Americas: Prepare to re-engage

GlobalPost
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The World

You can ignore the speeches. The most important events during President Obama’s meeting with Latin American leaders at the Summit of the Americas this weekend will happen in the corridors.

Almost everyone who is anyone in Latin America and the Caribbean will be in Trinidad and Tobago. The stars are Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, with whom Obama has already had bilateral meetings, and the dynamic female presidents of Argentina and Chile, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Michelle Bachelet, respectively. They will set a tone of moderation at policy debates and embrace Obama as a the first American president in many years to generate genuine interest and popularity in Latin America.

The chances of confrontation are minimal. The “new leftists” are as starstruck by Obama as anyone. Evo Morales of Bolivia was on a hunger strike of several days to force legislators to support his electoral reforms, but he declared victory and is on his way to meet Obama.

And, yes, Hugo Chavez will be there. All will be watching. Warily. No fireworks are expected. Grandstanding, yes. The nasty exchanges between Obama and Chavez will be put aside (Obama singled out Chavez in a speech in January, calling him a demogogue who supports terrorism; Chavez said Obama was ignorant.) Forget those bygones. There will be hugs and smiles from Chavez.

Obama, a man of seemingly infinite confidence, is on unsure terrain, however, with Latin America, his area of least world experience and knowledge. I’ll be watching to see if the same advisors who counseled him to pick a fight with Chavez a few days before his inauguration will talk him into snubbing the effusive Venezuelan leader, avoiding any opportunities for friendly small talk.

Such an approach would be considered an ungracious distraction by the area’s leaders.

The official sessions will focus on the economy. The Latin Americans have been doing well in recent years, with steady growth and significant reductions in poverty indices. They want no more “lost decades” such as the 1980s, when dictatorships and debt stifled the region.

Veteran diplomat and economist Heraldo Munoz, Chile’s ambassador to the U.N., said the countries expect Obama to approach the crisis as “homework” for the United States. “This is not a Latin America-made crisis. In the last years we were doing quite well. Now that things were finally going well, there is a crisis caused by the U.S.”

He would have Obama rejuvenate the old Clinton era slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The Latin American leaders are pragmatic, and will make no demands on Obama, he said. There will be no calls for ambitious plans and alliances. But the economy, yes: the U.S. has to fix it before it drags Latin America down with it, with infinitely worse social effects.

There are really only two other issues that are genuinely urgent for Obama in his first meeting with his closest neighbors. The first is the horrific drug violence in Mexico, fed by the U.S. hunger for illegal narcotics and the flow of weapons from unregulated U.S. gun dealers lining the border. That issue was giving its appropriately high profile in Obama’s meeting with the Mexican president in advance of the summit.

The second urgent issue is Cuba. It is urgent not because there is any crisis brewing. But the buzz about Cuba in the corridors will be unavoidable and loud. No issue — except perhaps Obama’s personal popularity — has generated so much interest and strong opinion among Latin Americans, both among the leaders and ordinary people.

Chavez and Morales will go out of their way to introduce the issue in their speeches on the floor, no doubt. The other leaders will use their informal meetings to deliver a quiet, “by the way” sort of message that they expect Obama to finally lead the United States out of the last battle of the Cold War, and normalize relations with Cuba.

The message will be delivered subtly to be sure: U.S. policy toward Cuba — banning U.S. citizens from travel, the trade embargo — is an anachronism, but even worse it is counterproductive if the goal is to bring Cuba back into the mainstream of Latin America, which is democracy and economic progress. The leaders will say: "You have taken the first positive steps and sent a good signal to Cuba." But they will ask Obama the obvious question: “You have normal relations with China, with Vietnam, why can’t you have normal relations with a country 90 miles off your shore? ”

For the Latin leaders, Obama’s biggest asset, aside from his personal charisma, is, according to ambassador Munoz, “Obama is not Bush, and that makes a whole world of difference.”

Let the re-engagement begin.

More GlobalPost dispatches on the Americas:

If you want bullet-proof underwear, Miguel Cabellero is your man

Drug traffickers move underwater

Gold mining loses its luster  


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