U.S. President's Overtures to Venezuela and Cuba Well Received at Summit, Controversial Back Home

Charm Offensive

Under former president George W. Bush, U.S. relations with large parts of Latin America were antagonistic, and there was a strong sense of the "you're either with us or against us" mentality that also coloured his foreign policy in the Middle East. The 2005 Summit of the Americas in Argentina was a painful affair, with mass anti-U.S. demonstrations in the streets, anti-U.S. rants from other delegates, and deadlock on free trade. During the Bush years populist left-wing leaders in the region thrived politically with anti-U.S. rhetoric and struck up alliances with like-minded counterparts. The administration's diplomatic focus was elsewhere in any case, absorbed with the war in Iraq and concerns over China's rapid rise. The arrival of Barack Obama as U.S. president inevitably triggered speculation over how policy would change towards Latin America, and how leaders in the region would react if so. The big test of this came last week when Obama conducted a four-day tour of the region, which culminated with a summit of the hemisphere's leaders in Trinidad and Tobago.

Those expecting change and a "new start" were not disappointed. The summit—which saw very limited popular protests—was dominated by Obama's friendly overture to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and his willingness to reconsider the United States' decades' old isolation of Cuba. On the latter, Obama said "The policy that we've had in place for 50 years hasn't worked the way we want it to. The Cuban people are not free." He also acknowledged the Cuban leadership's new willingness to discuss human rights, but made it clear that progress will be expected on issues such as the release of political prisoners, reduction of taxes on remittances, and individual rights, before the economic embargo is reconsidered. Chávez has been a long-time critic of U.S. policy on Cuba, and Obama's new tone helped warm relations between the two men. They were photographed in a warm handshake, although Obama still criticised Chávez's economic and foreign policies and "inflammatory" anti-U.S. rhetoric. Chávez criticised U.S. policy too, but the two indicated that relations were improving and that full diplomatic relations would be restored after a seven-month hiatus. Another fierce U.S. critic, Bolivia's President Evo Morales, did not hold back in his criticism of the United States and called on Obama to repudiate an alleged assassination plot against him. Obama later said he is "absolutely opposed to and condemns any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments". Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega was also notable for his lengthy denouncement of U.S. "economic imperialism", but this did not undermine the wider sense of a new start in hemispheric relations.

Obama also used the summit to stress his commitment to multilateralism and to international bodies such as the United Nations (UN). The Bush administration's disdain for these was barely concealed and created a good deal of international ill will. Obama accepted that the United States has not done a good enough job in recent years to reach out to the people of Latin America. Often the most visible aspects of its foreign policy have been the heavy-handed military drug interdiction efforts and controversial political interventions. At the same time Cuba was winning over hearts and minds in the region by sending out doctors to care for the poor. With reference to this, Obama said "It's a reminder for us in the United States that if our only interaction with many of these countries is drug interdiction, if our only interaction is military, then we may not be developing the connections that can, over time, increase our influence."

The summit may have produced an encouraging new emphasis in relations, but there was little concrete to help the region's struggling economies and widespread poverty. Leaders did agree to work to strengthen the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which in turn would assist countries struggling to access credit, but this is a rather vague commitment. The United States also promised US$100 million to help small entrepreneurs. It was meanwhile announced that the region's finance ministers will meet in July in Chile to discuss the impact of the global economic crisis. This meeting has been brought forward from its originally scheduled 2010 date. Most of the leaders present at the summit did, however, fail to sign the pre-prepared declaration.

Outlook and Implications

Obama's tactics at the Americas summit mirror those seen during his heavily publicised visit to Europe earlier in the month, and during his outreach efforts to Iran and the Muslim world. He has sought to draw a sharp contrast with his unpopular predecessor and has already reversed a number of the latter's policies. So far, these tactics have elicited encouraging responses from other governments, but only time will tell if real progress will be made. Certainly, the host of the Americas summit, Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning, was very impressed: "There was a spirit of good will that went way beyond the wildest dreams of any one of us". Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva professed himself "extremely surprised" by how cordial the whole event was, and Canada's Stephen Harper said "The most remarkable thing about this conference was the failure to fulfill expectations of great confrontation". There were concerns that Cuba's status would derail the summit, but instead it was regarded as an area of progress.

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