The Fujimori Legacy: The Rise of Electoral Authoritarianism in Peru

10. The Often Surprising Outcomes of Asymmetry in International Affairs: United States-Peru Relations in the 1990s

TEN The Often Surprising Outcomes of Asymmetry in International Affairs: United States–Peru Relations in the 1990s david scott palmer The Regional and International Context During the decade of the 1990s, United State–Latin American relations responded to four principal priorities, according to official statements: democracy and human rights, economic growth through economic liberalization and integration, reduction of poverty and discrimination, and environmentally sustainable development (U.S. Department of State 1996). However, there are other high-priority U.S. policy issues as well that have had a significant impact on U.S. relations in the region in recent years, such as drugs and immigration. While specifically subsumed within the officially stated priorities, they are important enough in their own right for inter-American relations to merit separate consideration. The end of the Cold War provoked a sea change in the international system. As a result, for the first time in fifty years, opportunities were presented for the United States to respond to Western Hemisphere issues on their own terms rather than through the filter of national security. The U.S. government initially used the foreign-policy space that opened up in the international system in a variety of ways to make significant adjustments in relations with other countries in the Western Hemisphere. From the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (trade) to the Andean Initiative (drugs), from the Santiago Resolution (oas [Organization of American States] 1080) (democracy) to the Brady Plan (debt), from the El Salvador the fujimori legacy 228 Peace Accords (multilateral conflict resolution) to the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) (trade and investment), the late 1980s and early 1990s were replete with new departures in U.S. relations with Latin America. In numerous ways, pragmatism and partnership replaced the security-driven unilateralism that had characterized many U.S. policy initiatives toward the region since the 1950s. The high-water mark of this new policy as it related to Latin America came with the ratification by the U.S. Congress of the nafta in November 1993. As the 1990s advanced, however, multiple domestic constraints in the United States increasingly limited U.S. foreign-policy makers’ ability to continue to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the changes in the international system in relations with Latin America. These included massive federal-government deficits, cutbacks in fiscal resources for the Department of State, interagency rivalries, a variety of domestic economic and political concerns that took precedence over foreign policy , and major tensions between the executive and legislative branches after 1995—culminating in Congress’s unsuccessful effort in 1998 to impeach the president. In addition, a number of major international crises in other parts of the world—including Bosnia, Burundi, Russia, South Asia, and the Middle East—tended to deflect the U.S. foreign-policy community ’s attention away from Latin America. Such considerations significantly affected United States–Latin American relations in spite of the long-standing reality of dramatic asymmetry between the so-called Colossus of the North and the individual countries of the region (as reflected, for example, in a U.S. economy more than eleven times larger than all the Latin American economies combined). This meant that U.S. policy, however important its perceived role to Latin American actors over the course of the 1990s, was often not in a very good position to ensure outcomes favoring stated objectives. In other words, the hegemonic presumption and the concomitant assumption of dominance in bilateral as well as multilateral relations were often not borne out in practice. Beginning in the months after nafta’s ratification, U.S. policy initiatives toward the region were often characterized by improvisation; drift; subordination to domestic politics; and lost, even squandered opportunities (Palmer 2004). Several examples serve to illustrate the shift. 1. The Clinton administration, with an eye on the 1994 midterm elections , chose not to seek an extension of fast-track authority, so it outcomes of asymmetry in international affairs 229 lapsed. It was regained only eight years later, by the George Walker Bush administration, but with new limiting conditions. 2. Haiti policy was plagued by the specter of Somalia, bureaucratic in- fighting, and multiple political pressures, which enabled the repressive military regime of Raoul Cedras to take advantage of the confusion for its own nefarious purposes. 3. Decertification of Colombia in 1996 and 1997 failed to reduce drug...