The Obama Administration and Latin America: A "New Partnership for the Americas"

Abstract

Every new U.S. administration brings renewed hope and vigor to the World regarding unrealized dreams and aspirations as well as unfinished and not realized agendas. The U.S. has not neglected Latin America, even according to some the region has probably benefited from U.S. involvement in the Middle East and Afghanistan. A New Partnership for the Americas is the name that the Obama group used during the election campaign. The common thread is a preference to develop cooperation through converging national interests as articulated by the U.S. and Latin American Caribbean governments. The U.S. and Cuban government officials are talking for the first time in years raising hopes for a thaw in long-icy relations. President Obama has granted Cuban-Americans the right to travel freely to Cuba and to send remittances there, and to give U.S. telecommunications companies the right to pursue business there represents a first step in trying for better relations. If the new Obama administration thought that a change in the rhetoric and tone would make the likes of Castro, Chavez and others see things the U.S. way, a new lesson was learned in that sometimes countries disagree simply because their goals are mutually exclusive. A year after Barack Obama became U.S. president, pledging "a new beginning" in relations with Cuba and wining praise from Fidel Castro, bitter rhetoric is once more flying between the two states. At the outset it has to be recognized that the U.S. government actually understands what is happening in Latin America. The U.S. policy is highly sophisticated and often seems more drastic on its understanding of what is happening than some or most of its critics. Looking at some people's history of the hemisphere it is remarkable and transformative that for the first time in many years, the U.S. does not seem to care much what happens in Latin America. In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another. Cultivating spheres of cooperation--not competing spheres of influence--will lead to progress in the Caribbean and Latin America. Engagement meaning expanded cooperation with and the need to broaden policy efforts with the group of leftists rules countries such as Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Peru and Venezuela beyond the previous administration focus on regional economic integration through competitive liberalization.