The U.S. is MIA in Latin America

Posted By José R. Cárdenas Thursday, December 29, 2011 - 5:24 PM Share

An end-of-the-year assessment of U.S. policy towards Latin America could possibly qualify for the world's shortest blog.  For a President who has clearly established that foreign policy is not something that gets him up in the morning (or appears to keep him awake at night), Latin America must rank just above Antarctica in descending areas of interest.

This uneven, sporadic focus on the region has led to only adverse consequences for U.S. interests.  What effort the administration does expend seems only directed toward placating a smattering of hostile populist regimes, while ignoring the interests of our friends.  Indeed, the predictable response is that we have only emboldened our enemies and despaired those in the hemisphere who share the U.S. vision of open political systems, free markets, and robust trade. 

Radical populists in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia have run roughshod over democratic institutions and the best Washington can come up with is asking for the terms under which a U.S. ambassador would be allowed to return to their capitals.  In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega is likely chuckling at the feeble U.S. response to his recently rigged re-election.

It also appears that the administration has lulled itself into complacency over a cancer-stricken Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, ground zero for regional instability, seemingly content to wait and see what happens after Chávez passes from the scene.  But even as his circus antics continue, he is leaving behind what my colleague Roger Noriega calls a mountain of toxic waste that will take years to clean up.

Chávez's days may indeed be numbered, but his friends in Iran, Russia, China, and Cuba are certainly taking the long-term view of things.  All four have been great beneficiaries of Chávez's political solidarity and oil-fueled largesse and can be counted on to want to maintain that access with or without him in power.  In other words, don't count on them to support a democratic transition away from Chavismo, only a succession.  Every day, the United States stands idly on the sidelines, the chances they will succeed improve. 

The administration's complacency may also be due to the current economic boom the region is experiencing, as commodity producers are riding the great wave of Chinese demand.  If the U.S. profile in the region has diminished, does it really matter?   Times are good, government coffers are relatively full, and poverty is declining.

The problem with this scenario is that Chinese demand will not always be there.  The Chinese economy as it exists today will not be the same one a decade from now.  Moreover, long-term regional prosperity is not going to be built on producing raw materials for the development of the Chinese economy today.  All the current boom is accomplishing today is masking over the deep structural changes that are still desperately needed in most of the region's economies.

There will be many who will cheer-lead that Latin America is finally out from underneath the United States' long shadow and doing great "on its own" - but such sentiments are short-sighted.  Many challenges remain:  transnational criminal organizations involved in the drug trade continue to wreak havoc, making a mockery of rule of law along with corruption in many countries; too many citizens in the region are shut out of their country's economies through excessive regulation and other barriers; and doing business in the region is still too difficult to draw the kind of investment that is flowing to Asia.

It's not the United States has all the answers for what ails the hemisphere, but what we can offer is steady partnership over the long-term to confront the challenges together.  For security, economic, energy, and political reasons, we have a vested interest in the fortunes of our neighbors to the south.  And they in ours.  It's time we elevated those relationships to reflect that reality.

JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:LATIN AMERICA, NORTH AMERICA, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
 

MJKT

3:40 AM ET

December 30, 2011

No need to play into his hands

What Chavez wants is attention and the US to act in a way that plays into his hands for using it as a boogie man to help him stay in power (the same as the Castros in Cuba). There is a reason these men can play the boogie man for popularity in their own countries; we have not always exactly operated with the best interests of Latin America at heart.

Chavez is no real threat to the United States just as the Castros in Cuba are not. He can't afford to take his oil off of the market. Pretending he is a threat and giving him the attention he wants on the world stage plays right into his hands. The best way to deal with Chavez is to ignore him like the insignificant player he is.

 

JAN Z. VOLENS

6:56 AM ET

December 30, 2011

Latin America is becoming "independent"!

2011 will be the year in which the pendulum of Latin America swung towards "independence" from the USA. CELAC - the Community of Nations of Latin America - created this month' - is the first ever complete geo-diplomatic forum of all 33 Nations of Latin America and the Caribbean - without the "Hemispheric Security Leader " . Now the forces for maintaining and developing "independence" - geopolitical, economic, diplomatic - are somewhat superior to those that defend the servile submission which has existed in most nations since the age of Monroe. The big hope in Latin America is continued immersion of the U.S. in the Near East and Asia-Pacific. As a former director of brazilian intelligence wrote in his blog "Arco de Fronteiras": "As long as the U.S. and NATO remain tied-up in the Near East, they can't bother us in South America". This month, Brazil's military published as "National Survey of Social Perception" in relation to national strategy. About 2,000 Brazilians from various population groups and geographic areas were asked about their perceptions concerning external threats. 37.1% named the U.S. as the most likely threat, Russia 9%, Venezuela 5.9%. --- If the U.S. would conduct a survey in Latin America today, it would discover that the popular perception of the U.S. is today as that of a forever voracious, aggressive hegemon, an incompetend marco-economic manager, and an anti-social influence. (The word "social" is noble in Latin America - it means concern, compassion, "good manners-buena educacion".)

 

SAM FROM CALIFORNIA

2:53 PM ET

December 30, 2011

yes, but ...

... the american foreign policy establishment is rooted in arrogance and ignorance about how iti s perceived around the world. This article is a great example. He spends so much time complaining about the lack of democracy in "populist" countries but does not mention the same processes in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico! If anything they are worse in those countries.

 

JAN Z. VOLENS

7:07 AM ET

January 1, 2012

"We are not partners of the USA for its role in the world!"

In 2010, the U.S. launched the plan to expand NATO into the South Atlantic - "cutting the Atlantic-divide". When Brazil's Defense Minister, at that time, Nelson Jobim, heared that at the NATO conference in Lisbon, he rang alarm-bells in Brazil. Brazil dispatched a diplomat to the White House to inform the National Security Advisor, at the time, Gen. James Jones, and Asst. Sec. of State for Latin America, Valenzuela, that "Brazil has reservations against NATO expansion into the South Atlantic". In Nov. 2010, a former NATO strategist, Germany's Gen. Klaus Naumann arrived in Rio to again push the idea of NATO expansion. Nelson Jobim, Brazil's Defense Minister replied: "We are not partners of the USA for its role in the world! Only South Americans are responsible for the defense of our subcontinent!" In April 2011 Jobim told other military leader in South America: "Our regions will be threatened over its resources during the next 50 years: We need a 'dissuasive' force against threats from outside our region! " The former director of combined intelligence in the Amazon region of Brazil, wrote in his blog "Arco de Fronteiras" a couple month' ago: "The Chinese and the Arabs are not our enemies. As for the others: Submarines, antiair-missisles, and above all lots of snipers...." The slogan among Brazil's security and military circles is: "Remember Alcantara!" In 2003 Brazil's rocket project suffered a catastrophic expolsion killing most of Brazil's experts at the Alcantara base. Even before the explosion, there were voices that alerted, that the U.S. would sabotage Brazil's rocket program - as it had consistendly, covertly sabotaged Brazil's rocket program during the previous twenty years...

 

FOR THE RECORD

4:49 PM ET

January 3, 2012

Right until Alcantara ignorance

Mr. Volens, you're pandering to feverish nationalism when you blame the Alcantara launch site disaster on US sabotage. It was Brazil's own commission that in March 2004 specifically ruled out sabotage, and specifically blamed "an electrical flaw triggered one of the VLS-1 VO3 rocket’s four solid fuel boosters..."

In general, the commission found, "Problems at the Alcantara Launch Center...included dangerous buildups of volatile gases, deterioration of sensors and electromagnetic interference — all of which posed serious safety hazards, the report said. Space center employees charged with maintaining quality control were overworked and understaffed, it added. "

“We observed a lack of formal, detailed risk management, especially in the conduct of operations involving preparations for launch,” the report said.

Further, Brazil chose to use solid-fuel rockets, which are easier to build and ignite than liquid-fuel rockets, but also dangerous because they lack throttle controls and emergency shut-offs.

That rumor-filled nationalism has most recently caused Chavez to "wonder" if the US is giving Latin American leaders cancer. In a years-ago example, Mexican hysteria, fortunately limited, postulated that the US steered Hurricane Mitch into Mexico. Of course, there are many other such examples. You're smarter, or at least better informed, than to be swept up in that current.

Other than that, I was fascinated by the unpublicized proposals for NATO South (SATO?), and the reasonable warnings about protecting local resources. Those aren't data found in common US news sources, and I appreciate your sharing.

 

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12:56 AM ET

January 3, 2012

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PATRICKRAMIRO

5:01 PM ET

January 25, 2012

Chavez is no real threat to

Chavez is no real threat to the United States just as the Castros in Cuba are not. He can't afford to take his oil off of the market. Pretending he is a threat and giving him the attention he wants restaurantblog on the world stage plays right into his hands. The best way to deal with Chavez is to ignore him like the insignificant player he is.

 

Shadow Government is a blog about U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration, written by experienced policy makers from the loyal opposition and curated by Peter D. Feaver and William Inboden.

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