“Relations between the United States and Latin America today are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War,” wrote Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in the January-February issue of Foreign Affairs. “After 9/11, Washington effectively lost interest in Latin America,” he concluded.
That seems to still be true today, but much has been happening in Latin American while we haven’t been paying attention.
This year, 10 nations in the region had presidential elections, ending with the re-election of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez on Dec. 3.
The political world has also changed dramatically in the United States, with Democratic congressional victories in the Nov. 7 elections.
Why is Latin America important? What should we be doing at the federal and state levels, given so many political changes? How will these political changes affect our relationships? Here are some thoughts based on six recent trips to Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Nicaragua and interviews with dozens of citizens.
Many of Latin America’s elections have been viewed as “proxy battles” between the United States and Venezuela. Chávez, whose nation is awash in oil revenues, is determined to displace the United States as the key influence in the region and has actively supported many candidates in other countries.
Candidates supported by him won in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador. But, largely because of his overreaching, other candidates he supported lost in Peru and Mexico. He also blew his chance to have Venezuela become a member of the United Nations Security Council because of his blustery attack on President Bush.
My impression, however, is that his influence is overrated and that this is an opportune moment for the United States. I believe there is an opportunity to rebuild our relationships in Latin America, provided we focus more on their people’s needs – poverty and economic development – rather than simply our own worries about drugs and security.
Latin America is a huge region of more than 500 million people, the source of more than 90 percent of the illegal drugs that enter the United States as well as the vast majority of immigrants. The gap between the rich and the poor is enormous, and it’s socially destructive. Ecuador and Peru, for example, are so poverty-stricken that more than 10 percent of their populations have left. Many Ecuadorians receive more per year in remittances from family members living abroad (mostly in Spain and the United States) than they earn in their own country.
In addition, 36 percent of our oil comes from Latin America versus only 29 percent from the Middle East.
In the case of Colorado, Mexico is now our second-largest export market, one that has grown from $154 million in 1993 to $689 million in 2004, a much more rapid increase than any other major market.
What opportunities face us?
Working with a Democratic Congress, President Bush now has a chance to resolve the major immigration issues – border security, a guest-worker program and creation of a path to citizenship for those who are already here.
In addition, he ought to join with Mexico’s beleaguered new president, Felipe Calderón, and improve border living conditions. Touring Nogales in November, it was shocking to see an array of very modern maquiladora plants – Black & Decker, Otis, Master Lock and others – right next to the Colonia Luis Donaldo Colosio (named for the charismatic political leader who might have been elected president of Mexico in 1992 if he hadn’t been assassinated), where the main street is nothing more than a rocky arroyo, everything is covered with dust and the people living on the hillsides have no water.
Why can’t that be done about infrastructure along the Mexican border? Didn’t both countries make that commitment during the NAFTA discussions?
Western Union has set an example of how to work on social issues with its program in Zacatecas. Western Union contributes one dollar for every dollar contributed by the federal, state and municipal governments plus migrant organizations. The five partners then commit the funds to local infrastructure and economic development programs.
Why couldn’t President Bush jawbone more U.S. companies into developing similar programs? In the long run, the only way to slow down the rate of immigration from Mexico as well as the rest of Latin America is for both our private and public sectors to help them develop their own economies.
As for the Democrats in Congress, let’s hope they can set aside the protectionism that has dominated Democratic politics in the recent past. The most immediate tests will be free trade agreements with Colombia and Peru.
At the state level, I would encourage Gov.-elect Bill Ritter not only to continue supporting Colorado’s trade office in Guadalajara, Mexico, but to reach out to Colorado’s international business community.
I would also suggest a visit to Mexico City to meet Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s new president, just as Roy Romer went to Japan a month after his election in 1986 to tell Japan that Colorado was open for business.
Lastly, Ritter and the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate ought to take a second look at the immigration legislation passed in last summer’s special session. Do we really want to have the harshest anti-immigrant laws of any state? (Of course, some people will say, “Yes, that’s exactly what we want,” but I don’t think that that was the real intent of the legislature.)
Yes, it’s tough to think about other regions of the world when we’re mired in Iraq. But it’s not too much to ask that we spend some time on Latin America.
Relations between our governments may be at “their lowest point since the Cold War,” but there is still a tremendous reservoir of goodwill in Latin America towards the U.S. Let’s take advantage of it.
Morgan Smith (msmith@abaforum.es) was director of the Colorado International Trade Office from 1988 to 1999.
