Latin America Forgets Partners Have Obligations
Latin America Forgets Partners Have Obligations
"Having taken decisions that are insular and singularly unhelpful to the US, Latin Americans cannot then complain when the US administration prioritizes other areas for its attentions," argues COA's Eric Farnsworth in this letter to the editor, published in the Financial Times.
Sir, Your editorial supporting the decision of the US president to skip the US-European Union summit in Madrid (“Obama and the snub to Europe”, February 4) was a timely reminder that true partnership demands partners. It's also a recognition that no matter who is in the White House, the US remains a superpower and will continue to pursue its core interests. The two of these together suggest that a certain disillusionment may begin to set in as unrealistic global expectations of post-Bush US international policy go unmet.
This is certainly true in Europe, but it’s perhaps even more true in Latin America, which, one year into the Obama administration, is beginning to resurrect complaints about a lack of US attention to the region.
In April 2009 President Obama travelled to a hemispheric summit to proclaim a new period of US engagement with the region based on partnership and mutual respect. He signalled change in a number of areas, including Cuba, immigration reform, energy, and co-operation on economic recovery. Much of the hemisphere immediately overplayed its hand in response to this fig leaf by sandbagging the US on Cuba at the Organisation of American States General Assembly that followed shortly thereafter. It manufactured outrage towards a bilateral base rights agreement with Colombia, a staunch US ally, inviting the US president to travel to South America to “explain” the US position.
It welcomed the Iranian leader to South America just at the point when much of the rest of the world was working to reduce the potential for Iran to realise its nuclear ambitions. And it worked at cross purposes to resolve the coup in Honduras, attempting to undermine and delegitimise the November elections that were the most effective democratic means out of the imbroglio.
Even the massive and immediate humanitarian US response to the disaster in Haiti has been met in some quarters with crude assertions of a US desire to colonise Haiti.
To paraphrase your editorial, having taken decisions that are insular and singularly unhelpful to the US, Latin Americans cannot then complain when the US administration prioritises other areas for its attentions. That doesn’t mean that the US is without fault - passing pending trade agreements with Colombia and Panama would help - but rather that the benefits of partnership must also be paired with commensurate obligations.
