LEFTIST LATIN AMERICA: U.S. Has Lost Its Hand?

There’s no War on Terrorism in Latin America. And that fortunate fact may come back to smack the States in the face.

Latin America is a gigantic U.S. trade partner. U.S. exports top $150 billion a year, not much less than ships off to the European Union. The region is rich in natural resources, including oil and natural gas. Only, these, days, the U.S. doesn’t seem to care. According to Peter Hakim, Presdient of the Inter-American Dialogue, “Relations between the U.S. and Latin America today are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.”

And he adds, “After 9/11, Washington effectively lost interest in Latin America.”

What’s the real consequence, you ask? Another superpower is moving in.

All Latin American leaders are popularly elected, minus one. The stalwart, of course, being Fidel Castro in Cuba. In August of 2005, President Bush signed an extension to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, another piece in the puzzle of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, but political developments throughout the region indicate a bleaker picture of progress. Neoliberal principles installed a strong U.S. hand for decades, but now it seems that the U.S., rather than pushing the region along economically, is, at best, simply once in a while offering a wave.

Politically, the U.S. image is dire. “Polls show Bush to be the most unpopular American president ever among Latin Americans,” Larry Rohter wrote late last year in the New York Times. According to a Zogby poll, 86 percent of Latin America’s upper class disapprove of U.S. foreign policy. Only a handful of countries supported the war in Iraq. Chile and Mexico, Latin America’s representatives on the U.N. Security council at the time, voted against the invasion.

By no means are leaders south of the Rio Grande reaching out, either. In fact, they’re shoving away. Hugo Chavez, elected in a landslide victory to the Venezuelan presidency in 1998 is the U.S.’s foremost critic.  His vitriol tramples diplomacy underfoot. Granted, it didn’t help that, immediately following a coup attempt against Chavez in 2002, the Bush administration denied having any prior knowledge, when it was later revealed that the C.I.A. actually knew that an involved plot was in the works. Though Chavez claims as such, a more substantial role by the C.I.A. has not been proven.

And who’s making the move while the U.S. concerns itself in Iraq and elsewhere? None other than the rapidly-growing behemoth, China.

(A lot more on that later in the week.)

What could reinvigorate the fractious relationship? The first way to move forward would be giving priority once again to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. At Hakim’s suggestion, a proper foray would include the U.S.’s reconsidering its troublesome farm subsidies, thereby offering a kind hand to the already-existing Latin American industries which could benefit.

Because if the U.S. doesn’t reach out soon, the continent to the south will continue to move on its own and could soon be out of reach.

(Photo from flickr.)