President George Bush heads for Latin America today at a moment of very low popularity both here and there. His five nation trip will take him to Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia and Guatemala.
The trip will make headlines for two big reasons. First, conventional wisdom says the Bush Administration has paid little more than lip service to the region over the years which leaves many scratching their heads over why the president is going now. And second because of a subtext which pits Bush against the rising influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Bush's Role in Latin America
The New York Times wrote, "In recent years, Washington has looked at Latin America with tunnel vision. It has selectively concerned itself with issues that have important political constituencies in the United States, like drug trafficking, immigration, military cooperation and trade and investment liberalization. And it has shortchanged many of the issues that matter most to Latin Americans, like development, poverty reduction, access to credit, education and health care."This reputation will have consequences. "Bush's trip, as we all know, will be marked by massive demonstrations of repudiation. His single-minded warmongering, his aggression toward weak nations and the crimes that this has unleashed, his violence against human rights - including his denial of his own nation's Constitution, and his role as a torturer and repressor on a planetary scale, have won him the repudiation of the entire world beginning with his own people, as was seen in last November's elections. In Latin America, including Mexico, this repudiation will reveal some of its most radical manifestations," according to the newspaper El Universal in Mexico.
Even the former foreign minister of Mexico, Jorge Castaneda wrote, "George W. Bush is the least appropriate person on Earth for this mission; he is immensely unpopular in Latin America -- not since Richard Nixon's trip to Caracas in 1959 have so many protests been likely -- and since Sept. 11, 2001, he has neglected the hemisphere. Many snicker that if he defends democracy in Latin America as well as he has in Iraq, only God can help Latin American democrats."
Chavez's Role in Latin America
"The only coherent explanation for Bush's sudden interest in Latin America (after six years of total amnesia with respect to the South) is to counter the influence of Chávez and his insistence on a Latin America united under [and against] U.S. domination," continued El Universal.And Castaneda wrote, "Each stop on President Bush's upcoming swing through Latin America has its own mini-agenda: ethanol and the Doha round with Brazil; a Trade Framework Agreement in Uruguay; Plan Colombia and drug enforcement in Bogotá; immigration and security with Mexico and Guatemala. But there is an overall agenda for which this trip may well represent too little, too late: Chávez containment."
"Thanks to unlimited oil revenue (for now) and an endless stream of Cuban doctors, educators and security personnel -- and soon, bountiful supplies of Russian arms made in Venezuela -- the new Caribbean caudillo is on a roll. Chávez has extended his reach to Bolivia, where Evo Morales worships him; to Argentina, where he and his populist colleague Néstor Kirchner are preparing a massive anti-Bush rally to coincide with the American president's arrival across the bay in Montevideo; and increasingly to Ecuador and Nicaragua, through generous handouts. Guatemala and Paraguay could be next," Castaneda continued.
The New York Times finds a silver lining in Chavez's rise: It may spur the United States to start taking developments in Latin America seriously.
"Mr. Bush should use this trip to start a new version of the [Alliance for Progress], one intended to reinforce democracy across the region. He should commit himself to ensuring that the benefits of expanded trade and investment reach the millions of Latin America’s urban and rural poor, not just the usual narrow elites," the Times editorial continues.
And it concludes, "When Mr. Bush first ran for president seven years ago, he said that as governor of Texas, he had a special understanding of, and empathy for, Latin America. With Washington’s reputation in the hemisphere nearing its modern nadir, there could hardly be a better time to put that understanding and empathy to work."
More
- Bush Hopes to Break the Hold of Hugo Chavez, El Universal (Mexico via WatchingAmerica.com)
- Thanks to Mr. Chávez, The New York Times (subscription required)
- An Answer for Hugo Chávez, The Washington Post (free registration required)
- The President's Trip to Latin America, from the White House
- More Latin American resources