/REPEAT/POLITICS-LATAM/US: Successes and Annoyances Await Bush

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 17 2001 (IPS) - The president-elect of the United States, George W. Bush, will find satisfaction this year in Latin America, but also vexation. The country requiring most attention will be Colombia, due to the commitment Washington has made to help in fighting the drug trade.

While a period of economic upswing is predicted for Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, as well as general regional growth surpassing last year’s, there are various countries struggling with problems, especially in the political arena.

In Colombia, where the United States made heavy political and economic investments in the fight against drug trafficking in 2000, peace talks with guerrilla groups remain at a standstill and the country’s decades-long armed conflict grows more complex with each passing day.

Cuba maintains its historic confrontation with the United States, while Haiti, Ecuador and Paraguay are home to precarious democracies, Peru is on the road to presidential elections in April following the impeachment of Alberto Fujimori, and Venezuela is governed by President Hugo Chávez, whose words and actions have proven a constant irritant for Washington.

Chávez’s meetings in 2000 with Cuban President Fidel Castro and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were additional thorns for the United States after Venezuela refused to allow US aircraft to operate in its airspace as Washington takes part in the war on drugs in neighbouring Colombia.

Bush, who takes office Saturday, Jan 20, has affirmed that Latin America will be a priority on his government’s foreign policy agenda, but the lack of more specific signals has led some analysts to assume that the his focus will be on economics, rather than on the region’s conflictive politics.

For the first quarter of 2001, Bush has made it clear that principal Latin American challenges will not reside in Colombia or Cuba.

The president-elect announced that his first objective is to ask the US Congress for “fast-track” authority to negotiate continental free trade before the Third Summit of the Americas, to be held in Quebec, Canada, in April. Congress denied President Bill Clinton the fast-track tool during both of his four-year terms.

“Far from being a meeting for empty declarations, Quebec will give (Bush) a unique platform for revealing his thoughts on the region,” said Arturo Valenzuela, the official in charge of Latin American relations for the Clinton administration’s National Security Council.

Regarding the seat he is vacating, the Chilean-born Valenzuela recommended that Bush name a politician to the post, not a career diplomat, as the president-elect had indicated he would.

The Bush administration is expected to give a strong push to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an integration initiative launched by his former-president father, George Bush (1988-1992). The FTAA, extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, is slated to take effect in 2005.

Clinton encountered strong resistance in Congress, even when it was dominated by his own party, the Democratic Party, as lawmakers conditioned approval of the fast-track measure for free trade agreements on the incorporation of rules to protect the environment and labour rights.

“Bush will be much more aggressive with hemispheric integration,” affirmed Richard Fischer, the Clinton government’s top FTAA negotiator who serves the US Trade Representative Office for Latin America, and has been mentioned as one of the democrats who will take part in the new Republican Party government.

As a result, observers expect negotiations to take off and that the struggle will begin among Latin American countries to align themselves with the United States in the race towards the FTAA.

In the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), made up of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, with associate members Bolivia and Chile, there has already been a related showdown of sorts.

At the latest Mercosur summit, held last December in Florianopolis, Brazil, a key sticking point was Clinton’s invitation to Chile to negotiate a bilateral trade accord. Chile’s acceptance met with sharp criticism from Brazil, which is engaged in a quiet battle with the United States for continental leadership.

Brazil’s diplomats argue that only a strong Mercosur, negotiating as a bloc, will be able to prevail on key matters like agriculture, a sector the United States continues to subsidise, which damages Latin American countries’ competitive abilities.

In the controversy, Argentina and Uruguay maintain a precarious balance between their need to remain allied with Brazil, their top trade partner, and their desire to join the movement for the FTAA to take effect prior to 2005. Chile, like the future Bush administration, wants it by 2003, and Argentina by 2004.

The FTAA would cover more than 800 million people and would have a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of more than 10 trillion dollars.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated in a forum held last September in Montevideo that the elimination of trade barriers will stimulate investment, accelerate growth and improve the standard of living throughout the Americas.

Daniel Artana, an expert on the FTAA at the Buenos Aires-based Foundation for Latin American Economic Research, told IPS that some of the criticisms of hemispheric integration are similar to those heard prior to the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – an accord that later proved successful, he commented.

Artana says Argentina must convince Brazil that a free trade agreement with the United States is a reasonable objective for Mercosur and that, even though it would be preferable to sign on as a bloc, it is inappropriate to prohibit trade accords between individual countries, as is the case of the US-Chile pact.

But some believe that a great deal is at risk if a country opts for rapprochement with the United States without Brazil’s consent. Argentina holds a trade balance deficit with the United States, but a favourable balance with Brazil, its principal foreign client.

The FTAA could play a key role in the evolution of US-Latin American relations this year, especially if the Bush administration is able to see the potential of trade ties beyond Mexico, and if there is agreement among Latin American countries to advance in that direction.