Sin Cambio
Why America’s new Latin-American policy will look much like the old one.By Jake Blumgart
February 18, 2009
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez salutes as he attends a rally with members of the Socialist United Party of Venezuela. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)Many held high hopes for the hearing, which was the first held by a foreign affairs subcommittee post-inauguration. Titled “U.S. Policy Toward Latin America in 2009 and Beyond,” the meeting could have signaled a new chapter in U.S.-Latin American relations—which would have come as a relief to many in the hemisphere after eight years of disastrous Bush administration policies (on Cuba, drugs, and immigration, to name a few). But as the hearing got underway, McClintock—and anyone else who hopes Barack Obama’s mantra of change will apply to Latin America, too—was sorely disappointed. Instead of charting a new way forward in U.S.-Latin American relations, the hearing reconfirmed America’s commitment to polices that have been overwhelmingly rejected across the region. Both representatives and witnesses adhered to the tired solutions of the past, promoting Cold War era animosity and discredited neoliberal trade policies that do not reflect the new political realities in Latin America or the promise of Obama’s multilateral foreign policy. As it turns out, the new U.S. policy towards Latin America will look awfully familiar.
The hearing started off deceptively well with Chairman Eliot Engel’s (D-NY) statement calling for reconciliation with Latin America, placing special emphasis on the 40 percent of the region’s population, or 209 million people, that lives in poverty. He had kind words for leftist leaders who haven’t demonized the U.S., and took a hard, while not harsh, line towards Venezuela’s bombastic and mechanically anti-American Hugo Chavez.
Connie Mack (R-FL), the ranking Republican and a bitter critic of Chavez, spoke next, setting the Republican’s Cold Warrior tone for the rest of the hearing. Mack’s favorable citation of Reagan’s Latin American policy—he complimented Ronald Reagan’s role in promoting democracies in the region—surprised no one, excepting any citizens of El Salvador, Nicaragua, or Guatemala who remember the 1980s.
He charged many of the Latin New Leftist leaders with “deliberately destroying freedom,” including Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador whom Engel had praised. “The best way that we can move forward, and that Latin America can move forward is by supporting the people in Latin America. They will force a change with their governments that we don’t have to do directly,” Mack said.
Mack was followed by Chris Smith (R-NJ), who offered an impassioned rant against the Castro brothers, and Sergio Bendixen, a preeminent expert on Hispanic public opinion. Bendixen preached against a monolithic “Socialist Coalition” tirelessly working to weaken the United States. “There are now two Latin Americas. The eight countries that make up what I call the ‘Socialist Coalition’ are not our friends,” Bendixen warned. He proceeded to lump together a diverse range of countries, from Cuba to long-time U.S. allies like Brazil and Paraguay. The nations he listed share little beyond a sense of regional solidarity, a disproval of feckless neoliberal trade agreements, and a leftward leaning electorate, which are apparently the only things needed to arouse Bendixen’s passions. One could almost see McClintock deflating.
The Democrats, like Gregory Meeks (D-NY), noted that they found this archaic Cold War rhetoric problematic, but they also revealed their own ideological blind spots. Backed by NAFTA architect Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the business-backed Council of the Americas, the Democrats argued that the surest way to gain the trust of the Latin American people was through promoting free-trade agreements, despite the popular reaction against such treaties. Meeks denounced “the old Cold War way of thinking,” but then went on to promote the Colombian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), without addressing the controversy surrounding the pact. He then speculated on the role the International Monetary Fund might play in the region, apparently unaware that the institution has been thoroughly repudiated throughout Latin America, where it’s regional lending now stands at a measly $50 million.
McClintock was the only dissenting figure. Her voice quavered slightly as she advocated tentative rapprochement with Cuba and decriminalization of cocaine and marijuana to reduce narco-related violence. She prefaced her statements with, “I realize this is a minority view.” She was right. Neither suggestion was greeted with enthusiasm. McClintock hurried through the remainder of her testimony, skipping several talking points she had provided to the press before the hearing, notably her opposition to CFTA on human rights grounds.
When asked afterwards why she had bypassed her objection to CFTA, she said: “I hesitated to bring it up because the overwhelming view was in favor of it, and I was already controversial enough.” The only Democrat who may have been sympathetic to her views was Eni Faleomavaega (D), the representative of American Samoa. But Faleomavaega has no binding vote on the committee, and he left the hearing early anyway.
The implications of the retrograde ideologies on display at last week’s hearing are unlikely to have an immediate impact upon hemispheric relations. President Obama’s attention will be consumed by the economic crisis for at least a year, and beyond that, Afghanistan and the promised withdrawal from Iraq will take precedence over any other foreign policy objective. But the worldwide recession is magnifying the Latin America’s troubles. Four of Bolivia’s richest provinces have made their separatist intentions clear and periodic violence still breaks out across the country. Tensions in Venezuela continue to escalate as the date of Hugo Chavez’s proposed referendum abolishing term limits goes into effect. Colombia is host to one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, and even peaceful protest is outlawed. In the next few years, one of these or a dozen other potential flashpoints will draw the U.S.’s attention back to Latin America and this stagnant subcommittee will become very relevant, very quickly. And hopefully by then, the progressive foreign policy that Cynthia McClintock advocates will not sound so radical.
Jake Blumgart is an Editorial Intern at Campus Progress.
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Comments
Well and good. Of course, sir, you realize the futility of discussing issues over a border to which you own neither the rights nor the path. These federalized trade policies you speak of do little to hide what they are: poor attempts to keep the states from trading how they wish with our more southerly neighbors. Why, for all your higher in-dus-tree and sky scrapings, the Great Yankee has lost all his jobs overseas and cross borders to lower standards of livin. Where might those jobs be today if employers could enjoy a low standard of livin in their own backyards, so to speak? I think you know what I’m gettin at. ‘s gon rise agin, son…
— Jefferson Davis - Mar 5, 09:14 PM - #