Considering the Bush Legacy

The opening of The George W. Bush Library in Dallas offers a chance to assess the Bush administration’s record in hemispheric affairs. As time passes, a broadly objective analysis is increasingly possible. Upon leaving office, critics of the administration pointed to an overwhelming focus on the effort against Al Qaeda and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Guantanamo facility, and region-specific issues such as in-artful steps by the Treasury that arguably contributed to (but did not cause) Argentina’s financial collapse; support for a failed coup in Venezuela in 2002, and a proclivity to view hemispheric affairs through the Cuba lens.

Nonetheless, a focus on this narrative to the exclusion of anything else is clearly a caricature that begs a more even-handed historical assessment and potentially impedes sound U.S. policy approaches going forward.

Viewed concretely, the Bush administration concluded and passed trade agreements with Chile, Central America and the Dominican Republic and Peru. It also concluded and signed agreements with Colombia and Panama, although those were not passed by Congress until five years later, in 2011. As well, the administration began efforts to link free trade partners together through the Pathways to Prosperity initiative, and brought the United States into the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Efforts to isolate Brazil on trade did prove to be unproductive—as was predictable at the time. But subsequent steps to engage Brazil bilaterally have been expanded by the Obama administration.

Similarly, the Bush administration made real progress in developing North America as a joint production platform and more integrated economy. Building on NAFTA, a bipartisan initiative negotiated by the George H.W. Bush administration and passed and implemented by the Clinton administration, the United States, Canada, and Mexico launched the Security and Prosperity Partnership and its private sector counterpart, the North American Competitiveness Council. The focus that this effort brought to North American issues at senior levels of both government and business directly led to improved political and economic relations and an emphasis on the need and desirability of a more unified North America to compete in the global economy. This effort was dropped early on by the Obama administration, although it may once again be gaining steam as the three countries are now party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations and, hopefully, also with the trans-Atlantic trade negotiations with Europe.

As the chief architect and proponent of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the Bush administration was instrumental in helping to establish a baseline for common democratic expectations by each signatory nation. The fact that the charter is now routinely being flouted by several of the signatories and the inter-American system has proven unable to uphold it is a sign of how far the region has regressed in terms of democracy and good governance. In the same vein, the administration also picked up and expanded support for Colombia from the Clinton administration, working closely with the people of Colombia to re-establish government control across the nation, reduce violence, and build democratic institutions. Colombia today is a bipartisan success story, for which the Bush administration can rightly (alongside the Colombian people) claim a significant amount of success.

Finally, the Bush administration must be given credit for efforts that fall into the “what if” category; namely, the prioritization of relations with Mexico and a strong desire to reform immigration. The first state visit in September 2001 was offered to Mexico’s then-President Vicente Fox, and both governments had been working intensively on immigration reform at the most senior levels in the run-up to the visit. Of course, 9/11 intervened, and immigration reform stalled. Yet another effort for immigration reform was made during the second term, but the political moment was not yet ripe for comprehensive reform and that effort failed, too. After the 2012 elections, the effort is once again on offer.

This is not to discount any failings or missed opportunities. As in many administrations, some were significant. But an objective assessment ensures that the successes are not overlooked or willfully ignored, but rather are recognized, affirmed, and amplified by those who follow on.