This week saw an attempt on the life of Bolivian President Evo Morales. I was able to see a live discussion with President Morales via webfeed on the Summit Website earlier on Saturday which was quite impressive and needed to be noted. Bolivia has gone through a great deal of policy changes with Morales. As one of the first indigenous leaders in Latin America, Morales has shifted much of his policy into poverty reduction strategies and through popular support, and adjustment in the power structure in his country. With a recent protest to withhold eating until anti-poverty measures and land reform issues were passed through into policy by the Bolivian Parliament and a very recent attempt on his life, there is no doubt of his commitment to changing Bolivia. Support for Morales will likely remain due to his popularly with many poorer indigenous communities that give him a large support base politically. A possible opening of relations with Bolivia’s allies in Venezuela and Cuba with the United States may change the situation greatly. In most cases Morales will be there until he is unable to satisfy the popular elements in society or so greatly alienates what he refers to as the oligarchs in society that he is unable to withdraw from protests. Bolivia will likely follow the natural course of populists in the region, albeit hopefully without violence becoming an end result.
The US policy towards Latin America has often been linked to free trade, and while the issues of trade and protectionism might not have been in the spotlight this weekend, America’s closest allies in the Americas have not forgotten the importance of this relationship. Economic powerhouses in the Americas such as Argentina and Brazil have been battling through the latest economic crisis but seek to open further trade ties with the US and other investors. China’s role in investment in Argentina and Brazil and other Latin American markets have started to rival those coming from the US, World Bank, IMF and IADB in levels of investment, albeit with more favorable lending conditions. Canada, the United States’ largest trading partner in the region sought to assist the US in opening relations with Cuba, to which Canada has always maintained, but hoped to keep the issue of trade protectionism in the focus of the Summit leaders as both developed and developing nations in the Americas would be greatly hurt if trade was sacrificed in the process of reinvigorating the economy in the Americas. A $4 billion cash infusion was also promised by Canada to the IADB during the Summit and moves towards a CARICOM-Canada FTA. An opening between the US and Cuba was seen as a positive for Canada as well, as support for trade between all three countries is seen as a benefit from US investment.
The greatest concern for many worried about trade protectionism in the melee of new policies and ideas at the Summit is what to do about trade and countries such as Colombia, who is the United States’ strongest ally in South America, but is being battered by interest groups in the US and opposition in Canada for the extension of Free Trade between the US, Canada and Colombia due to human rights abuses against labour leaders in Colombia. Opposition to a Colombian FTA is so great that it is doubtful that a minority government in Canada will be able to ratify it, and despite the US having strong trade ties with China and an opening with Cuba who also have numerous human rights violations, a Colombian FTA has been placed in a holding pattern of policy formation in the US Congress. Perspective must be taken into serious consideration, as the US often cannot justify trading with some partners, and penalizing others such as Cuba for human rights offences. Colombia is a success story against the drug war in the Americas, and opening a stronger economy between Colombia and North America, while pressuring for increased human rights in the process is the only way the United States and re-establishes itself in its own backyard. This statement justifying an opening of relations with Cuba cannot stop at Cuba and the US trade relationship with China.
At the end of the 5th Summit of the Americas, success will only come with a strong arm extending towards an open-hand of diplomacy in the Americas. Obama’s policy towards countries with human rights abuses must be measured and moral in its development of relations that benefit the US and the Americas as a whole.
Click here to see the Reuters Video of Chavez Meeting Obama
Click here to see the Reuters Video of Obama on New Ties with Cuba