Even a cursory survey of recent developments in Latin America should sufficiently ring alarm bells in Washington. Decades of U.S. policy imperatives are being reexamined and, in many places, rejected by the countries of the region. In many of these countries, the United States does not presently have an ambassador. That should be unacceptable to anyone interested in U.S. relations with our nearest neighbors.
Here are some of the issues that merit attention.
The Left is on the rise again in Latin America. Left-leaning presidents in several countries with free trade agreements with the United States are looking to jettison the market-oriented, neoliberal economic policies and reaching for old statist policy prescriptions. How will American businesses be affected? The fact that the new Left is neither monolithic nor ideologically homogenous is precisely why the United States needs senior leadership in the capital of every country with which we have diplomatic relations.
Recently inaugurated Colombian president Gustavo Petro, insisting that the drug war has failed, is considering decriminalizing coca derivatives. Where does that leave U.S. counter-narcotics efforts?
The ad hoc coalition known as the Lima Group, formed to militate for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela, has essentially collapsed. Mexico and others have made clear they no longer support isolating the Maduro regime while Colombia’s Petro has reestablished diplomatic relations and renewed trade ties. Russia is holding military exercises in Venezuela.
Is democracy still important in the region? Can U.S. sanctions on Venezuela be effective absent the cooperation of the rest of Latin America and given Chinese, Russian, Indian, and Iranian support for the regime in Caracas? The Organization of American States (OAS) has passed resolutions condemning the repression in Venezuela but, at the national level, most of the countries in the region have just shrugged as the country’s democracy has…