10 Successes, 10 Challenges Successes Two-Year Colleges · Cleaner Air · Food Stamps · Assimilation · Entrepreneurs · China, India · Young Soldiers · Charity · AIDS · Foreign Investors Challenges Traffic · Consumerism · Drug Abuse · Dead Zones · Income Inequality · Mental Illness · Latin America · Housing · State Pensions · Anti-Americanism

By Corine Hegland, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Jan. 19, 2007

As 2006 came to a close, the top U.S. diplomat for Western Hemisphere affairs, Thomas Shannon, announced that 2007 would be a "year of engagement" for U.S. policy in the Americas. He did not address the implicit corollary: Was 2006, then, the year of apathy?

Latin America policy was supposed to be one of President Bush's top priorities as chief executive. He had a close friendship with fellow governor-turned-President Vicente Fox of Mexico, which is the United States' second-largest trading partner, and Fox was honored with Bush's first state dinner, on September 5, 2001, at which Bush declared that the coming century would be the "century of the Americas."

Then September 11 came, and the century of the Americas ended just six days after it had begun. There wasn't a breaking point: Economic ties continued apace as imports and exports grew, immigrants continued to arrive, and new trade deals were negotiated. Politically, though, the region didn't get the kind of resources or face time it had hoped for under Bush.

While Washington's attention was elsewhere, others started playing in the United States' backyard. Hugo Chavez, the unabashedly old-school socialist leader of oil-rich Venezuela, came into his own as oil revenues boomed. He supplemented his vivid anti-American rhetoric with discounted oil and aid programs for regional friends. In September 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle surveyed Chavez's expenditures and concluded that his foreign aid to Latin America appeared to be "several times greater" than the $1.7 billion a year that came from the U.S.

Chavez's oil diplomacy has apparently paid dividends: In the past 14 months, 12 Latin American nations have held presidential elections. Half of them elected new leftist leaders, including Chavez allies Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. It wasn't quite the leftist sweep that Washington feared, but it was a tilt back toward socialism.

At the same time, China, ever hungry for resources, went spelunking. From 1999 to 2004, China's imports from Latin America grew from about $3 billion to $22 billion. It has promised the region investments of $100 billion in the future, prompting Shannon to visit Beijing early last year for "consultation" with the Chinese on their intentions in Latin America.

Not much could jeopardize the economic ties between the United States and Latin America. The combination of geography and the sheer size of the U.S. market means that Latin American nations would be hard-pressed to replace the United States as one of their largest trading partners. "If the U.S. continues as it has been, in a high state of neglect, Mexico will still be selling products to the U.S., the U.S. will still be investing in Mexico, and Mexicans will still come to the U.S.," said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue.

But money alone can't buy friends, and the weakened political ties make for a colder day on the international stage. "In diplomacy, it's nice to have friends, and we like to count on that region for friends," said Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and, until 2004, the deputy assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs. Just a handful of Latin American nations supported the Iraq war, for example. Twelve refused to sign bilateral immunity agreements with Washington on the International Criminal Court, even though refusal cost them more than $5 million in aid a year until November 2006, when Bush quietly signed a waiver for 11 of the 12. (Venezuela, not surprisingly, was omitted.)

The "year of engagement" for 2007 is still in the works. Foggy Bottom officials would like to get Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush down to the region and, if at all possible, move stalled trade agreements with Colombia and Peru through Congress. In January, U.S. diplomacy got an unexpected boost from Chavez himself, who reacted to the Organization of American States' condemnation of his intention to revoke the license of an independent television station by calling the secretary general of the OAS a pendejo, an extremely vulgar term for "idiot." His outburst at the United Nations in September, when he called Bush a devil, likely cost him a Security Council seat. His allies, meanwhile, Morales, Ortega, and Correa, face internal political pressure to follow a more moderate path than Chavez.

The Americas might not love America, but there's nobody, yet, who can take America's place. Chavez's intemperance costs him, and his oil boom won't last forever; the Chinese, for their part, have made it clear that they do not wish to antagonize the U.S. by way of their economic ties to its southern neighbors. That means that Washington's benign neglect of the region, while not helpful, can probably linger for a few more years. "The U.S. is a gigantic country," said Hakim. "We can do a lot of things without friends." [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Need A Reprint Of This Article?
National Journal Group offers both print and electronic reprint services, as well as permissions for academic use, photocopying and republication. Click here to order, or call us at 877-394-7350.