has made several conciliatory
gestures toward Cuba, he has not gone nearly
as far as many of his supporters here and in
the region had anticipated in lifting the
nearly universally detested trade embargo or
normalising ties with Havana.
"Although President Obama departed from the
Bush policy - by restoring Cuban American
travel to Cuba, granting visas to some
artists, and restarting the migration talks
- he has preserved much of the Cold War
essence of our policy just like every
president since Eisenhower," noted Sarah
Stephens, director of the Center for
Democracy in the Americas. "And like them,
he has nothing to show for it."
"While Cuba is not very important to the
U.S. strategically, it's symbolically
tremendously important to Latin America,"
noted Thale. "Many people in the region
expected the Obama administration, if not to
end the embargo, to at least take
significant steps in that direction."
"What we've seen so for is very little and
very limited," he went on. "So, the message
to the region is not much has changed from
Bush."
Similarly unchanged is Washington's policy
on Colombia, by far the biggest recipient of
U.S. foreign aid, and the "war against
drugs" that has been conducted mainly in the
Andean countries, although increasingly in
Mexico and Central America.
Shortly after taking office, Obama had
explicitly recognised that reducing demand
in the U.S. needs to be given a much higher
priority, a sentiment that was echoed in a
hopeful public statement by respected former
presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil
last February.
"Despite acknowledging the demand side of
the problem, we still appear to be fighting
it on the supply side," according to William
LeoGrande, a Latin America policy expert and
dean of the School of Government at American
University here.
"The real issue is, what's the long-term
strategy that shifts the focus from trying
to stop supply to reducing demand? Because
we've got almost half a century now of
fighting the war on the supply side, and
it's pretty clear that we're losing it," he
added.
Meanwhile, reform of U.S. immigration laws,
another longstanding irritant in U.S.-Latin
relations, has been forced to give way to
more urgent domestic priorities.
A long-pending Colombia free-trade accord –
which some consider another key test of
Washington's commitment to the region -
appears unlikely to be submitted to Congress
for ratification during the coming election
year.
"The Obama administration really has yet to
make its mark on hemispheric relations
simply because it's been overwhelmed by
other crises and priorities," according to
Arnson, who said there has been "significant
continuity in practice" despite "a profound
shift in diplomatic tone and style in favour
of a more collaborative approach."
LeoGrande, however, sees a greater
structural problem. "The fact is, every
administration comes in promising a new
policy toward Latin America, and none of
them, with the exception of Ronald Reagan,
ever have one. They all had to cope with
much more pressing problems elsewhere in the
world."
"So Latin America policy is sort of on
autopilot, because the (the top officials)
don't have time to focus on it, and the
assistant secretaries don't have the
authority to make fundamental changes," he
added.
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