Today, President Obama is on his way to the Fifth Summit of the Americas. Superficially, at least, the contrast with the American President at the last such Summit will be stunning. Then, Venezuela's flamboyant Hugo Chávez and Bolivia's Evo Morales led a festival-like counterpart, a "People's Summit", at which President Bush was burned in effegy.
Ah, but everyone loves Obama. Well, Chávez called him an ignoramus, but most Latin American leaders are enthusiastic. Brazil’s president Lula da Silva says he is praying for him. According to TomDispatch, "Even Fidel Castro asked a visiting delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus how he could ‘help President Obama succeed.’"
But beyond the initial warmth, there are challenges waiting, and it's not clear how Obama will respond to them. Come below the fold for a summary of some issues worth keeping an eye on.
The warm and widespread welcome offered to Obama is significant, because it signals a moment in which US-Latin American diplomatic relations can be, in Obama’s favored phrase, "reset." And for us in the US who worked so hard to get Obama into the White House, it is bound to be heartwarming as well. However, it’s only an opening; actual change hasn’t happened yet, and will be necessary if the good feelings are to endure. It will not be as easy as the cheering crowds may make it seem. Obama, understandably consumed with the US economy and two wars, does not seem to have formulated a clear Latin America policy so far. Or if he has, it has some unfortunately conventional aspects. Furthermore, even where he may seem poised to respond positively to Latin American concerns, internal US politics are likely to stand in his way.
Drugs and Guns
On the way to the Summit, Obama conferred with President Calderon of Mexico, and reinforced Hillary Clinton’s statements that the US bears some of the responsibility for the drastic levels of drug cartel violence which have taken perhaps 10,000 Mexican lives in the last two years. The US is the major drug market, and also the source of many guns involved in that violence.
Calderon wants the US to reduce the flow of guns. However, Obama admitted that he is unlikely to succeed in getting Congress to reinstate the Clinton-era ban on assault-style weapons that Calderon has requested and that Obama supported as a candidate.
Beyond gun policy, the whole US "War on Drugs," which funnels the lucrative drug trade into the hands of criminal organizations, has done for Central America and Columbia what Prohibition did for Chicago – turned it into a virtually continuous gangland battlefield. Greg Grandin, a knowledgeable writer on Latin America, says:
Just recently, a study group made up of some of Latin America's leading intellectuals and policy-makers, including former presidents of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, declared the U.S. war on drugs a failure and recommended the legalization of marijuana. Obama is obviously sympathetic to this position, having instructed his Justice Department to back off "medical marijuana" prosecutions. But will he be able to de-escalate the war on drugs in Latin America? Not likely.
Cuba
The 47 year old US trade embargo of Cuba is deeply unpopular in Latin America, where it is viewed as a pointless exercise of power against a tiny foe. Cuba was once a client of the Soviet Union, but the USSR no longer exists. What could we lose by normalizing relations? Yet internal US politics complicate that question. Grandin points out:
In preparation for the summit, the Obama administration has made some overtures to Cuba, responding to demands by nearly every Latin American country that Washington end its cold war against Havana. The need to keep Democratic senators from Florida and New Jersey (states with large Cuban-American populations) in the fold means that the general travel ban and trade embargo will, however, stay in place, at least for now.
Things may shift faster than Grandin foresaw, however. Cuba has responded to Obama’s moves with overtures of its own, including an unprecedented offer to discuss all outstanding grievances with the US. That includes human rights, freedom of the press, and political prisoners, issues which they always before declared were internal matters the US had no right to meddle in.
If Obama can find room for further movement with Cuba, it will have considerable symbolic value as a clear response to Latin American calls for action. And it would signal a welcome shift away from the rigidity of recent Republican administrations.
Immigration
It is probably no accident that Obama recently announced his interest in a complete immigration reform package, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. That position will gain him credit with Latin Americans, particularly Mexicans and Central Americans. With fights looming over his core agenda (health care, energy, education), however, it’s doubtful that immigration reform will go anywhere this year.
Left-leaning Regimes, and the Long Arm of the IMF
Hugo Chávez came to power in 1998, nationalized the oil companies, and moved to alleviate the rampant poverty in Venezuala. To some he’s a hero, to others an opportunist with too much love for his own power. Inarguably, however, his programs provide food subsidies, health care, and other essential support to the poor; and Venezuelan economic growth has been strong. Chávez’ popularity rating has run about 70% even according to opposition polls.
Under Bush, the US spent many millions of dollars supporting opposition groups in Venezuela. Some claim that the US instigated the failed coup of 2002. The US definitely financed the recall campaign of 2004, which also failed. Imagine the reaction in the US if a foreign power were financing recall campaigns in our country.
This is part of a long history in which the US has undermined or directly overthrown many liberal-to-left Latin American governments, often resulting in their replacement by worse governments—including some about as bad as you could possibly imagine. Latin American countries want the US to cut it out.
US policy, of course, has often been determined by corporate interests, particularly oil, gas, copper, and other resource companies.
The US also dominates the International Monetary Fund, which sets the conditions for loans to debtor countries. Poor countries that refuse IMF conditions often cannot get loans for development or normal commercial activities from any source. Countries that accept IMF conditions may find they are required to drastically reduce social programs, cut wages, open their markets to foreign corporations on damaging terms, cater to the demands of multinational corporations, and in general submit to Chicago School types of economic policies posing as "free market capitalism."
Beginning with Chile in 1973, a number of Latin American countries have been subjected to the Chicgo School brand of economic development, and have found it disastrous. More recently, that has shifted. Center/left to left governments have attempted economic development in ways more helpful to the general population. They have been aided by two notable factors (among others). First, the US has been heavily occupied in other parts of the world, particularly Iraq. Secondly, Venezuela has lots of oil money, and is willing to loan it without making IMF types of demands.
Mark Weisbrot, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says:
Venezuela has now provided an alternative source of credit with no economic policy strings attached, to Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and other countries. The dissolution of the IMF's "creditors' cartel" is the most important change in the international financial system since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in 1973.
In this situation, the US attitude toward Venezuela and other left-leaning regimes is key to its ability to develop good working relationships with Latin American counties. It is key to signaling that the US accepts this important change and will not, like George Bush, continue efforts to undermine it or to restore the corrosive rule of the IMF.
So how is Obama doing?
In a January interview with a Spanish-language network, Obama seemed to echo the Bush demonization of Chavez, claiming that Chavez had hindered progress in Latin America and supported Colombian guerrillas.
Chavez, in his usual blunt, perhaps deliberately offensive style, responded by calling Obama an "ignoramus," and added that "he should read and study a little to understand reality."
Is the charge against Chavez accurate, or has Obama been influenced by hold-over advisors on Latin America? Greg Grandin notes that Obama
has kept on George W. Bush's Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Thomas Shannon and has picked Jeffrey Davidow to be his special advisor at the summit.
A career diplomat, Davidow's foreign service has been largely unremarkable, though his first posting was to Guatemala in the early 1970s when U.S.-backed death squads were running wild, and was followed by an assignment as a junior political officer in Chile, where he observed the 1973 U.S.-backed military coup that overthrew elected President Salvador Allende.
In other words, Obama’s advisors on Latin America are rooted in a period that we need to leave behind, and their assumptions were formed in that period.
It may be hard to gauge by watching the Summit, but one key issue is whether Obama shows himself to be moving beyond the worldview of diplomats who have been immersed in the old ways of doing things. Those ways just aren’t going to work in Latin America any more. The US is not as dominant as it was, and is spread too thin.
Both Venezuela and Bolivia withdrew their ambassadors from the US due to objections to Bush’s behavior. Bolivia is interested in reestablishing relations now that the US has a new president; Venezuela is not so sure. Argentina (which has more quietly also broken out of the IMF development model) and Brazil, an increasingly important economic power, are also countries that have moved to establish their independence from US expectations. Obama’s ability to build positive connections with these countries will be a measure of his vision, and perhaps also of the quality of advice provided by Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
The Current Global Crisis
President Obama says that discussions at the Summit will "aim to "jump-start job creation, promote free and fair trade, and develop a coordinated response to this economic crisis." Here again, the Summit may serve only to begin laying out areas of agreement and disagreement. Certainly, any progress made will help solidify the "reset" that Obama is hoping for.
Latin Americans, having long been economically dominated by the US, are more likely than others to see this crisis as a US problem that the US should bear the greatest burden in repairing. Greg Grandin sums up their perspective:
Given that the global financial crisis will dominate this summit, Obama's appearance will be seen by some as a return to the scene of the crime. After all, it was in Chile that the now-discredited model of deregulated financial capitalism was first imposed. . . . As it then spread through most of the rest of Latin America, the results were absolutely disastrous. For two decades, economies stagnated, poverty deepened, and inequality increased. To make matters worse, just as a new generation of leftists, taking measures to lessen poverty and reduce inequality, was recovering from that Washington-induced catastrophe, a reckless housing bubble burst in the U.S., bringing down the global economy.
So there will be a lot of weight of history shaping the exchanges that go on at the Summit. At the same time, President Obama has some powerful things going for him. He is an eloquent speaker who tends to evoke trust. That is a great gift.
Even better, he’s a good listener. Perhaps no quality is more important in a US leader who wants to rebuild relationships with Latin America. If Obama comes back with a better understanding of how our southern neighbors see us and the world – whether he agrees with their analysis or not – then he has taken a key step.
Lastly, Obama understands the importance of respect. Nothing is more important than coming to the point where our people AND our government genuinely respect the nations of Latin America: their history, the needs of their people, their integrity. On that basis, the long and bloody entanglement of Norteamericanos with Latin America can be rebuilt as a partnership that will strengthen and reward us all.