Patrick Duddy served as the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2007 to 2010. He is now teaches at Duke University where he is also the director of Duke’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs.
As 2019 comes to a close, it is clear the U.S needs to up its game in the Western Hemisphere, an area of immense strategic and economic significance to the U.S. To date, the Trump administration has focused more or less exclusively on renegotiating NAFTA, pressuring Venezuela and convincing Central Americans to do more to stem the flow of undocumented migrants into the U.S. There is, however, a lot more happening in the region as recent headlines make clear; the U.S. needs to consider how its interests might be affected by recent developments and what we can do to help resolve the problems that threaten those interests.
Over the last several months, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Haiti have all seen massive demonstrations and some disturbing incidents of political violence. Bolivia’s Evo Morales has been driven from power in La Paz but has set up shop in Argentina. His departure clears the way for new elections but by no means resolves all of the political problems his attempt to hold onto power brought into sharp relief. The political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has deepened and efforts to oust strongman Nicolas Maduro have stagnated. In Mexico, the national police were outgunned in a clash with the Sinaloa Cartel and forced to surrender convicted drug kingpin “EL Chapo” Guzman’s son. A massacre of dual U.S.-Mexican citizens from the Mormon community, including women and children, horrified the world. In the meantime, the country remains mired in recession. Fires in Brazil’s Amazonian rain forest have alarmed environmentalists. This is just a partial list and does not even include consideration of the many corruption scandals roiling the region and undermining confidence in traditional political parties and leaders.
The situation may not yet be dire but the warning signs should concern American officials who understand the importance of Latin America for the U.S. The region is not coming apart at the seams but the relative quiescence of the last thirty years is breaking down and many national leaders are now wrestling with the question of how to satisfy the demands of their unhappy constituents. In the meantime, no strategic vision has emerged from the Trump administration to guide U.S. policy. The recently announced “Growth in the Americas Initiative” is a move in the right direction but still too narrowly focused.
Not all the news that has emerged from the region is negative from the U.S. point of view. In Central America, the Trump administration has had some success in cajoling two of the three governments of the countries of the so-called Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) to do more to curb illegal immigration. The new U.S., Canada, Mexico Trade Agreement, despite some predictable last-minute hiccups, appears to be on the verge of implementation. Furthermore, news on the energy front is largely encouraging – except, of course, from Venezuela. One important reason the U.S. is now largely independent of Mideast oil is because the reserves of our Western Hemisphere neighbors in combination with our own more than satisfy our appetite for hydrocarbons.
While the flow of migrants out of Central America has slowed, the internal problems propelling Central Americans to seek a new life in the United States persist. As long as they do, refugee flows can surge at any time. Latin America also continues to be the source of many of the illegal drugs trafficked into the U.S. U.S. efforts to restore democracy in Venezuela have been characterized by regular consultation with like-minded governments around the region as well as with the European Union – which is laudable — but the campaign to force strongman Nicholas Maduro from office has stalled. As a result, it looks more and more like we and the region will remain saddled for the proximate future with a bumbling dictatorial regime and an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that is generating an immense exodus of refugees which could destabilize several neighboring countries. The current situation begs the question: what are we and the other Western Hemisphere democracies prepared to live with? Can the survival of the Maduro regime be seen as anything other than a defeat for democracy and the U.S.?
Engaging in the search for solutions to the region’s most urgent problems — not just the ones that affect us directly and immediately — is decidedly in the U.S. interest. Regrettably, the Northern Triangle countries, for instance, struggling with the problems of criminal violence, drug trafficking and poverty cannot and will not succeed without substantial outside help. How much more is the U.S. willing to do? The fact that earlier assistance programs failed is no excuse for ignoring the current appalling conditions in these three countries. And, sanctioning the increasingly authoritarian regime of Daniel Ortega so far seems like an anemic response to a situation that is becoming egregious. Moreover, if we don’t help, China and possibly others will. Indeed, the PRC has already made important inroads as a trade partner and source of assistance in the region.
Cultivating better relations with Mexico needs to be a priority. Passage of the new trilateral trade pact (USMCA) with Mexico and Canada is a matter of vital interest but the USMCA is by no means our only interest. With thousands of miles of shared border, millions of Mexican migrants living in the the U.S., and several million U.S. citizens living in Mexico, a multifaceted and productive partnership with Mexico should be a core objective for the U.S. for every U.S. administration. We need a partner in Mexico, not just a neighbor.
Relations with Brazil at the moment are not neuralgic but neither are they focused. Reasonable people ask what we want out of Brazil and what does Brazil want from us. The entente cordial
between President Trump and President Jair Bolsonaro is no substitute for a real shared agenda with the largest and richest country in South America. On the other hand, the fact that the two presidents have a decent relationship presents an opportunity for both countries to forge a more ambitious partnership. The question is, to what end?
During the nineteenth century, U.S. policy was initially shaped by the Monroe Doctrine. Later, the Monroe Doctrine was redefined by what became known as the (Teddy) Roosevelt Corollary, a concept widely resented in the region. In the twentieth century, the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt promulgated the Good Neighbor Policy. In the 1960s, President Kennedy was widely lauded for his Alliance of Progress. None of these policy prescriptions was universally endorsed even in the U.S. let alone in the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Neither did they account for the full range of U.S. interests. They did, however, communicate an articulated U.S. approach to North-South relations within our hemisphere. In effect, they provided a template for engagement. That has been missing for years, not just since President Trump was elected, but it seems more urgently needed now than at any time in the last two decades.
Secretary of State Pompeo, in a recent speech at the University of Louisville, said that realism, restraint, and respect undergird the Trump administration’s diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere. That is a positive message, and, as a statement of principle, will be welcomed in Latin America – but that statement does not equate to a program of action. For many it may be a relief that the U.S. seems less attentive to Latin America but our interests within our own hemisphere are profound. To use only one measure, millions of U.S. jobs depend on trade with the Western Hemisphere which buys more than 40% of all U.S. manufactured exports. In short, the region is too important to the U.S. to be subject entirely to improvisation. We need to be prepared to engage, not intervene but also not just to react.
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