Shifting the Balance: Obama and the Americas

Obama and the Americas: Old Hopes, New Risks

165 eleven Obama and the Americas: Old Hopes, New Risks Laurence Whitehead In chapter 1, Abraham Lowenthal provides a judicious overview of the hopes for change in the Americas raised by the advent of the Obama administration in January 2009, despite the complexities of internal bureaucratic politics that hedge in U.S. leadership. He gives four good reasons for keeping alive modest but positive expectations: the importance of Latin America for U.S. policymakers; the existence of a well-grounded set of understandings and agreements among most U.S. analysts, think tanks, and policy experts; an enhanced capacity to discriminate between countries and issues; and a consequent awareness of the need to avoid overreacting to specific local crises. Old Hopes As chapter 1 also makes clear, many of those supporting Barack Obama expected that he would act vigorously to repair the damage that his predecessor inflicted on the international standing of the United States. At the time of Obama’s inauguration, Latin America offered good opportunities for such demonstrative repositioning. Some fear that the best opportunity for a fresh start may already have been missed, and that the relatively strong continuities observable between late Bush Junior and early Obama foreshadow a deeper inertia. This could generate disappointment and even distrust. President Obama’s initial region-wide popularity put the minority of “anti-Washington” governments of Latin America in a defensive position . They might have liked nothing better than to assert that “nothing has 11-0562-8 ch11.indd 165 11/2/10 11:12 AM 166 Laurence Whitehead changed,” that behind the friendlier façade the United States is still pursuing the same old interests and unilateral practices. The Colombian bases issue and the Honduran constitutional interruption provided grist to that mill. On this view, if there is no overarching policy framework with high visibility executive leadership and support to reshape hemispheric relations, there may be policy fragmentation, a reactive management of crises, and a loss of momentum necessary for cumulative progress. And if U.S. allies develop the impression that Washington lacks a consistent long-term strategy and that they are mostly on their own, it may become difficult to sustain multilateral cooperation and goodwill. A year and a half into Obama’s first term both assessments seem equally plausible: there is still scope for the administration’s new team of Latin American officeholders (finally confirmed after a year’s delay) to take charge and actively promote the first, more positive, alternative; but it is also possible to detect the early stages of what could grow into a larger estrangement between Washington and its many hemispheric neighbors. This volume concludes somewhat on the more positive side, in the belief that the Western Hemisphere remains a favorable neighborhood for a repositioned United States and may even provide a relatively “easy” opportunity for it to regain international credibility. But ensuring this requires more innovative thinking, sustained attention, a willingness on the part of the United States to treat its regional partners as equals, and more systematic consultation with them on how best to deal with the challenges the hemisphere faces. This in turn calls for well-prepared and intelligently designed proactive rather than reactive policies, and the ability to differentiate countries and issues, avoiding the old us-versus-them logic that colored the Axis of Evil and War on Terror perspectives. Early on in the new administration several unforeseen developments created difficulties that—perhaps for very understandable reasons—were not as well handled as they might have been. The Colombia bases agreement and the Honduran constitutional standoff initially caught the administration off balance and highlighted some disconnect between presidential rhetoric and practical performance. One can imagine the ferocity of external and domestic criticisms had the same policy responses been adopted by the Bush administration. This thought puts in focus both the degree of goodwill initially generated by the change of president and the extent to which that fund of goodwill was drawn on during the first eighteen months of Obama’s tenure. Other challenging issues foreseeable in the near future include a possible intensification of regional tensions around various “intermestic” issues 11-0562-8 ch11.indd 166 11/2/10 11:12 AM Obama and the Americas 167 such as immigration policy and drug trafficking (issues concerning, but by no means confined to, Mexico) and perhaps also frictions with Brazil on various international issues, notably with regard to sanctions...