Estranged Relations: US-Latin America 2008
Cynthia Watson, Ph.D.
Cynthia Watson is Chairwoman of the Department of Security Studies at the National War College. Views expressed are purely personal and do not reflect policy of the National War College or any agency of the U.S. Government.
The next president of the United States faces a mighty task in reconciling U.S.-Latin American relations, but the task is not insurmountable. When George W. Bush assumed the presidency seven years ago, Latin America was optimistic about a former governor from a border state with an acute understanding of at least Mexico’s importance to the United States. Mexico itself had broken the more than seven decades’ grip on the presidency when Vicente Fox Quesada won the election in mid-2000. Americans both north and south of the Rio Grande woefully overestimated the powers that each new president brought to the bilateral relationship, particularly after September 11th, 2001. While relations have changed with all parts of the world since that day, the ties with Latin America have arguably suffered the greatest decline, because Washington has sought to center all policy on the ‘global war on terrorism’, while Latin American leaders have largely tried to draw attention back to the problems confronting the region.
With Washington’s attention focused elsewhere, China and Europe play increasingly important roles in this part of the world. The 2004 ‘rock star’ tour by Chinese president Hu Jintao illustrated Beijing’s greater interest in and commitment to the region, for a variety of reasons. Latin America offers a considerable amount of energy and raw materials that a modernizing China seeks to maintain its massive economic growth. Additionally, as China seeks to move people off the inefficient farms into more productive enterprises, Latin America offers a source for agricultural goods to feed the population in the Middle Kingdom. Politically, China hopes its growing presence in the region will encourage the remaining supporters of Taiwan as a legitimate diplomatic entity (concentrated in Central America and Paraguay) to abandon Taipei in favor of the mainland and push Taiwan towards peaceful reunification. Finally, as China seeks to reassume its self-assessed leadership position in the international community, Beijing can promise Latin America that China will not patronize or abandon the region, as the Latin Americans feel Washington has done. At the same time, Europe plays a major role as a market for Latin raw materials while providing the region with considerable investment for its growth.
Latin America watched the Argentine economy collapse in the early years of this decade as Colombia’s political system also fell into chaos. Yet since 1982, Latin America began exporting major amounts of its vast agricultural, energy, and raw material resources. Peru, Brazil, and Argentina have healthy growth rates well above those in the United States and Europe. With world demand for Latin America’s exports high, life in the region looks relatively good compared with seven years ago, much less the 1980s.
The United States does not play into much of this activity, except as one of the many engines demanding Latin exports such as petroleum. Washington’s view of the region is not especially positive, however, because of the advent of ‘nationalist populist’ regimes in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Former labor activist Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva assumed the presidency in Brasilia in 2002 to the trepidation of many free market advocates in the United States, but ‘Lula’ maintains a relatively open economy in the South American state and advocates relative openness for the region.
Hugo Chávez Frías in Venezuela is a different matter. A former Army Lieutenant Colonel cashiered and incarcerated for a 1992 coup attempt against the long-democratic government in Caracas, Chávez Frías won the presidency six years later on a platform of strong anti-corruption rhetoric. Nearly a decade later, he has moved steadily towards a more overtly anti-Washington (and anti-Bush) position eerily reminiscent of Fidel Castro’s anti-gringo positions of the 1960s. Chávez Frías blames any and all problems, ranging from environmental decay to rising fuel prices to anything else, on Washington, playing an increasingly strident nationalist card aimed to raise populist sentiments. He courts foreign leaders such as Saddam Hussein (prior to 2003) and Hu Jintao in an obvious ploy to annoy Washington, but has been relatively unsuccessful at fomenting the goal of a ‘Boliviarian Revolution’ in Latin America. Recent indications, however, are that the Venezuelan populus is growing tired of the Chávez Frías antics as grumbling is growing across the nation. He is not yet under enough pressure to force necessary changes in his behavior, but the tide may be turning against him.
Chávez Frías retains power, but saw his quest for an open-ended endorsement by his population end with the defeat of a referendum in late 2007. As 2008 progresses, he will need to provide more than rhetoric to prove the efficacy of his platform at building a new, durable Venezuela. Indications are that popular support is waning as the Venezuelan seeks more personal power without producing anything for his increasingly weary public.
The presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador, Evo Morales Ayma and Rafael Correa Delgado, respectively, won election by advocating protection of their nation’s resources in the face of external exploitation. Morales Ayma, in particular, appears to model his policies on Chávez Frías’ rhetoric, adding to Washington’s concern by highlighting the power of Bolivia’s coca growers. After more than a year in office, however, neither of these leaders governs a country which seems to share their beliefs as was true of their pre-election campaign promises. Concerns in Bolivia and Ecuador support the reality populists often face when they prove unable to improve the living conditions of their populations.
The Road Ahead
It is difficult to envision circumstances whereby Latin America would become a top campaign topic in the United States, except in immigration policy. Immigration is a potent issue that pulls at the heart strings of many in the United States at the same time that the advent of Hispanic immigrants seems an exceedingly threatening phenomenon. Apart from that issue, Latin America remains only a peripheral concern for the majority of people in the United States even if the last two presidents have made major investments in a democratic Colombia to support a pro-U.S. regime. Colombia continues to suffer from severe internal political polarization, which is worsened by the continued violence of the leftist Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas (FARC) and the remaining paramilitaries on the political right who have not yet demiliarized under the title of the Autodefensas Unidas Colombianas (AUC). This still threatens to undermine the century-old facade of the democracy in the nation.
Beginning in 1999 under President Andrés Pastrana Arango, the United States sent billions of dollars in assistance to improve the Colombian military and other portions of the Colombian polity. By early 2008, President Álvaro Uribe Vélez claims to have overcome the FARC and coopted the paramilitaries on the right under an amnesty program. Uribe Vélez has proven a forceful political leader in Colombia, but only after he leaves office in 2010 will the durability of his reforms appear successful or unsuccessful in a system where Colombian leaders have often claimed success with no real shift in the political landscape. For the Bush administration, Uribe Vélez stood apart as the sole defender of the U.S. president’s goals in the region, mitigated only by the failure on Washington’s part to achieve a free trade agreement with the Colombians because of widespread Democratic Party concerns about persistent human rights violations in Colombia. An example of these concerns are the stalled Free Trade Agreement for Colombia which Democrats are blocking because of fears this will give support to elements in Colombian society which seek to purge political opponents, to the utter frustration of Presidents Uribe Vélez and Bush.
In the longer term, Mexico and Cuba offer substantial challenges for anyone in the White House or on Capitol Hill. The right-of-center government of Felipe Calderón, assuming power after a prolonged, contentious election in 2006, has consolidated power slowly and gradually, instituting a number of lower level reforms aimed at improving Mexico’s economy and the citizens’ standard of living. Much more difficult, however, is the growing drug-driven violence affecting the border regions with the United States and the Mexican justice system. As drug trafficking has moved north from Colombia into Mexico, the accompanying violence has also shifted. Numerous indications of intimidation of justice officials populate the Mexican newspapers.
Similarly, the violence in northern Mexico is frequently spreading north into the southwest of the United States. The immigration problem is one of the most passionate issues in the U.S. Political system, illustrated by boos aimed at nominee-apparent Senator John McCain at the February 2008 Conservative Political Action meeting in Washington when he mentioned immigration reform. President Bush similarly receives scathing criticism on his stance for a guest worker program. More immediately, however, along the border the movement of immigrants has brought tremendous street violence to cities and towns. Mexicans note that the United States allows easy purchase of guns, thus blaming the gringos for the root of the problem, while U.S. citizens blame Mexican illegals carrying their feuds north.
As the political discourse is so divided in the United States, it is hard to see a near-term resolution. Compounding the immigration and violence issues are difficulties of environmental waste and water scarcity problems on both sides of the border. In short, the relationship with Mexico remains, on a day by day basis, the single most pressing issue facing any U.S. Government, because of the proximity and the explosive nature of the ties.
Finally, some forty-nine years after he grasped power, Fidel Castro announced on 19 February 2008 that he will no longer bedevil the United States as head of state. While Castro appeared to be on his deathbed in late July 2006, he continued de facto as the supreme leader, even though he had transferred power to his brother Raúl. Fidel has held the true reins of power by persisting with policies mandating state-controlled and strict separation from the United States. The importance of the 19 February announcement is unclear. Is Castro capable of standing aside while he is alive? Would Cubans like to completely oust the Party or would they desire someone younger but within the Party to rule? Will someone within the Party now challenge Raul for control? Will the United States start altering its relationship with the island in the aftermath of Castro’s position as chief of state? All of these are unknowns.
More important from a U.S. policy perspective is the follow-on when Castro finally dies. The issue, however, is what the U.S. Government response will be when this occurs. Many analysts assume that there has been no institutionalization of the Cuban Communist Party, yet the eighteen-month interregnum of Raúl is instructive: there have been no apparent moves to oust him in favor of someone else, indicating that a coherent Party hierarchy exists.
Others in the United States assume that the Cuban exiles in the United States will be satisfied with Fidel’s removal (regardless of the cause), but there remains evidence that the children of many exiles will want to return to Cuba to reclaim land and assets seized by the Communists in the 1960s. The return and possible upheaval resulting could destabilize whatever regime seeks to replace Castro’s long government. The freedom from Castro’s rule may also lead to vast numbers of boat people as frustrated Cubans see their chance to go to more developed parts of the world, such as the United States, where they can catch up on the increase in living standards that have been on hold for half a century.
For the U.S. Government, Cuba poses a supreme problem because the Helms-Burton Law of 1996 instituted high standards that subsequent regimes in Havana must meet in order to have the relationship with the United States ‘normalized’. At the same time, any moves within the United States to prepare for this eventuality meet with resistance on the part of Cuban-Americans who fear that preparing for a post-Castro era will somehow free the Cuban leader to resist attempts to oust him. With Cuban-Americans a powerful voting block within southern Florida and New Jersey, politicians of both parties tread warily as they seek to institute these basic steps in preparation for the inevitable. Yet, Cuba remains a mere hundred miles off the U.S. Coast and has been one of the most volatile foreign policy issues in U.S. history.
In February 2008, President Bush made a widely lauded visit to Africa where his administration has spent $15 billion over its tenure, largely focused on preventing or treating the dreadful HIV/AIDs virus. The President is far more popular in Africa than he is in the United States or certainly in Latin America. The Bush administration, rightly or wrongly, has proven a terrible disappointment for the region, as the region has for President Bush. None of the presidential aspirants still struggling towards the nomination has any particular links to Latin America, so it does not seem realistic to see a dramatic improvement in the relationship with the inauguration of a successor in 2009. Perhaps the emerging Chinese involvement in Latin America will spur significant U.S. attention, but Beijing is proving cautious about its activities there for fear of upsetting the delicate balance of Sino-U.S. relations. It appears, instead, that Latin America will remain the neighborhood we take for granted until a crisis erupts. Unfortunately, we never know what that crisis may be.
No evidence exists that a new McCain, Obama or Clinton administration would automatically raise Latin America in the U.S. priorities. A fresh appraisal of the region, however, might bring creative new concerns, but it is likely that Latin American ties with Washington will remain estranged. •