Shifting the Balance: Obama and the Americas

The Obama Administration and the Americas

1 one The Obama Administration and the Americas Abraham F. Lowenthal Barack Obama entered the U.S. presidency with a daunting agenda. At home he faced deep economic recession, a near collapse of the country’s financial institutions, rising unemployment, decaying infrastructure, a dysfunctional health insurance system, and countless other accumulated problems . Abroad he inherited two costly and unpopular wars, the continuing threat from al Qaeda, dangerous confrontations with North Korea and Iran, strained relations with Russia, multiple challenges from a rising China, the specter of implosion in Pakistan, the festering Israel-Palestine impasse, the looming dangers of climate change, pandemics, and nuclear proliferation— and much more. Few observers predicted, therefore, that the Obama administration would devote much attention to Latin America and the Caribbean. None of the region’s countries poses an imminent threat to U.S. national security. None seems likely to be a source or target of significant international terrorism. During the campaign, moreover, Senator Obama said little about Latin America. He confined himself to one dedicated speech on the region (to a Cuban American organization in Miami), a proposal to appoint a special ambassador for the Americas, suggestions during the “Rust Belt” primary An edited and condensed version of this essay appears in Foreign Affairs 4 (July–August 2010, 110–24). I appreciate helpful comments on an earlier draft from Marcel Biato, Kevin CasasZamora , Richard Downie, Daniel Erikson, Jorge Heine, Jane Jaquette, Carlos Malamud, Cynthia McClintock, Alister McIntyre, Jennifer McCoy, Michael O’Hanlon, Theodore Piccone, Christopher Sabatini, Thomas Shannon, Michael Shifter, and Laurence Whitehead. 01-0562-8 ch1.indd 1 11/2/10 11:10 AM 2 Abraham F. Lowenthal campaigns that the North American Free Trade Agreement should be renegotiated , and a few statements expressing reservations about the Colombia and Panama free trade agreements pending ratification by the U.S. Senate. After his election, however, Barack Obama and members of his administration quickly showed interest in Latin America and the Caribbean. As president-elect, Mr. Obama met with only one foreign leader, Felipe Calder ón of Mexico. His first foreign visitor to Camp David was Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The new president also soon welcomed Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet and Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe to Washington. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first meeting with a foreign head of state was with Haiti’s President René Préval, and she then pushed successfully for expanded international assistance to Haiti. Vice President Joseph Biden visited Chile and Costa Rica in March. Secretary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all traveled to Mexico by early April 2009, ahead of a trip by President Obama himself. All were notably receptive to Mexican perspectives, and their visits were well received.1 The new administration also announced initiatives on Cuba, loosening restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans and opening up the possibility of U.S. investment in telecommunications networks with the island. The president himself called for a “new beginning” in U.S.Cuba relations. The State Department began exploratory conversations with Cuban officials on a potential postal service agreement and resumed longsuspended bilateral consultations on migration. No concrete actions were taken to approve the free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, but administration officials quickly backed away from Mr. Obama’s earlier skeptical posture. The president’s announcement that he would press for comprehensive immigration reform was greeted warmly in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and several South American countries. And President Obama’s participation in April 2009 at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, won praise throughout the Americas for his consultative manner and his expressed interest in multilateral cooperation. Why did the Obama administration take a strong initial interest in Latin America and the Caribbean? What was the content and what were the sources of its approaches? Are the Obama administration’s policies in the Western Hemisphere likely to take fuller shape, be implemented, and endure? Or will they be attenuated or even abandoned, as has often happened to U.S. 01-0562-8 ch1.indd 2 11/2/10 11:10 AM The Obama Administration and the Americas 3 policy initiatives toward Latin America in the past? What can and should the Obama administration do to improve U.S. policies toward and...