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Understanding the U.S. Military Mobilization in the Caribbean

Venezuela’s Descent into Crisis
OPINION / EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — The armada the U.S. has assembled in the Caribbean is more formidable than anything the region has seen in decades. What is going on? The administration says it is [...] More

The National Security Rationale for U.S.-Funded Academic Research 

OPINION — Since World War II, the federal government and American universities have developed a deep, symbiotic relationship. That relationship is now threatened. In an effort to punish some [...] More

More from Ambassador Patrick Duddy

A Dangerous Moment for Venezuela – and the Region 

EXPERT INTERVIEW — Nicolas Maduro is set to be inaugurated for his third term as president of Venezuela on Friday. He will be sworn in after a [...] More

Venezuela's Post-Election Stand off Prompts Fears of a 'Blood bath'

OPINION — Venezuelans went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president or re-elect long-time strongman, Nicolas Maduro. Early on Monday morning, [...] More

Brazil and Colombia Should Support Democracy in Venezuela 

OPINION — Absent a last-minute alteration of the electoral calendar by Venezuela’s authoritarian regime, Venezuelans will go to the polls on July 28 [...] More

Haiti Needs More than a Glimmer of Hope

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — After months of increasingly grim reports of gang violence and recently, images of fearful Haitians seeking safety by camping in [...] More

Haiti's Crucial Missing Piece

OPINION — For much of the first two years of the Biden administration, U.S. interest in the Western Hemisphere understandably took a back seat to [...] More

A Post-Mortem on the Summit of the Americas

OPINION — U.S. - Latin American relations face rocky times. Events during and surrounding the just concluded Summit of the Americas (SOA), a meeting [...] More

What Protests Tell Us About Democracy in Latin America

OPINION — Instability in Latin America fuels refugee flows, inflation and criminal activity, all of which affect U.S. interests. The Biden [...] More

U.S. Engagement in the Western Hemisphere Needs Attention

Patrick Duddy, a retired American diplomat, is the director of Duke University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.  From 2007 to 2010 he served as the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela.  On September 11, 2008 he was expelled from Venezuela by then President Hugo Chavez.  In July of 2009 He returned to Venezuela as President Obama’s emissary.  

OPINION — This year’s commemoration of 9/11 did not resonate in Latin America in the same way it did in the United States.  That is not just because the attacks of September 11, 2001 happened in the U.S. and not in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico or some other country in the Western Hemisphere.

Many in the region also remember, somewhat ruefully, that it was on the very day of the attacks that all 34 active member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) signed the InterAmerican Democratic Charter.  The charter established democracy as a necessary precondition for full participation in the Inter-American system. Because of the United States’ strong support for adoption of the charter, Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Lima, Peru when the 9/11 attacks occurred.

Adoption of the charter was a source of deep satisfaction in Latin America.  Many hoped it would usher in an era of greater cooperation and more productive relations between the U.S. and the rest of the American Republics.  Unfortunately, it was, understandably, eclipsed by the terrorist attacks in the U.S.

To be sure, the horror of those attacks was felt sharply by the overwhelming majority of the U.S.’s Western Hemisphere neighbors.  Citizens from throughout the Americas died in the two towers.  The United States has long been a magnet for the people of the region notwithstanding their deeply rooted ambivalence about U.S. foreign policy and resentment of U.S. interventionism.  Indeed, Venezuela’s opposition leader and interim but legitimate (albeit dispossessed) president, Juan Guaido, reflecting on the memorial events in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, called the United States a beacon (faro in Spanish) for democracy and human rights.

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A 2020 U.S. Strategy for Latin America

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 [...] More