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Obama's South American Reality Check
Barack Obama needs to face up to the fact that existing US policies have caused havoc throughout South America
Many people, including most of the presidents and leaders of South America, were hoping that President Obama would initiate a serious change in US-Latin American relations, after the low point reached during the Bush years. Change will certainly come - it is happening every week - but there are few if any signs that the initiative will come from the north.
The Obama administration announced yesterday that it would allow Cuban-Americans with relatives in Cuba to visit and send money, and that some communications links would be opened. This was widely expected, and as the Financial Times noted, it was "the minimum necessary to make sure that Obama gets a good response" at the Summit of the Americas, where 34 heads of state will meet this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago.
To be sure, Obama will do much better than his predecessor did at the last Summit four years ago. At that meeting, in Mar del Plata, Argentina, President Bush was so embarrassed that he skipped town a day early. In addition to the huge protest rallies that greeted him, the event was historic in that it marked a clear end to Washington's 10-year dream of a "Free Trade Area of the Americas."
But the so-called "free trade" agreements - including the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, that has helped deliver sluggish growth, increasing out-migration, and a massive security crisis to Mexico - are just one item of the menu of failed policies that Washington has offered up to its southern neighbors. The collapse of economic growth in Latin America under neoliberal policies has gone unnoticed in Washington, but it's hard to miss in the countries that have suffered through it.
From 1960-1980, income per person in the region grew by 82%, as compared to just 9% for 1980-2000. Since 2000 it has grown by about 17%, which - despite the last 5 years of much improved growth - will make this the third consecutive decade of dismal economic growth. Nothing comparable has happened to Latin America in more than a century. To get an idea of what this means for the region, if Brazil or Mexico had simply kept growing at their pre-1980 rate - which would not have set any records for developing countries - they would have European living standards today. This is basically what happened to South Korea, which unlike Latin America, did not adopt Washington's neoliberal policy recommendations.
The current recession, which was so clearly caused by policy failures in the United States, has only reinforced the message that Washington is not the place to turn to for economic advice or leadership. In the last decade, Latin American voters who were fed up with neoliberalism have chosen left-wing governments in what is now the majority of the region.
US policy-makers seem clueless as to the historic, epoch-making nature of the changes that have taken place in this hemisphere, their causes, and their implications. They seem stuck in a time warp that precedes not only the Bush years but often strays back to the cold war. Jeffrey Davidow is President Obama's special ambassador for the summit and a key Latin America advisor. Speaking at an event in Washington last week, he tried unsuccessfully with cold war rhetoric to convince his audience that maintaining this 47-year old embargo - opposed throughout the region - is for the cause of democracy. Never mind that everyone in the room knew that it is all about the Cuban-Americans of South Florida, a state that has swung two of the last three presidential elections. Perhaps equally out-of-place was his praise of the Washington Post editorial board's position on Cuba: "Maybe you think they are a bunch of ideologues as well," he said, "but I think they say it much better than I do."
For those who don't read the Washington Post and remember it as a liberal newspaper from the Watergate years, its editorial board has become fervently neo-conservative on foreign policy issues, having led the charge for the Iraq war and shrilly denounced critics who questioned the Bush administration's arguments for the invasion. If Davidow does not have even a sense of his audience among the centrist-liberal foreign policy establishment in Washington, how can we expect him to deal with the new realities of an independent Latin America?
Clearly President Obama could use some better advice on Latin America. It was a mistake to initiate verbal hostilities with Venezuela at the beginning of his presidency; a mistake to continue the Bush administration's policies toward Bolivia; a mistake to think that he can ignore the call of President Lula da Silva of Brazil and other presidents for an end to the embargo on Cuba. Nothing would be easier than for this administration to break with the past and establish normal relations with the entire hemisphere, which was excited about his election and expected no less. But Obama's advisors show little interest in doing this.
Of course, the Obama administration's conservatism on foreign policy in general - including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East - reflects a political calculation that his handling of domestic economic issues will make or break his presidency, and that the safest route on foreign policy is therefore to deviate only minimally from the status quo. But when the status quo is so glaringly divorced from reality, change might be a better option.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllSince Presidents are surrounded by mostly rich people and most rich people are conservatives, conservatives have a much greater influence on them than the rest of us do. We need direct democracy.
I have often pondered whether conservatives really are the enemy, though the neocons have certainly affected the opinion of many against that body of political thought.
"There is a certain meanness in the arguments of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its facts." Emerson.
Bush skipped out early during his trip in 2005 to fullfill the true purpose of his trip to South America: to visit his newly acquired ranch in Paraguay.
The ranch will be a neocon refuge in the event that the US Congress ever decides to prosecute the Bush Regime since Paraguay does not allow extradition of criminals to the US.
Actually, he was given the boot, big time, by soccer star Maradona, Chavez and Morales.
They brought shovels and buried his free trade caper at Mar de Plata.
The hatred toward Hugo Chavez made no sense from the beginning.
A legally elected President was ridiculed for using oil revenue to benefit the poor people rather than the rich elite. He has been legally
elected three times and yet newspapers call him a dictator.
Four times, if one counts the 2004 referendum.
"The Obama administration announced yesterday that it would allow Cuban-Americans with relatives in Cuba to visit and send money, and that some communications links would be opened. This was widely expected, and as the Financial Times noted, it was 'the minimum necessary to make sure that Obama gets a good response' at the Summit of the Americas, where 34 heads of state will meet this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago."
What could possibly be more emblematic of the Obama presidency than characterizing a cosmetic change in Cuba policy as motivated by the desire of Obama to get a "good response" as he heads off for a Latin American summit? Once again, a presidential trip is treated like a campaign appearance, in which a "response" in the form of votes is being sought. Proving himself to be a superlative campaigner, Obama is governing in campaign mode. What, I wonder, will be the "minimal" action to insure a "good response" in Africa, if Obama ever decides to pay one of his magisterial visits there? After blowing off the Durban conference, it may take some yet unknown foreign policy gesture to save the day for a "good response" there. His current game of Obama-and-the-Pirates off the coast of Somali doesn't seem to fit the bill. Or maybe he's just "written off" Africa from his electoral strategy.
leave it to the telecom industry to be the first to profit from obama's much ballyhooed new cuban relationship.
when do the smoke and mirrors begin to wear thin?
The president must bring new blood to the Whitehouse. The neocons must go! Change is not possible with the former Republican officials still holding out in the State Department or elsewhere. Where are the good Democratic officials in waiting? We need them now. They have waited long enough.
i think that by now it is clear that: obama has been "made an offer he couldn't refuse", and/or;-has been bought and paid for.
Sweetie, he would not be president if he had not sold himself for a plate of lentils long before the voting.
Sure, Obama just made some mistakes in acting like a ditto head for Bush. It was his bad advisors, you see. Wall street had nothing to do with Obama backing all the predatory capitalist shit that goes on in Latin America. Yeah, they had him teaching sunday school at the University of Chicago. Hey, isn't that the place where the neo-liberal "Chicago school" rape the country and make a few billionares policy came from? Nah, I must be mistaken. Obama isn't a double crossing corporate smooth talking king con, he's just making some "mistakes". It won't wash this time. We've got a super depression starting and the elite are making it worse everyday by their self serving behavior. Well, they do know better and they have been continually warned that you can't massively screw the people and get away with it. The elite have forgotten that the productivity of this nation comes from the bottom. In South America they have rediscovered this fact. Good for them. They will continue to do better and we will continue to do worse. Obama get's it but he doesn't give a damn.
Obama appears to be more clueless with each passing day....
"US policy-makers seem clueless as to the historic, epoch-making nature of the changes that have taken place in this hemisphere, their causes, and their implications. They seem stuck in a time warp that precedes not only the Bush years but often strays back to the cold war."
US policy makers are not clueless but instead blatantly hostile to the Democratic changes taking place in South America. The 2007 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples supports the changes taking place in South America. We are witnessing nothing less than the historic destruction of a 500 year policy of genocide against native peoples. It is the end of the genocide unleashed by Europeans during the Age of Discovery based upon the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Dominion started by the Papal Bull Inter Caetera in 1493. Indigenous majorities are breaking the chains of imperialism and genocide forced upon them by Europeans and Americans. South Americans are reasserting their human rights to live free and unconstrained by the false claims of plenary power forced upon them by Euro elites. American elites are frightened by the reversal of fortunes of the Euro elites in South America and therefore American policy toward South America is in support of continuing imperialism and genocide. That's it in a nutshell.
Obama has never been to Latin America--not even to Mexico, where I believe he arrived today and where he will be kept in a sardine can so that he won't see any of the peeople here.
Therefore, he would be well-advised to keep his mouth shut and LISTEN.
Ignorance and aggression are not appropriate postures for relating to this region.