A dispute over U.S. cotton subsidies took another turn this week when Brazil announced plans to suspend intellectual property rights on some U.S. products. That and retaliatory tariff measures are slated to take effect in April, though both sides hold hopes for negotiations.
Brazil's Iran ties and a devestating earthquake in Chile have been the main focuses of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Latin American travels this week. Her trip, from February 28 through March 5, brings her to Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.
"The strategic equation in the Americas is changing and a lot is riding on Secretary Clinton's visit," says COA's Eric Farnsworth. "Managing the U.S. relationship with Brazil, a rising global power with big ambitions, is one of the most important strategic issues in the hemisphere," he added.
"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.
The Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts could have an impact on U.S. policy in Latin America, writes COA's Eric Farnsworth. He adds that "an administration that has shown little appetite for pending trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, for example, will not likely decide that now is a good time to take action."
"Perhaps the best signal yet of a new U.S. approach to the hemisphere is on trade issues," writes COA's Eric Farnsworth in this op-ed arguing that the current administration must rekindle languishing U.S.-Latin American trade agreements.
Recent crises have revealed a fundamental weakness in the Obama administration’s nascent Latin America policy, write AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini and Jason Marczak in Foreign Affairs.
