More details this morning about President Obama’s March visit to Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador. According to Bloomberg, trade and energy will top the president’s agenda -- some analysts say in response to the growing economic presence of China in much of the region. The Inter-American Dialogue’s Michael Shifter tells the news agency “there’s a very keen awareness in Washington that China is a major trading partner now of Brazil, Chile and Peru. [And] there’s a sense the U.S. is missing that opportunity.”
But with neither Colombia nor Panama on the schedule, there remain some doubts about just how integral the region is to President Obama’s economic plans (El Espectador speculates that Obama could head to the former in 2012 for the Summit of the Americas). Although pending FTA’s with both countries were mentioned as part of the president’s “export initiative” Tuesday, both centre-left Brazil and centre-right Chile represent countries who have diversified their economic relationships and promoted Latin American economic integration.
In 2007 China leapfrogged the US as the principal market for Chilean copper (despite having become the first Latin American country to sign an FTA with the US back in 2003). Two years later Asia’s largest economy also overtook the US as Brazil’s number one trading partner. Since 2005, total Chinese exports to Latin America have risen 26 percent.
(See the latest issue of Americas Quarterly for more on US-Latin America trade issues).
In fact, Chile’s Foreign Affairs Minister Alfredo Moreno suggested to reporters Thursday that two matters which have not historically been at the center of US-Latin America talks -- regional democratic development and participation in regional multilateral organizations – will be on the table in Chile. The Chilean minister also says his country is seeking American assistance in further developing its nuclear energy capacities.
Re: Brazil, Spain’s El País contends Obama’s decision to visit new Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is a sign of a “new stage” in bilateral relations between the two countries. President Obama began his presidency with a White House visit from Dilma’s predecessor, Lula da Silva, famously calling Lula “my man.” But events quickly took over, with the two nations sparring on a number of issues – among them, the coup in Honduras, Iran, and international talks on climate change and the financial crisis.
Brazil has also been re-asserting its military independence by seeking to upgrade its fighter jet fleet – without the US help (although such plans remain on hold for now).
And in El Salvador, security, immigration, and economic development will likely be three principal items on the agenda, according to the Washington Post. As the paper notes, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes proposed a $900 million Central American anti-drug trafficking plan to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last fall, requesting significant U.S. assistance for the program. The Post says the U.S. government is expected to participate in a donors' conference in June to “help raise money for security efforts in the region.”
Both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal mention the Alliance for Progress, unsuccessfully mentioned by President Obama in his Tuesday State of the Union. The President’s March trip is intentionally meant to coincide with the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s official announcement of that program in March 1961.
But when President John F. Kennedy took office and proposed a 10-year, $20 billion aid program, he suggested Latin America to be the most important area in the world. (Later, he called it the "most dangerous"). Few expect such a dramatic announcement in 2011, despite what appears to be a similar strategy of embracing moderate centre-left and centre-right governments. Indeed, in a likely unintentional reference to Kennedy’s description of Latin America during the early 1960s, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defined Latin America as simply “a very important region in the world” when discussing trip details Thursday.
To other stories:
· In another sign of changing times, the Economist this week on what it argues is the growing irrelevancy of the OAS – or at least its democratic charter. Venezuela and the 18 months of special decree powers granted to President Hugo Chavez by his outgoing National Assembly are the magazine’s central concern. While OAS Sec. General José Miguel Insulza has criticized the new powers, no other Latin American countries have condemned the move, the magazine reports (only ALBA member states have commented – offering their support for Chavez). The Economist, on Brazil’s silence:
“The case of Brazil, which aspires to regional leadership and is explicitly committed to representative democracy, is particularly incoherent. The country went to extreme lengths in seeking the restoration of Mr Zelaya, housing him in its Honduran embassy for months after he sneaked back across the border from exile. But it has a close relationship with the Venezuelan regime. The silence of Dilma Rousseff, its new president, has been deafening.”
· The OAS continues to be in the spotlight in Haiti where two days after rumors about Jude Celestin’s exit from the country’s presidential contest began – in accordance with controversial OAS recommendations – still no word from the candidate himself. The New York Times says Rene Preval, the man who got Celestin on the ballot, is now among those quietly pressuring Celestin to bow out after the US revoked the visas of several Haitian officials and has threatened to continue withholding aid should the electoral crisis continue. Celestin and Preval’s INITE party seems to have also abandoned its candidate. According to one international election official Celestin may be “trying to teach the country a lesson” – that “there is a process in place to determine which candidates have won enough votes to go to the runoff.” If anyone is going to appear to cave to the will of the United States,” the official tells the Times, “Célestin doesn’t want it to be him.” Amy Wilentz, in The Nation, with excellent analysis of the situation, concluding with this important point:
“So Haiti must continue on, trying to find some middle ground in the unfolding catastrophe, knowing all the while that without a great, commanding and honest leader—a broker for the people who could help guide Haiti’s splintered but passionate grassroots democratic movement in building lasting institutions—that middle ground is quicksand.”
· The Economist with an early preview of 2012 presidential elections in Mexico – asking whether anyone can possibly stop the PRI, and its likely candidate, Mexico state Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto, from retaking the presidency. The LA Times, meanwhile, looks at the vote that will kick of the electoral season – the election of a new governor in the state of Guerrero on Jan. 30. According to the paper, the PRI could recapture the governorship there from a somewhat faltering PRD. State elections in Baja California Sur are set for Feb. 6 and present a similar matchup.
· Also in Mexico, the AP reports on the resignation of an entire municipal police force – 39 individuals total – in the northeastern Mexico town of General Teran. The mass resignation follows the discovery Wednesday of the mutilated bodies of two colleagues who had been kidnapped by gunmen two days prior. Also from the AP, a report on how some traffickers are using catapults set up along the US-Mexico border in Sonora to bring marijuana into the US. The AP: “U.S. National Guard troops operating a remote surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station say they observed several people preparing a catapult and launching packages over the fence late last week.” A second catapult was found nearby on Thursday. And the LA Times with more on some early signs that a militarized drug war may be creeping into Mexico’s capital.
· Laura Carlsen of CIP’s Americas Program writes on concerns about militarization around Latin America – and in US-Latin American relations – while focusing on how women’s movements are on leading the opposition to such militarization in places like Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, and Mexico.
· Steven Dudley, at In Sight, with analysis of the recent bust of a gun smuggling ring in Arizona and the loopholes in US government regulation of firearm sales which made the smuggling ring possible.
· The AP reports that Cesar Nakazaki, lawyer to imprisoned ex-Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori – is preparing a new legal “offensive” to get the sentence of his client overturned. The country’s Constitutional Tribunal is expected to rule in the coming days whether or not Fujimori’s habeas corpus appeal can move forward.
· The AP reports on a significant, and rather sudden, decline in Evo Morales’s popularity in Bolivia. The criticisms are mostly related to economic issues, the AP writes. In an Ipsos poll released this month, Morales' approval rating plummeted to 36 percent — a low point after five years in power.
· A Chilean judge says there should be a new investigation into the death of Salvador Allende as part of what the New York Times says will be “new investigations into 726 human rights-related crimes in which the victims or their relatives never filed suit.”
· El Tiempo on some stiff criticisms from some in Colombia for Juan Manuel Santos’s suggestion that Spanish jurist Baltasar Garzón be brought to the country to advise on human rights matters.
· Mercopress on Uruguayan President Pepe Mujica’s visit to Venezuela this week. The two governments signed a number of bilateral economic accords while Mujica reiterated his support for Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur and apparently offered his backing for former PDVSA oil chief Ali Rodriguez’s nomination as the next UNASUR secretary general. Mujica was in Peru earlier in the week where he supported President Alan Garcia’s calls for an increased regional focus on disarmament.
· Finally, ahead of Angelino Garzón’s visit to Washington next week, the Latin America Working Group’s Lisa Haugaard, at the Huffington Post, on key human rights issues which remain to be tackled by Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia. And journalist Ben Dangl, in The Guardian, on why Dilma Rousseff should make land reform part of her domestic agenda.
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