|
POLITICS: Pundits Hope for Renaissance in
U.S.-Latam Ties
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, (IPS) - While U.S.
relations with Latin America hover near
their lowest point since the end of the Cold
War, the election of President Barack Obama
"has opened the way for a new U.S. approach"
to the region, according to the latest
report released here Tuesday by the
Inter-American Dialogue (IAD), a
Washington-based hemispheric think tank.
"A Second Chance, U.S. Policy in the
Americas" calls for the new administration
to adopt a 10-point agenda, including full
consultation with its southern neighbours on
steps needed to recover from the current
"made in the USA" financial crisis and
ending its 50-year policy of isolating Cuba,
to establish a "new and better relationship"
with the region.
The agenda also called for Washington to
"substantially expand its security
cooperation with the Mexican government" in
its fight against the drug cartels and do
far more to control the smuggling of weapons
from the U.S. to Mexico and other Latin
American and Caribbean countries, as well as
conduct a "thorough rethinking and revision
of U.S. anti-drug strategy."
Above all, Washington should adjust its
policy approaches to the region to take
account of its "growing independence,
confidence, and competence," according to
the 40-page report which stressed that the
days of the region's willingness to defer to
U.S. leadership were long gone.
"We can't restore our traditional role in
Latin America," said Peter Hakim, IAD's
president. "We have to move on."
The new report, which comes just five weeks
before Obama meets his regional counterparts
at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad,
is the latest in a series of studies
published by major think tanks over the past
year urging any post-George W. Bush
administration both to take Latin America
far more seriously and to treat it far more
as a full and equal partner than it ever has
in the past.
Last May, for example, a blue-ribbon task
force of the New York-based Council on
Foreign Relations called for Washington to
recognise not only that that its dominance
over the Americas had ended, but also that,
given growing European and Chinese influence
in the region, "U.S. policy can no longer be
based on the assumption that the United
States is the most important outside actor
in Latin America."
Similarly, a hemispheric commission convened
by the Brookings Institution and co-chaired
by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo
and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
Thomas Pickering published a major report
after Obama's election in November that also
called for a new approach to Latin America
and identified specific areas - including
energy and climate change, migration,
economic integration, and fighting drug
trafficking and organised crime - on which
what it called a "hemispheric partnership"
should be built.
"Their enhanced confidence and autonomy will
make many (Latin American and Caribbean)
countries much less responsive to U.S.
policies that are perceived as patronizing,
intrusive and prescriptive, and they will be
more responsive to policies that engage them
as partners on issues of mutual concern,"
according to the 32-page report, "Rethinking
U.S.-Latin American Relations."
The latest IAD report is largely consistent
with both previous reports - particularly in
its recommendation that Obama move to end
Washington's nearly 50-year-old embargo
against Cuba - although it devotes much more
attention to the implications of the
worsening economic crisis for the region and
provides a more current listing of policy
recommendations designed to enhance
hemispheric ties.
The report is also likely to gain attention
in high places, both here and in the region.
IAD is co-chaired by former U.S. Trade
Representative Carla Hills and former
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, and
vice-chaired by the former head of the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB),
Enrique Iglesias and Bill Clinton's former
chief of staff, Thomas "Mack" McLarty. Other
members of IAD's board include former
Brazilian President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso; Zedillo; U.S. political thinker
Francis Fukuyama; and former U.S. Amb. Donna
Hrinak.
Regarding the economic crisis, the report
stresses that Washington must first revive
its own economy to restore demand here for
Latin American exports, increase U.S.
investments there, and ensure a continuing
high level of remittances from Latin
Americans workers back to their home
communities.
"But the United States must also avoid
protectionist measures that would reduce
Latin American access to U.S. markets and
investments - and use its influence to
increase the resources of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and multilateral banks
to help ensure that Latin America and other
developing regions can secure the capital
they need for their own stimulus packages,"
it said. "An economically flourishing Latin
America is good for the U.S. economy."
While new trade initiatives will not be a
priority either for the U.S. or most of
Latin America, the report went on, the Obama
administration should also try to complete
the unfinished agenda it inherited from
Bush, specifically in gaining ratification
for pending free-trade accords with Colombia
and Panama, restoring trade preferences to
Bolivia, and seeking understandings with
Brazil on a "common approach to global and
regional trade negotiations."
U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba, it said, are
"an anachronism that serves mainly to
isolate the United States form the rest of
the hemisphere." Moreover, "nothing will do
more to convince the region's governments
that the Obama administration is committed
to changing its approach to hemispheric
affairs."
The report warns that Mexico "may emerge as
the new administration's most difficult
foreign policy test in the Western
Hemisphere if criminal violence continues to
escalate and threaten the country's
security." It also notes that a prolonged
economic downturn "will compound the
problem" and calls for the two governments
to develop a "joint border authority to
better coordinate security activities."
Similarly, Washington should step up its
cooperation with other countries affected by
organised crime. In addition to cracking
down against gun-running from the U.S. to
the region, Washington should also
reconsider its policy of deporting convicted
felons which Latin American governments
claim is exporting violence to their
countries.
Comprehensive immigration reform that, among
other things, would legalise the status of
some 12 million undocumented migrants living
in the U.S. should also "be high on the new
president's agenda," according to the report
which called for "quick action...to suspend
construction of the wall on the U.S.-Mexican
border and better protect the rights of
illegal migrants in the United States."
Washington should also try to ease bilateral
tensions with Venezuela initially by
offering to re-instate ambassadors that were
withdrawn last September. At the same time,
Obama "should keep its expectations modest -
and recognize that the best way to offset
Venezuela's activities in the hemisphere is
to enhance U.S. cooperation with other Latin
American countries." It should also move to
normalise ties with Bolivia.
Warning that the next year will be a "period
of extreme hardship for Haiti," the report
called for immediately suspending of the
deportation of undocumented Haitian migrants
- something that Obama has so far rejected -
increasing aid, and encouraging multilateral
banks to forgive the country's debt
obligations.
|
