This year’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia offered a vivid picture of the state of inter-American relations. The April gathering of 31 of the hemisphere’s heads of state dramatically underscored the weakening ties between the US and Latin America. It also revealed the limited vision of both Washington and the governments of Latin America regarding the future of their relationship.
Latin America’s impressive gains in recent years—its robust economic performance, broad social advances, a rapidly expanding middle class, and the stability of democratic politics in most countries—were expected to make the region a stronger ally and partner for the US. Instead, these achievements have been accompanied by a growing separation of the US from Latin America. The decoupling, in part, has been a consequence of the US’s recent economic reversals, its fractious politics, and the inflexibility of its policies. It also reflects Latin America’s successes, which have made region more independent and assertive, and increased the diversity of its international relationships.
The widening rift was most evident in Cartagena during discussions of Cuba and drug policy. These have long been two of most contentious issues affecting US relations with Latin America. They are issues, which, in the interests of comity and civility, were rarely, if ever, discussed at previous summits. It was no surprise that US views were widely rejected or that Washington, which had worked hard to keep these issues off the agenda, ended up on the defensive. The isolation of the US was especially striking because Washington’s most virulent adversaries were mostly absent. Hugo Chavez was ill, Rafael Correa boycotted the meeting because Raul Castro was not invited, and Daniel Ortega stayed home without offering an explanation.
In the end, the assembled presidents reached agreement on how to pursue the drug issue. The OAS was instructed to conduct a thorough review of current policies and programs and explore alternative approaches for consideration by the hemisphere’s governments. On Cuba, accord was simply not possible. Every Latin American and Caribbean leader insisted that no further Summits be held without Cuba’s full participation–while the US, joined only by Canada, opposed Cuba’s presence until it had an elected, democratic government in place. It was the Cuba issue that blocked consensus on a formal declaration of the Summit’s agreements and accomplishments.
No Vision, No Strategy
At the first Summit in Miami in 1994, the Americas were portrayed as a natural community of nations. The US goal—then shared by an overwhelming majority of governments—was an integrated hemisphere of democratic nations that would allow for the free flow of capital and goods among all countries. The idea was that a free trade zone would allow the Americas to compete more robustly with the EU and the Japanese-led bloc of Asian countries. Negotiations were finally broken off in 2004 when the US and Brazil could not find sufficient common ground to continue.
Eleven years ago in September 2001 in Lima, Peru, the nations of the hemisphere signed the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which set out norms of governance and committed governments to act collectively to defend and advance democracy. The Charter has since shown itself unworkable in a politically and ideologically divided Americas. Democracy was hardly discussed in Cartagena because it was seen as too divisive an issue.
The quest for a broad unifying vision has now been largely abandoned—partly the victim of a more successful and independent Latin America, but also the casualty of a diminished US, which no longer has the resources or authority to shape a hemispheric agenda and provide the leadership to put it into practice. Another contributing factor, perhaps the most critical, has been the lack of imagination and creativity in both Washington and the capitals of Latin America. US leaders regularly affirm the importance of Latin America to the United States, but they have been unable to devise a strategy to take advantage of “common goals and values“ or effectively exploit what Hillary Clinton has described as “the power of proximity.”
The shrinking US vision for Latin America is particularly notable—because unifying strategies for the Americas have usually emerged from Washington. It has been the US, not Latin America, that usually refers to the hemisphere as a community of nations, that invented the idea of a hemisphere wide free trade arrangement, and that promoted (along with Canada and Peru) the Democratic Charter.
Although initially enthused by the notion of an economically integrated hemisphere, Latin American nations, by and large, have pursued more modest aspirations. Mexico invested its energy in reaching the NAFTA agreement with the US and Canada, and subsequently in supplementing NAFTA with a variety of bilateral trade pacts. Brazil and Argentina focused on building their four-country Mercosur trade arrangement. Brazil, which claimed Mercosur as its “destiny,” was skeptical early on about any hemisphere-wide economic initiative. Like Mexico, most other Latin American countries were content with bilateral free trade arrangements both within the hemisphere and beyond.
Today Brazil has expanded its vision beyond Mercosur, and may now be ready to pursue a broader South American strategy—but it remains unclear whether its aim is a strong European or NAFTA-style integration scheme or whether the objective is a looser form of regional coordination. In either case, Brazil views its approach as an alternative, not a complement or a forerunner, to a hemisphere-wide arrangement. Hugo Chavez has sketched out a far more ambitious project—to unite Latin America, exclude the US from any political involvement in the region, and undo most core inter-American institutions, including the OAS and the Summit of the Americas. Happily, Chavez’s vision appealed only to a small group of the region’s weaker nations, and did not gain much traction. It has now largely faded from view with the illness of Chavez and his declining political influence.
Inflexibility and Decline
In contrast to his three post-Cold War predecessors, President Obama did not put forth a vision or strategy for US policy in the hemisphere, or propose any major new initiatives.
Instead, the Obama White House set out modestly to reduce discord and friction in hemispheric affairs, and encourage greater regional cooperation. A change in style and emphasis was promised, including a turn to multilateralism and partnership—and a closer alignment of US and Latin American policy goals. None of this has worked out very well, however. Although Obama remains well-liked and admired across Latin America, his administration has not managed to improve the quality of US relations in the region or do much to solve the outstanding problems.
The new president’s overcrowded agenda left little room for Latin America—which had no chance of competing successfully for Washington’s limited foreign policy attention with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and China’s expanding global muscle. And the attentiveness of Latin American governments, especially those in South America, to their relations with the US waned as well, as the region became more self-sufficient and acquired other international partners.
Washington’s intense and bitter partisanship compounded the problem of developing constructive policies toward Latin American. It took three years of Obama’s term for Congress to ratify the long-stalled free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama. Ratification only became possible after the 2010 election which gave Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives. Now, however, it is mainly the Republican party that is blocking efforts to address three troublesome issues that have long stood in the way of improved US-Latin American ties—immigration, drug policy, and Cuba.
Washington’s failure to repair its broken immigration system, accentuated by the often anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic tone of US debate about immigration, is resented across the region, particularly among US neighbors, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The bitter political battles over immigration notwithstanding, there is considerable consensus in Washington about what a sensible policy reform should include. The package developed by George W. Bush combined effective border enforcement, a visa program consistent with US labor market needs, and a path toward residence and citizenship for the estimated 12 million unauthorized migrants in the country. The deeply divisive politics of the US, made worse by the weak US economy, have so far blocked this comprehensive approach and led some states to adopt punitive anti-immigrant laws.
It was Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa that raised the issue of Cuba’s participation at the Cartagena Summit –and made a clash between the US and Latin America almost inevitable. There is strong consensus among every other nation of the hemisphere that Washington should lift its 50-year-old embargo against the island. They see the embargo as vindictive and counterproductive, prolonging Cuba’s repressive rule rather than ending it. As long as US politics prevent a change in Washington’s position on Cuba, Latin American governments will remain reluctant, even minimally, to say or do anything about Cuba’s dismal record on human rights and democracy, because it might suggest they find some virtue in US policy. They want Cuba to be a full participant in hemisphere affairs now, even with an unelected, undemocratic government.
The Summit discussion on drugs was more encouraging. Latin Americans have never been very happy with US drug policy in the region. They have, by and large, deferred to US leadership and pressure on this issue, mostly because it was such a high priority for Washington and because they had no alternatives to offer. The surge across Latin America in drug-related crime and violence over the past dozen years, however, has turned the tables. In country after country, drugs and organized crime have become central issues of concern, and Latin Americans have increasingly come to view US anti-drug policies, not merely as ineffectual, but contributing directly to their problems.
The 2009 Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, led by three highly regarded former presidents – Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia – offered a different approach. It called for a far stronger US effort to reduce its drug consumption, the source of most of the illegal profits that flow to Latin America, a greater emphasis on drugs as a social and public health problem, and serious consideration of some form of legalization and regulation of marijuana and other drugs.
That approach has since gained public support from several sitting Latin American presidents—including Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, the host of the Cartagena Summit, Mexico’s Felipe Calderon, and Guatemala’s Otto Perez Molina. This support, from three countries that are among the most at risk from drugs and violent crime, all of them allies of the US, has sharply increased the prospects that there will be an active search for new strategies, including legalization, and the results will be seriously and widely considered.
It is early to say whether the US and Latin America will be able to find common ground on drug policy. The Obama White House appears sympathetic to some ideas for policy change, but has so far done little to alter its priorities and budget allocations. No major initiatives are likely to emerge from Washington. The US has agreed to participate in efforts to identify alternative approaches, but has also sought to make clear that it will stand fast against decriminalization and legalization. Latin America will have to take the leadership on drug issues.
The Bilateral Alternative
Without a broader vision of hemispheric relations and constrained politically from taking much initiative, US policy in Latin America today largely focuses on bilateral relations. And, the US has maintained friendly, constructive ties with most countries of the region. The US now has active free trade pacts with 11 of Latin America’s 20 countries. Geography has played an important role. Among the 9 Latin American countries without US trade accords, only 2 (Cuba and Haiti) are in North America while 7 are in South America. Indeed, just 3 of 10 South American countries have signed agreements. To be sure, the US also has adversarial relations with a few countries, particularly Venezuela and its four allies, but tensions with them have subsided in recent years and there is no expectation of any open conflicts.
More troubling for the US, and hemispheric relations generally, are the continuing strains in its two most significant bilateral relationships—with Mexico and Brazil.
Mexico is the country that presents the US with both its toughest challenges and greatest opportunities for productive cooperation. No country is more integrated, economically and demographically, with the US or affects the lives of US citizens more than Mexico. Mexico accounts for two-thirds of US trade with Latin America and half of its energy imports from the region. It is also overwhelmingly the largest source of immigrants to the United States, both legal and illegal.
Although the two countries have developed a solid day-to-day working relationship, strains have emerged on many issues in recent years. A five-year military campaign against the drug gangs, supported by the US government, has produced few visible gains. Mexicans increasingly hold US drug consumption and loose gun laws responsible for the escalating violence, which has wreaked havoc on public safety and the rule of law. They are also alienated by punitive US immigration laws and callous treatment of many Mexican migrants.
With its rapidly escalating regional and global influence, Brazil has become ever more central to the ability of the US to pursue its agenda in Latin America and internationally. Yet, over many years, the two governments have made little headway in developing a strong cooperative relationship. Presidents Obama and Rousseff have not advanced much further on this task than their predecessors.
The US and Brazil have not signed a single major economic pact for two decades—a period when Washington reached free trade accords with most other Latin American countries. Nor, with few exceptions, have the US and Brazil cooperated effectively in global or regional forums. Although the two countries maintain a cordial relationship and are by no means adversaries, fundamental disagreements remain unresolved on several highly contentious economic and geopolitical issues.
Brazil has pursued its international interests and aspirations by standing apart from the US. It has regularly emphasized and sometime trumpeted its differences with Washington–even when bedrock US interests have been at stake, for instance, with regard to Iran’s nuclear program. For its part, the US often seems to treat Brazil as an interloper in world affairs which does not measure up to the status it has achieved. Brazil resents the favored treatment the US continues to extend to India, including endorsing the Asian nation for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and supporting India’s nuclear energy development. Changes in approach could advance the interests of both nations. For now, however, neither appears ready to do much to alter the relationship—which is likely to remain mostly amiable and cordial, though with limited cooperation, much discord, and some disagreeable clashes.
Looking to the Future
Although the US and Latin America have drifted apart and are following increasingly independent paths, it is too soon to discount the renewal of inter-American cooperation in the future. Surely, the US and Latin America share enough common interests and values for cooperation and integration to benefit all countries.
Today, with most Latin American economies showing promise for sustained growth and rising incomes, the search for economic opportunities offers the best prospects for a more robust relationship with the US. For sure, a variety of shortcomings continue to plague the region’s economies– including low productivity, anemic tax systems, faulty labor laws, poor infrastructure, and inadequate education and health services. Together, these problems will keep Latin America’s growth lower than it should be. Still, the vast improvements in economic management and financial institutions across the region now make steady economic expansion the most likely scenario.
What Latin America’s largely middle and upper middle income countries most want and most need from the United States is access to the country’s huge $16 trillion a year economy. Despite the US’s continuing economic problems and political challenges, Latin American nations rely on US capital for investment, US markets for their exports, US technology and managerial innovation to lift productivity, and the steady income of remittances from their citizens in the United States.
The United States currently buys about 40 percent of Latin America’s exports, and an even higher percentage of its manufactured products. It also provides some 20 percent of foreign investment, and upwards of 90 percent of the $60 billion or so of remittance income that goes to Latin America.
The United States’ economic preeminence in the region has clearly waned in recent years. Just a decade ago 55 percent of the region’s imports came from the United States. Today, less than one-third does. China and Europe have made huge inroads. Yet, even as the US share of the Latin American market has diminished, its exports to the region have more than doubled since 2000, growing an average of nearly nine percent a year.
Today the United States exports more to Latin America than it does to Europe; twice as much to Mexico than it does to China; and more to Chile and Colombia than it does to Russia. Latin America accounts for a third of our imported oil and imports may rise sharply with Brazil’s recent offshore discoveries. Within a decade, Brazil and Mexico may be two of the three largest suppliers of oil to the United States.
Latin America is an important destination for US direct and portfolio investments, and Latin American investment in the United States is growing fast. And no economic calculus should omit the vital contribution of immigrant workers, mostly from Latin America. They will represent the bulk of US labor force growth in the next decade.
More than just responding issue by issue, Washington and Latin America would be best served be a broader framework for their economic relations. While some believe that the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) can be revived, others argue that new approaches to economic integration need to be pursued.
In addition to economic and financial matters, US and Latin American cooperation could become increasingly important on an array of global issues.
•As the lone nuclear weapons-free region in the world, Latin America has the opportunity to participate more actively in non-proliferation efforts. US and Latin American interests are not always convergent on non-proliferation questions, but they do align in important ways.
•The importance of the Amazon basin to worldwide climate concerns gives Brazil and five other South American nations a special role to play. Mexico has itself assumed a prominent position on climate change.
•Latin Americans, as discussed above, are taking more active leadership on drug policy in this hemisphere, and could become increasingly influential in global strategy formulation.
The US and Latin American Have Choices to Make
The weakening relations between the United States and Latin American governments have much to do with policy choices made both by Washington and governments in the region. Neither the United States nor Latin America is doing enough to sustain a vigorous relationship.
It is hard to imagine Washington abandoning its long held regional or neighborhood concept of US relations with Latin America. The approach is deeply grounded in history, reinforced by entrenched, if not always effective, institutions, and underpinned by the intensity of US economic and political relations with almost every country in the hemisphere. But tradition and habit, even long-standing institutional arrangements, may not be enough to sustain a conceptual approach that appears less and less to be grounded in reality. Centrifugal forces are gaining strength year by year. The United States is more and more focused on its own problems, while increasingly middle class, globalized Latin American nations are finding new partners, and determinedly pursuing their own course. The results of the Cartagena Summit—and other recent Summit of the Americas meetings—reveal the scale of effort needed to repair and reinvigorate inter-American ties and rebuild cooperation in the hemisphere.
