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In Latin Finance, experts analyzed the US election’s potential impact on Latin America and the Caribbean. Inter-American Dialogue President and CEO Rebecca Bill Chavez offered this assessment of Vice President Harris:
Robust global engagement is a central pillar of US Vice President Kamala Harris’ approach to foreign policy. Her record as vice president demonstrates a belief in building networks of alliances and partnerships. As vice president, she visited over 20 countries and met with over 150 world leaders. She has been clear in her rejection of a go-it-alone, isolationist stance.
She has also been clear that the United States must compete effectively with China. In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, I hope this translates into greater engagement than we’ve seen in the past.
Her record in Central America demonstrates her understanding that the only way to deal with the hemisphere-wide migration crisis in the long term is to address the root causes. She built on the Obama-Biden Central America strategy in important ways, including by harnessing private sector investment in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. She rightly continued the focus on addressing poverty, crime and violence and corruption, but added the need to increase women’s economic empowerment and advance labor rights and human rights.
Harris has also significantly increased US engagement in the Caribbean, a region that has frequently been overlooked in the past. The US-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis is an example of this effort. Her focus on harnessing the private sector and public-private partnerships have been central to her approach to addressing the root causes of migration from northern Central America.
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