Partisan squabbling and gridlock. That is the best guess about what will happen to US foreign policy worldwide when the new US Congress starts work in January. Latin America is unlikely to be much of an exception. President Obama’s first two years in office, when he was supported by a solid majority of Democrats in both the House and Senate, made clear how difficult it is to reshape US policy in the hemisphere, which responds mostly to domestic politics not to regional or international concerns. In the recent electoral campaign, the critical issues in US-Latin American relations —like most other foreign policy issues—were largely ignored. Those that were raised, immigration reform, for instance, were debated as internal problems for the US, virtually without reference to other countries.
The new Congress could well assign greater importance to hemispheric affairs than its predecessor. The prospective chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is Cuban-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Southern Florida, who over the years has demonstrated a continuing interest in Latin America beyond Cuba. She replaces liberal Democrat Howard Berman of California, whose interests mainly lie in the Middle East and Asia. It would be a mistake, however, to think that she and her Republican colleagues will be able to redirect US policies in Latin America. Although weakened, the president will still have the dominant voice in international matters, and he retains a Democratic majority in the Senate and power to veto legislation.
Still, Republicans will not only have a greater capacity in both the Senate and the House to obstruct administration initiatives—and block the few modest policy shifts that the White House has pursued, for example, in reaching out to Cuba. They are now in position to shape the agenda of issues for consideration and influence the content of policy debates. As the majority party in the house, Republicans will determine the subject and timing of congressional hearings and investigations, and invite most of the witnesses. House Republican leaders, including new committee chairs, will have more public visibility and greater media access. For sure, they will only be able to advance specific legislation if they are willing to compromise and make concessions. But, they now will be able to forcefully press their views on whatever issues they choose and shine the spotlight where they want it—on Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, for instance—and force the administration to be on the defensive.
Yet, despite their wide disagreements, the White House and Republicans in Congress should be able to find common ground on a few important matters. The long-delayed Congressional ratification of the already negotiated free trade accords with Colombia and Panama offers one opportunity for cooperation. President Obama has repeatedly said he wants the treaties ratified and has reaffirmed that position recently. Republicans over the past two decades have been far more favorable to free trade deals than the Democrats. Of nine US-Latin American free trade agreements, seven were approved by Republican-majority congresses. During the past four years when Democrats were in charge of the House, no action at all was taken on the Colombia and Panama treaties. In contrast to his Democratic predecessor, Dave Camp of Michigan, the new chair of the all-important House Ways and Means Committee—which must decide on all trade legislation—is a safe bet to support the Colombia and Panama agreements (even though he has voiced concerns about the US-Korean trade pact, reflecting opposition from his state’s automakers). And so is House Speaker John Boehner, who determines whether it will be brought up for a vote.
The outcome is not assured, however. There is still some question about whether President Obama is ready to invest the political capital to move the agreements forward, a decision that will disappoint many of his core supporters. Overall, Americans today are more or less evenly split over whether international trade is good for the country, and most oppose free trade deals. And no one is yet sure of how many in the Tea Party group of new congress members, with their decidedly populist rhetoric, will support the treaties.
Although the Obama administration has not yet offered up a concrete proposal, it will likely seek to step up US support for the battle against organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, all places where government stability and the rule of law are threatened by criminal violence. Sizeable majorities of both Republicans and Democrats have backed the Merida Initiative, the current aid program to Mexico, and its offshoots in other countries—and, for a decade, have sustained generous support to Colombia for fighting the guerillas and drug criminals. With the problems confronting Mexico and the rest of the region worsening, and perhaps becoming more dangerous for the US, a bipartisan majority in the new Congress is likely to endorse a larger package of support for these countries. With nearly every Republican and a growing number of Democrats calling for deep cuts in federal spending, however, additional funding for security measures in Latin America may have to come out of the region’s already shrunken foreign aid budget. Unlike the potential approval of the free trade accords, however, security assistance to Mexico and other threatened nations was likely to have occurred even without the Republican electoral victories.
Regardless of the election results, the prospects were remote for any significant reform of US immigration laws and policies (which, for more than a dozen Latin American countries, is the single most pressing issue in their bilateral relationship with the US). The comprehensive reform most migration analysts believe is needed to rebuild the US’s broken immigration system is no longer viable. It was roundly defeated in 2007, even as it was endorsed by President Bush and enjoyed the support of two of the US’s most powerful Senators, Republican John McCain and Democrat Ted Kennedy. Despite their expanding numbers and rising political influence across the country, US Latinos have not managed to marshal support for comprehensive immigration reform, which they overwhelming favor. Republicans and Democrats are both aware of how critical the fast growing Latino vote is to their party’s future success, yet neither has managed to come up with a formula for dealing with the explosive issue of immigration.
A majority of Americans, in part because of the country’s economic reversals, now favors harsh measures and tough enforcement against illegal immigrants. They want Washington, and state and local governments, to do whatever is necessary to stop migrants from entering the US illegally and identify, detain, and deport those who are here unlawfully. They also strongly oppose expansion of legal immigration or the granting of opportunities for currently undocumented residents to earn legal status (commonly disparaged as “amnesty”). Extreme positions on immigration have provoked divisions within both parties, and may not have the backing of a majority in either House, but they are gaining public support. They are advocated by most members of the Tea Party and are supported by Rep. Lamar Smith, who is in line to head the Judiciary Committee, which has authority over immigration legislation. Fewer and fewer in Congress, regardless of party, are today willing to defend opposing views. Moreover, huge Republican victories in last month’s state and municipal elections will probably lead to the passage of more Arizona-style laws and ordinances that empower local authorities to enforce national immigration policies.
Although there is virtually no chance of gaining congressional approval (or even a vote in Congress) for anything approaching a systemic reform of US immigration policies, some modest, but important initiatives may still be possible. Among the most discussed measures is the so-called Dream Act, which, in essence, would allow for undocumented young men and women, brought as children to the US illegally by their parents or other adults, to qualify for citizenship by meeting certain conditions—perhaps, for instance, by serving in the US armed forces or completing college. Gaining approval of the Dream Act would be a major advance; it might apply to two million or more individuals. At the same time, however, increasingly draconian anti-immigrant proposals are also now becoming part of the debate. One example is the call for a constitutional amendment that would deny birthright citizenship to children born of undocumented migrants.
The Obama administration’s limited steps to undo the multiple restrictions on US relations with Cuba will surely come to a halt. With Ros-Lehtinen in charge of the House Foreign Relations Committee, there is no prospect of any further softening of US policy toward Cuba. And her views will be reinforced by the likely appointments of fellow Cuban-American Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, and arch-conservative Florida Congressman Connie Mack to chair, respectively, the Senate and House subcommittees on Western Hemisphere Affairs. Some business-oriented Republicans have advocated expanded trade with Cuba and a gradual lifting of the economic embargo, but they so far have demonstrated little influence on policy or legislation. Recall that even during the four years that Democrats ruled both houses of Congress (from 2007 through 2010), not a single law related to Cuba came to a vote in either house—and no one now anticipates change in Cuba policy in the next two years. The White House, almost regardless of developments on the island, has little choice but to suspend, or even backtrack, on its efforts to reach out to Cuba, or risk clashing with Ros-Lehtinen and her allies and endanger other foreign policy initiatives.
If congressional Republicans stick to their priorities of recent years, Venezuela will be the most important item on their agenda for the hemisphere. It is one issue that the House’s new foreign affairs leadership will certainly pursue aggressively. Conservative Republicans have long criticized what they believe has been Washington’s excessive tolerance of the anti-US campaign of President Chávez and his continuing disregard for democracy and human rights in Venezuela. On the first day back at work after the mid-term election, Ros-Lehtinen launched a blistering attack on Venezuela and its Bolivarian allies (including Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua) making clear that she would be pressing hard on the administration to rein in Chávez. The White House should be able to resist this pressure, but it will certainly find it more difficult to pursue its current policy (which was largely inherited from George Bush) of downplaying frictions with Venezuela and other adversaries in the region while searching for ways to resolve disputes and ease tensions.
New Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who takes office just weeks before the new US Congress is seated, may find her country coming under great scrutiny as well. The Obama administration has not had an easy relationship with Brazil. The two governments have clashed over a series of regional and global issues, including US-Colombian security arrangements, the 2009 political crisis in Honduras, and Brazil’s multiple links to Iran, particularly its continuing support for Iran’s nuclear program. If, as expected, the Rousseff government largely maintains the foreign policies of its predecessor, Brazil could see its diplomacy spotlighted and criticized by new House Republican leadership, which might also press for a more robust response from the White House and State Department. The White House can surely withstand this pressure, but US-Brazilian relations could become more difficult to manage than they have been in the past two years.
The Obama administration’s accomplishments in Latin America have been modest, at best. And Washington’s agenda in the region will be even harder to advance in the coming period, with a weakened president confronting a bitterly divided Congress and citizenry, a feeble economy, and limited public interest in foreign affairs. There are, however, two high priority policy targets on which Congress and the president should be able to find common ground. Although for different reasons, both the final approval of the free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, and enhanced security support for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean are within reach. And both of them deserve special attention, not only because of their importance to the US and the other countries involved, but because they can be successfully addressed even in Washington’s currently rancorous political environment.
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