To speak of Latin America collectively can be seriously misleading.

Fractured Continent: 

The Turmoil and Promise of Latin America

by Juan de Onis

During President Obama’s years in office, the United States has pivoted toward Asia, chosen to lead from behind in the Islamic Middle East and Africa, and proposed some new trade and investment initiatives with Europe. And it has virtually ignored Latin America. US relations with its neighbors in the Western hemisphere have for the most part been by-products of its domestic policies on international drug trafficking and illegal immigration—a very weak and unimaginative agenda for a region that is walking a tightrope of conflict between populist authoritarianism and genuine democracy.

Some realpolitik analysts will say Latin America is secondary because it poses no security threat to the United States. The region is committed by treaty to nonproliferation and none of its countries are producing nuclear weapons. Latin America is not a haven and potential training ground for radical Islamic terrorists. There is no cultural or political base of support for an al-Qaeda presence in the region, and national intelligence services are alert to any foreign extremists. So, if there is no immediate security threat, the thinking seems to go, why worry?

But what may seem to be common sense in Washington is a shortsighted, reductionist view of what is important in Western-hemisphere relations. It fails to take into account the hard-won political and economic advances in consolidating democratic governance achieved in the region with significant US support. The two most important developments, both begun during the Clinton administration but continued under President Bush, were the US military cooperation with Colombia that helped to contain the vicious FARC guerrilla insurgency (which has been supported by Cuba, Venezuela, and Ecuador), and the billions of dollars provided to Brazil through the International Monetary Fund, which gave financial support to the progressive government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. These are very tangible examples of how the US should engage in Latin America when political action is necessary to further a shared interest in democratic government and social development in the region. Unfortunately they are also examples that seem to exist in a vacuum.
...............





Read more: www.worldaffairsjournal.org