Losing ground in Latin America?
On Sunday, the Miami Herald's Andres Oppenheimer published an article headlined "Latin America's honeymoon with Obama may be over." This is the latest on a long list of commentaries on the year-old U.S. administration's faltering image throughout Latin America. In the past week, U.S. relations with Latin America have been described as "gone south," "like Bush's," and "disingenuous," to name a few. These descriptions come mostly in response to the way the United States handled both the recent political crisis in Honduras and the military base deal with Colombia. Christopher Sabatini provides an interesting timeline of the deterioration of U.S. policy toward the region on the Americas Quarterly blog. Oppenheimer's article starts: "Only a few months ago, Latin American leaders hailed the Obama administration as a new beginning in hemispheric relations. But now, the honeymoon is over." This high view of the United States under a new administration was evident in a Gallup poll released at the first of the month that found "regional median approval of U.S. leadership at 51%, up significantly from the previous three years." This poll, taken from July to September 2009, may have represented, unfortunately, the high point of the Obama administration's approval rating in the region, though time will tell if Latin American public opinion agrees with the various authors who have cited the demise of U.S.-Latin American relations. Obama won much approval in the region because he signaled a departure from former President George W. Bush, though as Oppenheimer writes, "not being Bush is no substitute for a proactive policy in Latin America." Here are excerpts from other articles:
- William Finnegan, of The New Yorker, wrote on December 3rd that "the humiliation of the Obama Administration was complete" with the Honduran Congress's decision not to reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya. In trying to understand how this all happened, Finnegan writes "Basically, though, it looks like the Administration got rolled by the Republican right. ... Latin Americans who believed that Barack Obama represented a new era in U.S. policy in their region have had an unhappy surprise."
- Time magazine's Tim Padgett had harsh words for the Obama administration as well, writing that "when it comes to U.S. policy in Latin America - as events this week in Honduras suggest - it's often hard to tell if George W. Bush isn't still President." Padgett continues, "as he ends his first year in office, Obama seems to have ceded Latin America strategy to right-wing Cold Warriors whose thinking - including the idea that coups are still an acceptable means of regime change - is no more equipped to help bring the region into the 21st century than the ideology of left-wing Marxists is." In response to Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela's statement that "the status quo" in Honduras "remains unacceptable," Padgett writes "it's a status quo Obama let the Cold Warriors keep intact - and it's now up to Valenzuela to wrest Latin America policy back from them."
- On December 2nd, the Wall Street Journal published an article by José de Córdoba and David Luhnow, titled "U.S. Faces Rising Resistance to its Latin American Policy." The authors give the United States more credit than the previous articles, writing that "the U.S. remains the dominant player in Latin America." Though, they go on to say that the United States "is having an increasingly tough time calling the shots in a region where countries like Brazil and China are vying for influence, and where even tiny Honduras stands up to the "Colossus to the North." De Córdoba and Luhnow end the article with advice from former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda to Obama: "The crisis is a lesson for Mr. Obama in the limits of cooperation. 'You can't follow the Latin Americans given how polarized the region is,' says Mr. Castañeda. 'You have to take a stance, and hope that the others will follow you.'"