1 of 1- Goose
- Cogito ergo sum
Offline 
- Registered: 1/29/2015
- Posts: 13,427
Engaging With Latin America
Engaging With Latin America
As President Obama arrived in Panama for the Summit of the Americas this weekend, attendees were raptly watching how his encounter with President Raúl Castro of Cuba would be choreographed and whether a face-to-face run-in with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela would be unbearably awkward.
There’s plenty of potential for political theater any time heads of state of the Americas convene, given the hemisphere’s shifting alliances and strained relationships. The meeting underway in Panama City, however, has the potential to deliver more than the sort of drama and rhetoric that has dominated previous summit meetings. Policy initiatives advanced by the Obama administration have opened multiple opportunities to engage differently and more robustly with neighbors that have long felt neglected, and in some instances slighted, by Washington.
Clearly, the most dramatic of these initiatives has been the sweeping overhaul of American policy toward Cuba announced by Mr. Obama in December. Beyond that, there are other concrete steps the administration can take to strengthen its standing in the region.
Central American and Caribbean leaders have become increasingly anxious about their energy dependence on Venezuela, whose economic and political crisis has forced it to cut back on petroleum shipments it has long offered neighbors under attractive credit terms. If those nations are unable to find more dependable energy sources, they could soon grapple with painful power shortages. That has the potential to cripple already-weak economies, deepening poverty and instability in a region intrinsically linked to the United States through migration patterns and trade.
A day before flying to Panama, Mr. Obama met with Caribbean leaders in Jamaica to discuss steps the United States could take to help the region embrace cleaner energy sources, including investing in solar and wind power. While those initiatives make good policy and environmental sense, the United States should also take steps to make it easier for countries in the Caribbean basin to import natural gas, a less carbon-intensive fuel than coal or oil. That would require easing restrictions on the export of natural gas from the United States and devising financing mechanisms that are palatable to the buying nations and attractive for American energy companies.
Mr. Obama’s effort to shield certain immigrants from deportation through executive action and his administration’s initiative to substantially increase aid for Central America has earned him significant good will in Latin America. But there are relationships with Latin American nations that remain unnecessarily strained.
The relationship with Brazil is the most consequential and also, quite possibly, the easiest to mend. President Dilma Rousseff, who was justifiably angered by revelations in 2013 that the National Security Agency had been spying on her, appears eager to turn the page. The summit meeting presents an opportunity for Mr. Obama and Ms. Rousseff to set a new tone and identify opportunities for cooperation in areas such as trade, environmental policy and regional politics.
Easing tension with Venezuela will be trickier. Mr. Maduro, a mercurial and populist leader, has justified his government’s growing authoritarianism on the baseless argument that Washington is gearing up for a military intervention. In the lead-up to the summit meeting, he gathered signatures of support for himself in a document that he vowed to hand deliver to Mr. Obama.
The Obama administration’s decision to impose sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials last month did more to inflame Mr. Maduro’s rhetoric than to curb his government’s despotic conduct. During his private meetings and public statements in Panama, Mr. Obama can deflate Mr. Maduro’s fearmongering by reiterating that the United States is not about to carry out a coup in Caracas. More significantly, Mr. Obama can be an inspirational voice for citizens ruled by oppressive leaders.
He set the right tone on Friday, as he addressed civil society leaders from around the region. “Civil society is the conscience of our countries,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s the catalyst of change. It’s why strong nations don’t fear active citizens.”
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.